A Dark Chapter in Depression-Era Crime
In the waning days of 1932, as Minneapolis residents prepared for the holiday season, an ordinary December morning would become etched in the city’s memory forever.
The Third Northwestern National Bank, with its distinctive triangular shape and gleaming glass windows, stood as a testament to prosperity at the busy intersection of Central and Hennepin Avenues. But on December 16, it became the stage for one of the most tragic bank heists of the Depression era.
A Well-Orchestrated Plan Goes Wrong
The notorious Barker-Karpis gang had spent weeks preparing for what they believed would be their crowning achievement.
Led by the calculating Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, who would later boast about his “near-genius IQ,” the gang had even attempted to pave their way politically, contributing $10,000 to a mayoral campaign in hopes of securing operational freedom in Minneapolis.
The bank’s architecture, while striking, presented unique challenges. “It would be like working in a greenhouse,” Karpis later wrote in his autobiography, adding with characteristic bravado that they “sometimes did things like that deliberately, maybe to inject some extra excitement into our work.”