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| The gang that kidnapped Lieutenant Governor William Kinne and two other
men in 1929, along with some of the posse that apprehended the criminals
outside of Kendrick is shown in this undated photo. Back row, fourth
from left is Lt. Gov. Kinne, sixth from left is Harley Perryman who was
deputized during the search. Criminals stand in first row, beginning
second from left are George Norman, Robert Livingston, Edward Fliss,
Engolf Snortland and Albert Reynolds. Young heroes Ward Alexander and
Sam Bryant likely kneeling in front. LCHS Photo 10-09-003 |
Squeezed onto the front page of the June 12th,
1929 edition of The New York Times
was a brief article from Orofino under the headline “4 Men Kidnap Idaho’s
Lieutenant-Governor; Finally Leave Him and 2 Others Tied to Trees.” The column went on to note that Kinne “was
abducted by four automobile bandits this morning and left tied to a tree in the
mountains after his car had been wrecked in a wild dash about the country
side. He returned home uninjured
tonight.” In the following days
additional details about this ill-conceived and poorly executed criminal
endeavor would surface, documenting just one more example of the lawlessness
that came to characterize Prohibition-era America.
William Kinne, elected to Boise only a few months
earlier, was returning to his home in Orofino following a trip to Portland when
his car was stopped along U.S. Route 12 east of Lewiston by a group of four
armed young men. Kinne was forced into
the back of his own car by gunpoint, at which time the criminals piled into
their newly acquired vehicle and proceeded east at speeds that the lieutenant
governor believed topped more than 60 miles per hour. Before the kidnappers could reach their
intended destination of Pierce where they meant to rob a bank, a blown out tire
threw Kinne’s car into the ditch. Two
men making their way along the same route stopped on the scene to offer aid,
but when they resisted being kidnapped themselves, the bandits turned to
physical violence. Warren Tribbey was
shot in the leg twice and Paul Kilde was beaten unconscious before the gang
piled all three of their prisoners into Tribbey’s vehicle and made for the
cover of mountains and Greer, Idaho.
By late afternoon the criminals began to see the
error of their ways, knowing that the absence of a lieutenant governor would
not go unnoticed for long, and so the three were taken into the woods outside
of Greer and tied to a tree. Although
the bandits took their hostages cash and vehicle, they neglected to confiscate
Tribbey’s pocketknife in their hurry to make an escape. It took little time to free themselves, and
soon Kinne and his compatriots were sharing their harrowing tale in the town of
Greer. By nightfall scouting parties
were forming to augment the official searches being undertaken by Nez Perce,
Clearwater, and Latah County law enforcement.
The assembled efforts were so remarkable that newspapers across the
country reported on the manhunt. One
article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted on June 13th that “a
state-wide search was under way today for the four bandits who kidnapped and
robbed Liet. Gov. W.B. Kinne…four airplanes and 150 possemen who hunted the
official yesterday continued their search today for the bandits.”
It would take two farm boys from Juliaetta, however,
to nab the gang of would-be robbers.
Exhausted after nearly two days of skulking through the woods and
ravines of north central Idaho, the bandits were spotted by 14 year old Ward
Alexander and 16 year old Sam Bryant sleeping along the banks of the Potlatch
Creek, and Latah County Deputy Sheriff Miles Pierce arrived within minutes to
arrest the men. The photo of the
kidnappers and their captors above was most likely taken in Juliaetta the
following morning, after Lt. Governor Kinne arrived to positively identify the
culprits. One nationally syndicated
column shared that the man who Kinne singled out as responsible for shooting
Kilde “threatened the lieutenant governor’s life if he ‘identified’ him. ‘You may be all right for a while, but
wherever you are when I get out of this, I’ll kill you sure,’ officers reported
him as saying.” Within a week the criminals
stood trial in Lewiston on kidnapping charges, with all receiving multi-year
jail sentences. All threats of
retribution went unfulfilled, however, because in September of that same year
Kinne died in office from complications associated with appendicitis.
Although sensational and worthy of note in countless
newspapers, this sort of incident became all too common during the years of the
national prohibition of alcohol, 1920 to 1933.
Proponents touted temperance as the single most effective way to uplift
the moral character of the country and improve the lives of its citizens. Yet the Noble Experiment, as it came to be
called, undoubtedly contributed to a rise in organized crime, petty criminal
activity, and a host of unhealthy behaviors.
You may be familiar with flappers and Al Capone, but how much do you
really know about Prohibition? Join the
Latah County Historical Society next Saturday, April 11th for its
second annual Brews & BBQ, presenting “How to Catch a Moonshiner, and Other
Tales from Prohibition Era Latah County.”
More details about this fundraising event can be found at www.latahcountyhistoricalsociety.org. A companion photo exhibit will also be on
display at the Moscow Brewing Company through April.
