Wallace’s 1913 Post Office Heist — which nearly succeeded
A December 1913 heist at Wallace’s post office remained unsolved for over a year-and-a-half — so long that some of the town’s citizens surmised that the redoubtable postal inspector service, the post office’s highly respected police force, had finally met its match. But patience won out.
That December a Spokane bank shipped three mail pouches, each containing $5,000 in $5 and $10 bills to make payroll at the Morning, Gold Hunter and Snowstorm mines in Mullan. The funds were to remain overnight at the Wallace post office and, the next morning, be delivered by train to Mullan.
Assistant Postmaster Robert McLeod placed the three pouches in the post office’s safe. Yet, when Wallace Postmaster John Presley opened the safe the next morning, the pouches were gone, along with about $2,700 in additional post office funds.
Three postal inspectors were immediately dispatched from Seattle, among them crack investigator Charles Riddiford. The case was perplexing. Neither the building nor the safe showed signs of forced entry and only Presley and McLeod knew the safe’s combination.
Also puzzling was how thieves knew the safe contained a small fortune that particular night. The investigators imagined an accomplice, with a connection to the Spokane bank or to the Mullan mines.
They also suspected an inside job and commenced quietly shadowing the post office’s nine employees. Time and expense were no obstacle for Inspector Charles Riddiford and his team.
In July 1915 news of an arrest in Palo Alto, Calif., arrived in Wallace. Former Wallace postal clerk Clarence McDaniel was 39 and living with his wife Luella and young son in a home he’d recently constructed there. Clarence had been transferred to Wallace’s post office from Illinois in 1911. He’d requested a transfer to Palo Alto several months before the robbery, which was effected in 1914.
The McDaniels were arrested as a result of Luella’s attendance at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, where she made purchases with bills with serial numbers the inspectors were able to match to the stolen currency.
Both husband and wife initially denied their guilt, but Inspector Riddiford convinced Clarence that if he confessed, charges would not be brought against Luella and she would be able to take care of their young son.
McDaniel agreed to confess, adding “You could not make me tell this in a thousand years if it wasn’t for my wife and boy.” Clarence confessed he’d noticed the safe’s combination in the post office a month before the theft. He copied the numbers for fun, never intending to use them.
On the night of the heist, McDaniel said he couldn’t sleep thinking about all the money that had just arrived. At 2 a.m. he went to the post office, opened the safe, and hid the money at home until his family’s move to California.
McDaniel directed the investigators to where the money was hidden in his Palo Alto residence — $500 in the cellar, $1,000 in a bottle buried in the ashes of his home’s hearth, and $13,065 stuffed under a backyard chicken coop.
McDaniel was brought to Coeur d’Alene to await trial. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 13 months at McNeil Island Penitentiary for theft of post office cash plus three years for theft of the $15,000 in payroll funds.
After his release from prison, in September 1918, he registered for the World War I Draft, stating he was then employed at the Tacoma shipyards. By the 1920 U.S. Census, Clarence and Luella had moved to San Jose, Calif., where he was employed as a sheet metal worker. They divorced by 1930. Clarence died in Los Angeles in 1968 at age 92.
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The Museum of North Idaho (MONI) continues to restore the J.C. White house next to McEuen Park. Walk by this weekend to view the progress being made on the exterior. More importantly, become a MONI member to show your interest in our rich history.
Wallace native, Francie Lane, resides in Yuba City, Calif. Local historian Ron Roizen will be giving presentation on the life and times of Harry F. Magnuson at Wallace’s FALL FOR HISTORY event on Sept. 29.
The fall schedule at The Museum of North Idaho is Sept. 6 to Oct. 29, Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For the October Cemetery tours, visit museumni.org.
