Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about police history with special emphasis on St. Louis police history.
On November 17, 1912, Albert Whitefield achieved infamy in St. Louis history by murdering St. Louis Police Officer Arthur Huddleston. Huddleston prevented Whitefield murdering his common law wife, Annie Washington, and her gentlemen caller. Whitefield shot Huddleston to death in a Midtown alley before leading St. Louis Police on a two state chase. Arthur Huddleston was not Albert Whitefield’s first
On November 7, 1890, Chief of Detectives William Desmond brought in Pat Kennedy, a low-level St. Louis crook, who was suspected of stealing 20 cents from a cigar store on North 9th Street. A 3rd District St. Louis Police Officer captured Kennedy after he robbed a Miss Minnie Mullaney at 16th Street and Franklin Avenue. Kennedy proved a first-rate coward,
On January 7, 1903, St. Louis Chief of Detectives William Desmond married 24-year-old Hannah McLaughlin in a ceremony he hoped to keep secret. The 46-year-old Desmond always said he would never marry due to the dangers of his job. However, he was clearly smitten with Hannah McLaughlin. In March 1897, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch printed the first rumors of an
The Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, or 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair as it is more popularly known, is the most significant event in St. Louis, Missouri history. While St. Louis was the largest city west of the Mississippi River, the World’s Fair put it on the international map. While the fair would bring notoriety, tourists and increased revenue to the city,
On Wednesday, May 9, 1900, the second day of St. Louis Streetcar Strike, a stray bullet killed Frank Liebrecht. Frank Liebrecht, a Spanish-American War veteran, was watching a strike rally at the corner of Finney and N. Taylor Avenue. During the rally, some in the crowd observed the last two streetcars for the day coming down the tracks about a
St. Louis Chief of Detectives William Desmond’s success in capturing many desperate criminals made him a celebrity of sorts particularly among aspiring detectives. When Edgar Allan Poe wrote three tales based on the exploits of fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin, detective fiction captured the attention of readers. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle popularized the genre permanently with his fictional detective, Sherlock
George Collins, the second bank robber involved in the Union, MO bank robbery on December 26, 1902, attempted to escape the St. Louis Jail in January 1904. Besides working with the other prisoners on making a hole in the wall of the jail, he also arranged with a prison guard to have saws smuggled to him. Collins intended to use
On Friday night, October 24, 1902, an informer passed information to Assistant Chief of Detectives James Smith. S. J. Schultze & Co., a St. Louis printing firm, received an order from a stranger in town to print checks for the Elgin City Banking Company of Elgin, Illinois. The informant doubted the checks were actually destined for a real bank. Assistant
On December 15, 1903, three men entered the Erie House at Fourth Street and Clark Avenue. The men beat up cook Victor Dauson before shooting hotel clerk Charles Harding. Dauson died from his injuries but Charles Harding recovered. The men took $300 from the safe and fled the hotel. The men entered the hotel at 2:00 a.m. and surprised Harding,
During the Gilded Age and for several decades after, St. Louis had the distinction of being the largest city west of the Mississippi River. Pickpockets and thieves rode the rails to ply their illicit trade in the bustling metropolis. On September 21, 1901, hotel employees overpowered a sneak thief, who attempted to burglarize a room in the plush Southern Hotel.