This is the sixth article in a seven-part series of stories surrounding the mystery of who robbed the Oak Saloon in 1910, running from June 18 through July 30.
William Bringhurst and his partner Willard Thompson were believed by authorities to be the culprits in a long chain of crimes dating back to the robbery and murder of an old recluse who lived between Murray and Bingham Junction on the night of February 17, 1909.
The two were also suspects in the robbery of the White Elephant gambling house in Ogden on April 8. The White Elephant heist was identical to the Oak robbery. One of the robbers held thirty men at bay with two ugly looking revolvers while his partner emptied $2,000 into a large money sack from the faro, roulette, “21,” and craps tables.
On June 6, 1910, following a conference with his aged father, William Bringhurst made a full and frank confession to the robbery of the Clift House gambling parlor on the night of May 24. Bringhurst asked that he be taken before the court at once, that sentence might be passed without delay. He was sentenced to serve twelve years in the state prison by District Judge T. D. Lewis.
The 24-year-old Bringhurst had served a twenty-six-month church mission in the central states and was married shortly after returning home. He was the father of two young daughters – one two years of age and the other only eight months old. He had recently been employed by the Bell Telephone Company as a telephone lineman. Ever since his school days, Bringhurst had shown a liking for fights and quarrels, but aside from the fact that he was regarded as rough and of mean disposition, he was thought to be straight and respectable.
Credit: From Utah Digital Newspapers
Willard “Curly” Thompson, Bringhurst’s partner, was in Ogden the night Bringhurst was captured but was not caught. Curly fled to Ely, Nevada with an old Salt Lake sweetheart. He deserted her there and went directly to Oregon when the peril of his being captured seemed imminent. A long and difficult chase extended from Oregon to California, before finally ending in Butte, Montana where police arrested him on June 24. In a commendable bit of good police work, two Butte police officers spotted Thompson on Main Street from a photograph they had received from Utah authorities and took him into custody.
Upon his return to the Salt Lake County jail, Thompson seemed chiefly interested in learning the extent of Bringhurst’s confession. He was told that Bringhurst had made a complete confession regarding the Layton bank robbery and the holdup of the Clift House to which he replied: “I always thought that rat was a coward. Anybody that would snitch on a pal is a coward and a low down.”
Willard Thompson, the partner of William Bringhurst in the commission of various robberies and crimes, pleaded guilty to the charge of robbery of the Clift House and was immediately sentenced by the court to 20 years in the state penitentiary on June 29, 1910. In the seventh and final installment of this series, the mystery of who robbed the Oak in April of 1910, will be laid to rest along with Bringhurst and Thompson.