Growing up in the small North Central Texas town of Cisco, I knew it was famous for a couple of things: the world’s largest concrete swimming pool, Conrad Hilton’s first hotel, western artist Randy Steffen and the Santa Claus Bank Robbery.
As far as I know, when it occurred, the Santa Clause Bank Robbery was one of the most famous crimes in Texas. The actual robbery led to a huge shootout on the streets of Cisco and one of the largest manhunts ever seen in the state.
The robbery occurred on Dec. 23, 1927, so last December marked its eighty-first anniversary. Growing up my parents knew several of the folks who were in the bank that day and were witnesses to the whole thing.
Of course in 1927, there were a number of oil boom towns including Cisco. Its population in those roaring, rough-and-tumble days was about ten times what it is today, and many folks aren’t even familiar with the history of that era.
The First National Bank of Cisco was located on Main Street, then called Avenue D, in a one-story red brick building.
The street is now called Conrad Hilton Avenue, in honor, of course, of the famous hotelier who got his start there, and the location of the bank has changed from where it was that day in 1927. For many years the bank building was occupied as a retail store, then an auto parts store and is now completely vacant.
It would be unnoticed but for the Texas State Historical Commission plaque to attest to the violent events that occurred there.
I’ve always contented what happened that day would make a heck of a movie. There are all the elements one needs: an ex-con who plans the perfect robbery that didn’t turn out so perfectly, a shoot-out between the robbers and townspeople where the town’s chief of police is killed, a getaway in several stolen cars, a manhunt spanning a large part of north Texas and a lynching.
Marshall Ratliff was an ex-con who was well known in Cisco having lived there before being imprisoned for another bank robbery. Cisco Chief of Police, G.E. "Bit" Bitford, who was to be involved and killed in the shootout, was the one who tracked down and captured Ratliff.
Since he was familiar to the folks in Cisco, he decided to disguise himself by wearing a Santa Claus suit, plus it would help allay suspicions of passersby as well as those in the bank.
Ratliff recruited his gang in Wichita Falls. Members included ex-cons Henry Helms and Robert Hill. A fourth man was recruited who was good with safes, but he came down with the flu and couldn’t go, so they recruited Louis Davis, a relative of Helms.
The four left Wichita Falls on Dec. 22, 1927, and traveled the two hundred miles from Wichita Falls to Cisco in a stolen Buick with a full tank of gas, drinking moonshine booze and planning what they would do with their new-found wealth.
It wasn’t to work out for them. Their plan was not to go well that day.
Almost immediately after the robbery began a gunfight broke out and several people were wounded. Bank president Alex Spears was shot in the jaw, local grocer Oscar Clitt was wounded in the foot and a Harvard student home for the holidays was shot in the thigh.
Ratliff himself was shot in the leg and jaw even though shielded by bank teller Freda Strobel. Robber Davis was very seriously wounded, barely making it to the getaway car.
As the robbers escaped down the alley a police officer was shot in the head and Chief Bitford was shot five times dying immediately.
Their escape was not to go well. The Buick was almost out of gas, several of the bandits were wounded and bleeding badly, so they had no choice but to steal another car. They not only left behind the badly wounded Louis Davis in the abandoned Buick, but also the loot taken from the bank.
Law enforcement personnel were alerted the bandits were holed up in a wooded area a few miles outside Cisco and after another gun battle, Helms and Hill managed to make an escape, but Marshall Ratliff surrendered. He’d been wounded six times.
At the time of his capture, an officer relieved the man who disguised himself as Santa Claus of six handguns, a double-barreled shotgun, a bowie knife and three belts of ammunition.
Three days later, on Dec. 30, 1927, Helms and Hill were captured near Graham and taken to the county jail in Eastland.
Ratliff was the first to be tried. He received a 99-year sentence. He was later tried in Abilene for the murder of Chief Bitford and sentenced to die in the electric chair.
After appealing his death sentence, Ratliff was returned to Eastland in 1929. While awaiting a hearing on his appeal he lapsed into what appeared to be an almost catatonic state.
Later, jailers were so used to Ratliff’s condition they became careless and Ratliff slipped from his cell and retrieved a .38 pistol from a desk. During a scuffle with the jailers, one of the jailers, "Uncle Tom" Jones was wounded and would die.
A crowd began gathering the next morning and would grow to about 2,000 by nightfall. After refusing to turn the prisoner over to the crowd, jailor Pack Kilborn was overcome, tied up and relieved of Marshall Ratliff.
Ratliff’s hands and feet were tied and the crowd carried him to a vacant lot where they intended to hang him. The first attempt failed, but the second was successful as he was hoisted 15 feet into the air and 20 minutes later pronounced dead. No one was ever indicted for the lynching.
Some Eastland County citizens have erected a marker and picket fence around a utility pole behind the Majestic Theater on Mulberry Street to mark the spot where everyone believes the hanging took place.
All-in-all, six people died as a result of the Santa Claus Bank Robbery. That was a long time ago, but for some the memories and the history is still live. You can see the buildings if you take a brief detour off I-20 around Eastland and Cisco.
