Couple survives home invasion in 1975

Two crimes, one amusing and one scary, are the highlights of past papers. In the Prohibition days of 1925, prisoners housed next to confiscated alcohol figured out how to get their fix and didn’t even burn the building down in the process. Years later in 1975, a couple was handcuffed as their home was ransacked. This was especially bad because their home doubled as a licensed gun dealership.

No issue available: Feb. 19, 1950.

100 years ago

Feb. 19, 1925

• Four prisoners in Greenville ingeniously broke into their jail’s confiscated moonshine using physics.

The unnamed men were held in a room with a wall and barred window adjoining the police department’s liquor storage room. After puzzling for several days, they asked the jailer for daily newspapers. Instead of keeping up with current events, they instead lit the papers on fire and dropped them through the bars among the stacks of whiskey bottles. The heat began bursting bottles and, since the floor slanted towards their cell, the four were soon catching a river of moonshine in their tea kettle and wash pan.

The fire was contained, though officers reported the prisoners “almost tore the jail down” in their joy over the “ruckus juice.” New arrangements were rapidly made for storing contraband.

50 years ago

Feb. 19, 1975

• Police have found fingerprints on a rifle used in a harrowing nighttime robbery.

Two men posing as potential buyers held up a gun shop at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17. Thomas “Tip” Thacker and his wife Muriel operated the shop operated out of their home. The couple are in their 60s. While Thacker spoke with one suspect, the other retrieved a rifle from their car and held the couple at gunpoint.

“They told us to put our coats on, I figured they were going to take us somewhere out in the country and shoot us,” Thacker recalled.

Instead the Thackers were taken to the garage and handcuffed in the backseat of their car. The men ransacked the house and stole 25 guns. The Thackers were discovered two hours later by a neighbor who heard them shouting for help.

Besides the handcuffs, the robbers left behind the rifle used in the holdup.