Cove lighting, modern windows and all new appointments have modernized Security National's interior. The bank will hold open house all day Thursday and Friday to show customers and guests the results of its large-scale remodeling and redecorating program.
Gaslight-style fixtures and old fashioned tellers "cages" were high style in January, 1922, when Security National Bank Savings and Trust Company, 312 North Eighth st., first opened for business.
Mercantile Trust Company observes its one-hundredth anniversary with a special flag-raising and luncheon ceremony. From left are Kenton R. Cravens, president of the bank; Hord Hardin, chairman of the Executive Committee; Mayor Raymond R. Tucker, congratulating Sidney Maestre, chairman of the board, and Gale F. Johnston, vice chairman of the board.
A total of 7500 safe deposit boxes were holsted out of the basement of the Mississippi Valley Trust Company yesterday and moved to the Mercantile Commerce Bank & Trust Company, Eighth and Locust streets, where the new Mercantile Trust Company, a merger of the two banks, will open Tuesday. Armed police and bank guards surround one load of the boxes just after a portable crane had hoisted them from the Mississippi Valley basement through a hole cut in the sidewalk on Broadway at Olive street.
Free meals are served to the bank's employees in the spacious dining room on the seventh floor of its Seventh Street Building. Meals include salads, desserts, and plentiful serving of vegetables and meat.
Mrs. Gloria Cantino and her husband, Armand J. Cantino, shown with an officer, were in the bank on business. One of the bandits used Mrs. Cantino as a shield, but release her when she pleaded that she was a mother. Cantino was slugged but not seriously hurt by officers who mistook him for one of the bandits.
Markings made by the Southwest Bank bandits are shown on this map discovered by police in a room rented by Fred W. Bowerman, the gang leader. Marking (A) is the rooming house at 3503 Park Ave., where Bowerman stayed. The large circle (B) encloses the area of the of the holdup attempt at Southwest Ave. and S. Kingshighway. (C)are neighborhoods where the four robbers lived prior to the holdup. (C) and (D) also denote places where the gang's automobiles were left. Other circles mark important intersections, viaducts and possible get-away routes.
The third automobile used by the gang of Chicago bandits (nicknamed the Southwest Bank Bandits) was recovered yesterday on a parking lot at 4631 Shaw ave. Patrolman Raymond F. Griffie of the Second Police District is inspecting the car, a blue Hudson. The car was driven by Fred W. Bowerman, gang leader.
Smiling despite the ordeal of being held as a shield by a desperate bandit at the Southwest Bank holdup yesterday is Miss Eva Hamilton being assisted by a policeman at City Hospital wher she was treated for two broken wrists.
In Addition to the 100 police who answered the holdup alarm, thousands of spectators were attracted to the scene at the Southwest Bank. The curious came to view the battleground long after the shooting was over.
Police crouched behind parked autobmobiles in front of the Southwest Bank to exchange shots with holdup men inside. More than 40 shots were fired before two of the bandits were wounded and capture.
The fourth man sought in the amazing holdup attempt at the Southwest Bank was last seen about noon Friday when he stepped out of the automobile shown at left. The car, bearing a stolen Missouri license, was abandoned on Lemp avenue, near Shenandoah avenue. At right is the escape car driven away from the bank by the fourth man. It was found on a parking lot six blocks away from the bank. From left to right: Captain John Buck, Detective Walter Cliff and Captain Maurice O'Neil, and behind Detective Cliff is Sergeant Emmet Hahn.
Scene of the wild gun battle, where police shot it out with a gang of Chicago bandits trapped as they held up the Southwest Bank. Thousands of persons were attracted to the area.
Bank employees and customers poured out into the open air, weeping from the effects of tear gas bombs hurled into the building by police, as soon as the shooting was over.
The largest bank under one roof west of the Mississippi River, the Mercantile Trust Company, began operations yesterday, formed from the merger of the Mercantile-Commerce Bank and Trust Company and the Mississippi Valley Trust Company and located in the former's quarters in teh block bounded by Eighth and Seventh, Locust and St. Charles streets.
This toy pistol and length of pipe were found on the deck above the rear seat in the bandit's getaway car, which was abandoned two block away from the Southern Commercial and Savings Bank.
These tellers' windows in the Southern Commercial and Savings Bank at 7201 South Broadway were the targets of a lone bandit who obtained $31,130 in a holdup there yesterday. Thwarted in his effort to obtain any cash from Window No.1, the bandit moved to Window No.2 (indicated by arrow), repeated, his demands for money and got it.
A wall of the old Telegraphers' National Bank Building forms a pile of debris after its sudden collapse during wrecking operations at the Broadway and Pine street site yesterday.
This warning, chalked on the wall of the bank, was noticed several days ago by bank employees. They said they had been joking about it, never realizing that it would come true and add a mystery to the strange story.