Bank robberies in the United States have been declining now for decades. In 1992, 9540 were reported to the FBI. In 2023, the number had fallen to 1362. Why bother to rob a bank when you can sit at home with your laptop and commit all sorts of crimes?
In the 1920s and especially during the Great Depression years of the 1930s, however, bank robberies became a thing, so much so that the FBI was created and the act made a federal crime in 1934. This era produced such famous names as Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and Machine Gun Kelly.
In 2023 I posted an item on the Great Hartselle Bank Robbery of 1926. Just after midnight on Monday, March 15, 1926, eight men arrived and proceeded to cut telephone and telegraph lines, severing the town from the outside world. The Bank of Hartselle safe was dynamited and $14,000 in cash, gold and silver left town with the robbers. The crime was never solved.
The articles below give initial descriptions of two Shelby County bank robberies. More than one criminal was involved in the first in Wilsonville in 1931; $4700 was taken. A single robber made off with $14,000 in Columbiana the following year. Both of these banks were insured and quickly resumed business as usual.
Alabama seems to have been rich ground for bank robberies during this period. The Library of Congress' Chronicling America newspaper site pulls up some 6200 hits when searching "Alabama" and "bank robbery" during the 1920s and 1930s. How many of those events actually took place in the state would require some time to determine, however. I did not find either of these robberies when limiting the search to the towns involved.
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