 Bill Axton in his high school yearbook photo, Denver, CO Updated: Jan 31 Today's story takes us back in time, but not too far. I want to tell you about William "Bill" Leroy Axton and the unsolved(?) burglary at gunpoint in Gilpin County, Colorado that involved a tavern owner who happened to also be the county treasurer. Bill was born Feb. 27, 1923 in Pueblo, CO to Guy and Edith Electa (Carr) Axton. This makes him my 1st cousin twice removed. He was the second of four children. Guy built some of the roads in Colorado that are pretty impressive engineering feats. For instance, the road that goes from Gunnison to Crested Butte and Cimarron Pass to Montrose, CO. His dad had built roads before him and he started helping when he was only 9 years old. Their big road building company started in Pueblo then moved/expanded to Denver and up to Cheyenne. 3 generations of Axtons built a lot of the roads in the state. In an effort to not white-wash our history, I want to also point out that they were not building these roads all alone. I have in my notes that Guy had said "200 miles, 200 negroes." Engineer corps and road crews were segregated even though they were working on the same road. It was dangerous work and deaths were not uncommon, especially over those mountain passes. Bill's mother, Edith Electa (Carr) Axton, was the daughter of Bessie May (Moore) Carr and the oldest of 9 children (though 3 died as babies). She was also the only one with a different father though we don't think her or the other kids knew that growing up. Her birth father was a man from Pueblo with the last name of Bigelow. He and Bessie divorced soon after marrying and Electa was still really young with Besssie married her second husband, Thomas J. Carr. There was no official adoption as no paperwork was really necessary at that time. She just took the Carr last name and that was that. But let's get back to Bill. He enlisted in the Army in 1943 when he was 20 years old to fight in World War II. He served in the Infantry and about 8 months after enlisting was injured in battle from an artillery shell. (This may have been while he was on a ship that was hit by a torpedo by a German ship. Later Bill hired a chef that he eventually learned had been on the German ship that had his his own.) He damaged his lower leg and had nerve damage and paralysis from what sounds like the knee down. Bill was discharged due to his injury and was awarded a Purple Heart. He went on to study music and graduated from the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music as a singer. I want you to remember that Bill Axton was a professional trained opera singer as we go through this story because it makes it all the more wild! In addition to singing with the Central City Chorus, he also sang at a couple of the taverns in town including the Glory Hole. The Glory Hole Tavern was owned and operated by Emmy Wilson who was herself a singer. She has a fascinating story too, but I'll just share this link with you if you want to read more about her and the Glory Hole. When she got sick and had to sell the tavern, she sold it to her friend, our Bill Axton.  The back room of the Glory Hole Tavern from a 1959 postcard. Bill Axton owned the tavern at this time and had really "spiffed up" the place. Owning a tavern must really help you to get to know the people around town, because Bill was appointed (and later elected to) County Treasurer. Of course, it helped that he'd also worked in banks and the U.S. Mint in Denver.
Gilpin County in 1967 was not a highly populated place, Black Hawk and Central City being the largest towns there. The 1970 census shows only 1272 people for the entire county (it's almost three times that today). As such, they didn't have any banks, so the county treasurer's office would frequently cash checks for folks. This meant that they kept more cash in their vault than one might expect for such a small population. On the morning of January 20, 1967, Bill Axton was in the vault counting the money as he often had to do. He usually had his German Shepard with him, but today he'd left him at home. He later said that had he had his dog with him, none of the next events would have ever happened. Bill said that two men with guns came into the vault and one of them pointed a gun at him and told him to put his hands up. Bill did so while he stood up. They punched him in the stomach and hit him over the head with the gun knocking him unconscious. He said he didn't recognize the men, but they looked to be in their 30's and wore blue jeans. Not a lot to go off of. The county clerk found Bill's glasses on the floor of the office when he came in to work that morning. The vault, which had two doors - an interior and an exterior one - and could not be locked from the inside, was closed up and locked. The county clerk and deputy treasurer opened the door and found Bill still unconscious. His feet and hands had been tied with an extension cord that had likely been in the office prior. He was gagged with his own handkerchief. Police didn't know who to look for. In a town so small, we can assume that Bill would have recognized at least one of the men had they been local. Apparently no one had seen anything suspicious. It was assumed the two had skipped town. Four days later, Axton was found in his apartment with a bullet in his chest. He had attempted suicide, but the bullet had missed his heart and his dog had alerted a passerby when he was acting strangely outside. He was taken to a hospital in Denver and survived the attempt. But why had he tried to take his own life? Police said it was because he had actually staged the robbery himself and from that moment Bill Axton became the prime suspect. Bill did admit to knowing more than he'd originally said. He knew the first names of people who were trying to blackmail him. I'm still not sure exactly what they were blackmailing him for, but he said that four months prior to the robbery, he'd paid $3000 of his own money and $15,000 from Gilpin County's funds over the next couple of months to pay off these blackmailers. He had told them that a routine audit of the books would be happening soon which then led to the gunpoint robbery where they got another $12,000. Bill Axton was charged with embezzlement and pled no contest. Although the county money was already paid back through insurance, he also agreed to reimburse Gilpin county. He also had to agree to sell the Glory Hole. He avoided jail time and received only probation (5 years) due his lack of a record, his war service, his background in music, and his previous employment positions. (Note: While researching this story, I also found that a couple years prior to this, he had refused to pay certain taxes for the Glory Hole as he felt the laws written for the collection of those taxes exempted his establishment. His case went to the Colorado Supreme Court. He didn't win the case there, but it was sent back to lower courts and I'm not sure what the final outcome was.) All in all, someone or some group got away with $27,001.25 from Gilpin County, and if Bill Axton is to be believed, another $3,000 from him personally. That would be worth over $250,000 today. Police believe they caught and charged at least one of the men responsible, but for the remainder of his life, Bill swears that he did not take that money. He says that he was framed because he had rooted out corruption in the treasurer's office and someone didn't want that getting out. For the rest of his life, he had a scar on his forehead from where the gun had hit him. William Leroy "Bill" Axton passed away at the age of 81 on July 24, 2004. If he didn't stage a robbery, who got away with this crime? Afterword: Although 1967 wasn't all that long ago in the scheme of things, no one in our family that I'd talked to about this knew about it. Maybe they just weren't quite old enough, or maybe folks just didn't talk about it. (Waiting to hear back on my grandad about it.) I actually learned of this story in a recent post/article in the Weekly Register-Call. It was written by David Forsyth. You can read that article here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
RSS Feed