November 1, 1932 was a fine autumn day in the sleepy, cotton-farming city of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, the heart of Sequoyah County. The blinding rays of the midday sun were shining their brightest, but the otherwise blistering heat was offset by a brisk breeze. These were ideal conditions for a Tuesday, a seemingly pedestrian day of the week, but what was unfolding in the Sallisaw State Bank was anything but ordinary.
At first glance, it would seem as if a traveling carnival or a homegrown celebrity had come to town. The sidewalks of the city bank and its surrounding establishments were teeming with locals, generations of families, young lovebirds, and clusters of friends. Indeed, they had convened to witness a spectacle, albeit one of an entirely different sort.
The doors of the Sallisaw State Bank swung open with a resounding bang, signaling the start of the show. Out staggered a pair of thieves, each toting bulging sacks of bills and coins and glinting Colt .45s. The hogtied tellers inside the bank desperately wriggled across the floor to voice their distress, craning their necks and directing their muffled screams towards the open door. One had even managed to squirm out of his gag and was calling out to the crowd across the street for help. Unfortunately, his cries were negated, not by the spectators' own cries of alarm, but by thunderous applause, supplemented by whoops, whistles, and a constellation of waving handkerchiefs. Some of those who cleared the path for the robbers' getaway car were supposedly patrons present in the establishment during the stick-up itself.
