Train Robbery
In the mid – 20th century, currency was not transported in armored trucks, but by trains and flatbed trucks. The bills and coins were bundled together in large mailbags, padlocked, and hidden amongst other dummy bags.
On January 13, 1949 the security these precautions provided was shattered.
It was Thursday evening. Several mail pouches left the Waukesha Post office on their regular route to the train station (a three-block journey). One of them carried two sacks totaling $88,500.00 in damaged or surplus money, and the others were dummies. The truck arrived, and the pouches were presumably deposited in a cart, where they would wait under careful supervision for the train to Chicago. When the train arrived a half-hour later, postal workers discovered that the pouch, which had held the money, was missing.
The next day, news of the burglary hit the headlines. Wild speculation about who could have accomplished such a daring heist seized Waukesha, and citizens demanded an arrest. State Investigators arrived to assist the search, but initially turned up very little.
Desperate for a lead, the Waukesha Post Office offered rewards for what they called "up to several thousand dollars" to anyone who may have information leading to the arrest of the mail thief.
Perhaps this reward had its effect, or perhaps the criminal felt that his loot was too dangerous to keep for much longer, because on Tuesday evening at 1:51 P.M., only five days after the larceny, Waukesha Police Officer Moody Walter responded to an anonymous phone tip that led him into Frame Park. There he discovered, in the original sacks, all $88,500.00 of the stolen money. And, as before, no evidence of any kind could be found.
So the money was returned, but the criminal was still at large. Though over 60 people took lie detector tests, there were never any real suspects. Many questions remained unanswered:
Who took the money? How did he or she know which bags were dummies? And why was the money returned when there was no evidence to expose the criminal?
A few days after the money was returned, public interest in the theft began to dwindle. Though the official police investigation continued for some time, nothing much was ever uncovered. To this day, the case of Waukesha's Great Train Robbery remains unsolved.
