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THE BIG STORY! Former Midlander Writes of 1937 Murder Leading to Hanging

Lawless Years: The Tony Chebatoris and Jack Gracey Story by Jack Hobey

March 22, 2013       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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"Lawless Years: The Tony Chebatoris and Jack Gracey Story"
 

At 5:04 a.m. on July 8, 1938, Tony Chebatoris of Hamtramck became the last person executed in Michigan history.

His sidekick, Jack Gracey, was long since dead, shot by an unlikely professional man in downtown Midland as the bungled bank robbery and getaway unfolded.

How the trail of criminality wound to the gallows at Milan Federal Prison is certainly not a new story -- but it is worth telling again as a warning to potential thugs.

Jack Hobey, who grew up in Midland, has done a masterful job of corralling information about the attempted robbery of the Chemical State Savings Bank, the shooting of both culprits by an alert vigilante dentist, and the subsequent execution of Chebatoris.

Hobey's workmanlike research has documented the criminal history of the ill-fated pair who met in prison and discovered they thought alike -- both were bent on a life of crime.

The book contains startling photos that help a reader envision the scene in Midland when Chebatoris and Jack Gracey made history the hard way.

Their brutal, bungled crime spelled doom for both of them, and for an unfortunate Bay City hardware firm driver, Henry Porter, who happened to be wearing a chauffeur's badge on his hat.

The book title, "Lawless Years: The Tony Chebatoris and Jack Gracey Story," is partly taken from the FBI name for the violent period 1921-1933 when bandits like Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and others had more firepower and faster cars than police.

Tales of that era in mid-Michigan are contained in two local history books, "Ghosts, Crimes & Urban Legends of Bay City, Michigan," and "Bay City Hauntings," available at the Bay County Historical Museum and on amazon.com.

The Midland County Historical Museum has a fascinating video of reminiscences of local folk about the Chebatoris-Gracey debacle that electrified the town and the state.

The sleepy little burg of Midland found in the early 1930s that prosperity has its perils, especially after criminal gangs learned about all that cash coming to town every two weeks.

The lure of Midland was, of course, the Payroll Train, the $75,000 in cold, hard cash arriving from a Detroit bank to fill the bi-monthly pay envelopes of Dow Chemical Company employees.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, apparently too lazy or pre-occupied to drive up for a look-see themselves, in 1932 sent a seedy pair of accomplices, Jean O'Darr and Ray Hamilton. The boys had a few flaws, not the least of which was lack of attention to detail and the worst was they were wanted for murder in Texas.

(See mybaycity.com, 1932 Arrests in Bay City Precipitated Historic Midland Bank Robbery, Dec. 10, 2006.)

Losing their focus almost from the get-go, O'Darr and Hamilton rented an apartment in Bay City. I guess a Northern vacation in the woods was more to their liking than the gritty business of bank robbing. Then they saw skirts -- pretty girls entering a second story roller skating rink on Water Street (now the Bay City Auto Company).

Police had their antenna up soon after the trashy pair cased the Midland bank by the crude device of cashing a $20 bill there. No doubt their furtive glances about was to proper Midlanders like school kids flinching when the teacher scratched the blackboard.

Police closed in at the skating rink, cracked the boys over the head with pistols, and shipped them back South in custody of a Texas Ranger. The rest of the story may be seen in the 1967 movie, "Bonnie & Clyde," starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

The part of the tale untold, that probably never will come out, is the presumed cooperative actions of Midland folks who formed some kind of vigilante group, of which Dr. Frank Hardy was a part.

Nothing appears in the Midland papers because the group was certainly secret. But five years after the bad boys were captured in Bay City, mild-mannered Dr. Hardy was ready with his deer rifle.

Dropping his drill upon hearing a commotion in the bank downstairs, Dr. Hardy became the everlasting hero of NRA types when he plugged Gracey, killing him, and wounded Chebatoris as they fled in a vehicle up Main Street.

Jack Hobey was graduated from Midland High School in 1965 and the University of Michigan-Dearborn, in 1970. Hobey, also author of "Lost Boys -- The Beulah Home Tragedy," is also a Harvard Business School graduate. He spent most of his career in the machinery business. He lives with his wife, Vicki, in Boyne City, and continues researching and writing Northern Michigan history.



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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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