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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 26, 2018)
COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • SEPTEMBER 26, 2018 • 9A Off beat Oregon History: Midnight bootleggers’ jailbreak By Finn J.D. John For The Sentinel Around 10 p.m. on the night of Saturday, March 19, 1932 — just a few months before Prohibition was ended — four vehicles rolled furtively into the little Coast Range town of Toledo. A big, important-looking se- dan led the caravan, followed by two large trucks and fi nally a sleek Buick coupe. In the coupe, two men sat cradling machine guns. Th e nine men in those vehicles weren’t tourists. Th ey’d come to Toledo to get three of their business associates and bring them back home to Cana- da — with their luggage. It wouldn’t be an easy rescue, though. Th eir friends weren’t staying in a Holiday Inn. Th ey were locked away in cells at the Lincoln County Jail. And their “luggage” was more than a cou- ple of beige Samsonite bags; it consisted of roughly 400 cases of bonded Canadian whisky, rum, and brandy, along with several dozen 15-gallon cans of 190-proof straight alcohol. And it was locked securely away in the jailhouse evidence room. Th e three men in the jail that night were the crew of the 36- foot Canadian motor yacht Sea Island, which had run onto the rocky reef in the mouth of Whale Cove while making a midnight liquor delivery there a few weeks before. Th ey’d buried the booze HELP PREVENT CHILD ABUSE on the beach and tried to beat it, but they’d crashed their car near Hebo, drawing police attention when the wreck was discovered to have switched plates; the word had been passed along, and the three Canadian mariners had been arrested as they stepped off the bus in Portland, and brought back to Toledo to await trial on bootlegging charges. Now their friends were there to bust them out of the joint in proper gangster style. Th e party was delayed a bit when a Lincoln County Sher- iff car rolled into town, passed them, and pulled into the county garage. But, a few minutes later, the deputy pulled out again and was gone. Around 11 p.m., the Rotary Club of Cottage Grove coast was clear, and it was show- time. Th e smaller of the two trucks pulled up near the jailhouse, and Portland resident S.U. Carrick lugged an oxyacetylene cutting torch into the building. In about 15 minutes he had the locks cut off of all the intervening doors, and the three once-and-future prisoners were at liberty. Th ere followed a lively debate, according to the testimony of the other prisoners. Th e three Cana- dian mariners felt that breaking out of jail was a bit much; they thought it would be better to stay and face the music. But the leader of the rescue party, international motorcycle racer and Portland resident Paul Remaley, assured them that they couldn’t be extra- dited for a mere jail-break. Th e jailbirds weren’t too hard to con- vince. Th ey didn’t really want to stick around. Meanwhile, Carrick had al- ready gotten busy cutting his way into the evidence locker, and once this was done the other nine men hastily started lugging boxes of booze out to the waiting trucks. All the while, the men in the Buick peered over the front sights of their machine guns into the darkness, watching and lis- tening for any signs of trouble. Luck was with them (more luck than they could probably imag- ine, actually), and a few minutes later the Canadians, reunited at last, were piling into their vehi- cles. Th e gunmen in the Buick, their job done, disappeared into the night; and the others got their rigs started and pointed them north, toward home. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to all, they had been ratted out. A vague, anonymous phone call had come in to Portland author- ities warning that something was going to happen in Toledo that night. 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Th e state cops were about 20 minutes from Toledo when they passed the caravan rolling north- ward: one sedan and two large trucks. It wasn’t unheard of for legitimate trucking companies to be hauling stuff around at night, but it was unusual enough to be noticed as the cops — who still didn’t know anything had hap- pened in Toledo — approached the town. But when they got there, and learned what had happened, they fi gured it out right quick. Th ey jumped back into their cars and raced out of town in pursuit. Th e trucks had a long head start on them. But they had one huge ad- vantage: Th e vehicles had passed each other in the dark of night, and the drivers of the caravan hadn’t been able to see any of the details of the two cars that had passed them as they drove out of Toledo. Th ey had no idea that the heat was on. So they contin- ued driving northward at normal speeds. Th en they stopped the two trucks. Th e smaller truck, with the welding kit in it, needed gasoline; and the cans of gas for the trip were in the larger truck. So the bootleggers got busy refueling. Th ey were still refuel- ing when two carloads of Oregon State Police troopers rolled up on them, guns drawn. Th e cops quickly learned that the sedan had gone on ahead. Th ey were pretty sure that if they pulled up behind it in their cop cars, the driver would hit the gas hard and might actually get away; or a rolling gunfi ght might break out, and someone could get hurt or killed. So instead of risking that, several of the troopers who were in civilian dress hopped into the trucks and drove on into the night. Th ey fi gured by the time the people in the sedan fi g- ured out that they weren’t who they thought they were, they’d be covering them with their ser- vice revolvers and the jig would be up. Th e ruse worked. Th ey soon caught up with the sedan, which had pulled over to wait for them, and by the time the people in the car realized what was going on, they were already looking into the barrels of .38s. Th e Lincoln County jail fa- cilities no longer being in suit- able condition for guests, the bootleggers were brought to the Benton County jail in Corvallis instead. In court, the Canadian gangsters and their local asso- ciates were aff able and colorful. Th ey promptly posted bond — Remaley used his one phone call to tell someone named Frank to grab $13,500 in cash and come to Corvallis to bail him out. Carrick, the one who had cut the locks off the jail- house doors, cheerfully off ered to fi x the jail for them, free of charge Th e men were all convict- ed, of course, on various liquor and prison-break charges, both federal and state off enses. But by the time they’d served their relatively short state sentences, Prohibition had been repealed, and the federal charges were dropped. 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