A battered tombstone in Forest Hill Cemetery is the only visible reminder of one of the most notorious robberies in our city’s past.
In the early part of the last century, the Ford Motor Company operated a manufacturing plant on Union, where The Commercial Appeal stands today. On the morning of August 10, 1921, two Ford employees, chief accounting clerk Edgar McHenry and special agent Howard “Shorty” Gamble drove to a bank on Second Street to pick up that week’s payroll — a satchel containing $8,500, which was an enormous sum in those days. They were accompanied by two Memphis police officers, Polk Carraway and W.S. Harris.
They returned to the Ford plant and parked in front of the building. Just at that moment, a blue Cadillac pulled alongside. Four masked men jumped out with revolvers and shotguns and shouted “Hands up!” Before anyone could move, the bandits opened fire, killing Carraway and Gamble and wounding Harris. “They were shot down by cold-blooded murderers, who never gave their victims a dog’s chance,” said The Commercial Appeal later.