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The Eddie Bentz Bank Robbery

Prohibition is one of the most storied periods in American history. Urban myths and legends abound nationwide, with tales of folk heroes like Al Capone, Babyface Nelson, and John Dillinger. Tall tales are woven around organized crime, wild bootleggers, underground saloons, and well-dressed gangsters. There's something uniquely American about the DIY ethos of taking matters into your own hands, making illegal alcohol, and selling it through clandestine channels; stickin' it to the man like those in the illegal alcohol industry did. These stories are immortalized in movies like The Road To Perdition and Public Enemies, as well as TV series like HBO's Boardwalk Empire and, well, PBS's Prohibition.

Many lakeshore towns in Western Michigan have tales of organized crime and bootlegging. Easy access to Lake Michigan meant that bootleggers had easy access to boat routes, safely out of reach of authorities. Booze was funneled in from Canada, then taken by boat to cities all around the Great Lakes. It also came up through Chicago, loaded with moonshine from the southern states.

Holland, Michigan, is no exception. There's one particular rumor around a bank robbery: The urban legend I'd heard specifically names Al Capone robbing a bank with a huge crew, a wild police shootout, and several deaths. It goes deeper, as urban myths and legends are wont to do, and explores the idea that Capone's henchman supposedly haunts the site that the bank once occupied, upon bleeding out from several gunshot wounds. The truth, while exciting, doesn't end with paranormal activities:

Eddie Bentz was a Chicago gangster in the 1930's. On September 29, 1932, he led a group of six “desperate highwaymen” in a robbery at the First State Bank in downtown Holland; corner of 8th and Central, and the current home of First National Bank. When all was said and done, they made out with between $73,000 and $75,000 worth of cash and bonds. The sources vary; Hammond's book mentions an amount of “more than $12,000,” while Swierenga's book mentions “$75,000 in cash and bonds,” with a footnote detailing that “original estimates put the figure at $12,000. Of the $73,000, $47,000 in cash was covered by insurance.”

When the thieves entered the bank, there were around nine customers and fourteen employees in the building. One customer escaped quickly through the front door of the bank, and alerted the police chief to the ongoing robbery. Chief Lievense entered into a shootout with the gangsters, as the gangsters spotted him outside the door and opened fire. Chief Lievense fired back, after being wounded by a bullet. Three officers joined as backup, setting up a makeshift barricade at the front door.

Bentz's gang smashed a side window and escaped with their spoils, stealing a Studebaker to make their getaway. Unfortunately for them, a local business manager was heading down the alley in her car, which resulted in a collision. The gangsters tried to back up, only to get stuck on a fire hydrant. Hearing this indescribable ruckus outside his shop, another merchant opened fire on the gangsters with a shotgun, wounding two of them.

The gang was seemingly surrounded. By this point, the police had moved behind the Warm Friend Tavern (now Resthaven Warm Friend), and were firing on the gang from the back, while the merchant kept them at bay from the front. Abandoning their wounded comrade, the gang commandeered a second car as a getaway vehicle, and made their way down 16th Street, going east down Adams St. into the village of Drenthe, dropping roofing nails and other debris to slow down the police pursuit. They ordered a local trucker to block the road, so they could escape the police, but the police caught up and exchanged another flurry of gunfire. But, this delayed the police enough that Bentz's gang could get a little bit of a headstart as they travelled east down Adams, and turned south on 24th Ave., heading towards Allegan County and the village of Burnips.

In the aftermath, bullet holes riddled building facades and automobiles parked around the vicinity of 8th and Central. Chief Lievense and a local grocer were the only two gunshot wounds on the good guys' team; one of the wounded bad guys, abandoned by the rest of the gang, was apprehended as he stumbled through a store and out the back, onto 7th Street. By 1936, the legal proceedings had culminated in warrants being issued for four of the gangsters. A fifth man had died by then, and the sixth remained at large.
In stark contrast with the “urban legend” mentioned above, there were no reported deaths involved in the Bentz robbery, and the bank that was robbed is still standing and doing business in 2020. The myth holds that there was a bank on the corner of 7th and College that was bulldozed, and that spirits of those killed in the robbery still haunt the hotel that's currently there. I don't want to say it's crap, but there's just no evidence to corroborate that particular story; what we have is the Bentz robbery, which is chronicled in complete detail, in both sources I've cited below, and furthermore, in sources that they'd cited in their writing.

Works Cited:
Swierenga, R. (2014). Holland Michigan. Holland, MI: Van Raalte Press, pp.1578, 1580.
Hammond, A. (2011). Wicked Ottawa County Michigan. Charleston, SC: The History Press, pp.111, 112

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