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THE NEWSOMS went to Stinnett in 1929 to open a bank, the only one in Hutchinson County. Stinnett was the county seat and larger then than the new town of Borger which had sprung up along a muddy road in the center ofdrilling activity. .Borger was just a collection of tents, corrugated iron buildings and shacks with no real business houses.Banking was done in Amarillo until the bank was established at Stinnett with Newsom as cashier, Mrs. Newsom as his assistant and a young man as teller to complete the staff. Newsom had been employed previously in banks atChillicothe and Amarillo,Though it was Borger which earnedthe reputation of a wild boom town with the drifters, get rich quick crowd andcriminal element that followed oil discoveries at that time. Nearby Stinnett was affected too and living conditions were not the most attractive for a family.The Newsoms with their three young children lived comfortably in an apartment over the bank, and the teller’s pamily in an adjoining apartment. Streets were unpaved and Mrs. Newsom says it seems that they were always deep in mud churned up by passing oilfield trucks.THE JUST HOLDUP of the Stinnettbank occurred in March, while adirectors’ meeting was in progress. Mrs.Newsom was not present for it; she had gone up to the apartment during the meeting and in a short time thought sheheard her name called by a muffled voice.Going into the bank, she found no one there. So she cautiously opened the vault door.“That vault was full of people and it•J VII u UUIIUIV V#* l*V V V* I A VIIVJtaken in the holdup helped in positive identification of the men later.His associates finally talked Popejoy out of killing the banker and they left him in a pasture several miles from a house where there was no telephone. He had to wait another hour until the rancher came home and could take him to Panhandle, then the sheriff there telephoned Stinnett and Mrs. Newsom learned he was safe.Her ordeal was not over, as the four robbers were arrested soon at Oklahoma City and Newsom was asked to go identify them. Popejoy had insisted he or some of his gang would kill the banker if he ever did anything to lead to their capture or conviction.Mrs. Newsom had to be convinced that the danger to the family would be as great with Popejoy at large, before she would consent to Newsom’s going to Oklahoma City. With his identification, Popejoy was brought back to Stinnett and held in jail there.“THE JAILER was Don Cameron, a very big man with three sons about asbig, who helped him at the jail,” Mrs. Newsom says. “Somehow, a gun was smuggled into the jail to Popejoy andwhen Cameron took a meal to his cell, Popejoy shot him. He was hit in the hip but he began shooting back.“One of his sons came when shooting began and grabbed Popejoy whileCameron shot again. It took five bullets to kill him 'The Newsoms continued to operate the Styinett bank until 1933 when Franklin D. Roosevelt became president and all banks in the nation were closed for a short time while measures were taken to halt the wave of bank failures that
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Hereford Brand
Hereford, Texas, US
Thu, Dec 05, 1974
Page 2
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TX, USA 10 Oct 2018
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