08/24/2026
It's 3 a.m. on a chilly November morning in 1916.
The village of Ortonville is asleep. No security cameras. No alarm systems.
Just quiet streets and dark storefronts.
Under the cover of darkness, thieves slip through a basement window of the local bank.
They make their way to the vault, set explosives, and blast open the safe.
And nobody notices.
The robbers vanish into the night with $4,863 in cash, a fortune at the time and the equivalent of more than $148,000 today.
The crime isn't discovered until the next morning when cashier B.G. Woolman unlocks the door and finds the destruction waiting inside.
The bank recovered only part of the loss through insurance, leaving it to absorb the remaining financial damage and repair costs.
The robbers, meanwhile, seemingly disappeared without a trace.
More than a century later, that same building is still serving the community.
Only now, instead of being a bank, 422 Mill St is the home of our Verlinde Insurance - Ortonville office. 😊
