A Milwaukee Journal illustration of just one of the many dramatic scenes of the Great Pawn Shop Heist of 1926.
April 1, 1926 began as an entirely typical day in Milwaukee. Spring would come late that year, and slushy snow still trimmed the downtown streets. By 10 a.m., the area had come to life with auto traffic, pedestrians, beat cops, and shopkeepers. Simon Ruben, a Wells Street pawn shop owner, was stocking his safe. Harry Ulrich, a taxicab driver, idled at the curb a few doors west of the Ruben shop. In between them, three men with bad intentions hustled from the cab to the store, setting in motion one of the most stunning acts of banditry Milwaukee had ever seen.
The three men were William Knight, age 30; John Vilatis, 21; and Clarence Fitz, 20. Waiting in Ulrich’s taxi was Jack Malloy, the “old man” of the group at 45 years old. Malloy, Vilatis, and Fitz had know each other for some time. They were “lake men,” working – when employed – at Milwaukee ’s inner harbor car ferry docks. But the trio had been out of work for some time and badly needed money. The week before, Malloy had stopped at Ruben’s shop to pawn a ring. He noticed the simple ways of the place – the ancient safe and cases of watches and jewels – and hatched a plan. He enlisted two of his dockmates and, just the night before the heist, added a fourth man – Knight – whom the trio had just met. That evening, the men stayed at the Hotel Metropole, located in the floors above the shop, and readied themselves.
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With Malloy in the cab, Vilatis and Knight entered the store while Fitz waited just outside the door. Ruben, busy with the safe, asked the men what he could help them with. “How much for the coat?” one of them asked, pointing to a jacket folder on a low shelf. Ruben walked over and kneeled down to appraise the item. Just then, Fitz entered the store, stuck a gun to the back of Ruben’s head, and told him to lay flat on the floor. Vilatis and Knight each grabbed suitcases and began to fill them with loot – watches, gold pieces, rings, jewels, and cash. One of the men emptied the cash register into his pockets while the other searched Ruben for anything of value. He found four dollar bills on the terrified shopkeeper and stuck them into his case.
Just as the men had completed their rout of the shop, with nearly $15,000 in cash and goods in their cases, a man walked through the unguarded front door. Fitz forced him up against a wall and told him not to move. Back in the taxi, Malloy was getting nervous and Ulrich felt his unease. “I suspected something was up,” the driver later told police. “But I kept my mouth shut.” The three men in the shop decided to flee. They fastened their cases and burst through the front door.
The four men executing the caper probably considered themselves to be, in general, unlucky. Unlucky in love – each was single in an era when men of their age were expected to be “with family.” Unlucky in work – their skills fit only for the hard, transient labor of a Great Lakes dock grunt. And unlucky even in that field, as they were without jobs during the booming mid-1920s. Their only luck, it seemed, was that Malloy had found what he insisted was an easy job to make a big pot of cash. But even as things went as smoothly as could be expected inside the shop, the men had no idea just how unlucky they would be that morning. As they cleaned out Ruben, detective Henry Mauger of the Milwaukee Police Department’s pawn shop unit, was in the shop next door, doing his regular rounds of the area. He was finishing up just as the bandits were and stepped out onto Wells Street at precisely the same moment as Knight, Vilatis, and Fitz.
A Journal illustration of how Mauger stumbled into the midst of the heist, laid over a photograph of the Wells Street block on which the pawnshop was located. This area block is currently occupied by the Wisconsin Center.
“I stepped out of 408 Wells Street and saw two men carrying heavy suitcases,” Mauger said later. “I immediately figured that they had been trying to peddle stolen tools.” As the three walked briskly towards the waiting cab, Mauger ducked inside the Ruben shop. “Stop them! Hold them!” The proprietor shouted as he climbed off the floor. Mauger yelled for the men to halt and drop their cases. As the three began to run, Mauger drew his pistol and fired twice in the air. Hearing the shots, Knight wheeled around and pulled a gun from his waistband. Mauger kept steady. “I took aim in dead earnest,” he recalled, “and let him have it.”
Mauger’s first shot blew away Knight’s left earlobe. His second hit him square in the left leg, shattering the bone and sending him flailing to the sidewalk, the suitcase full of loot at his side. Mauger took aim at Fitz, carrying the second case of goods, but held off when he slammed into a bystander. The case went skidding across the icy sidewalk as Fitz scrambled for the taxi. Fitz leapt into the back seat of the cab and handed Malloy his pistol. With Maguer, gun drawn, rushing towards them. Malloy pressed the weapon hard against the driver Ulrich’s neck. He growled a single instruction to the man. “Drive like hell!”
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Check back next week for the thrilling conclusion!
