40 Nebraskaland • December 2025
But when the post office opened, the money was gone,
a window was open and there were footprints in the snow.
Sammons quickly volunteered to help. He spent six hours
a day with postal investigators, advising against the use of
bloodhounds, and suggesting a half dozen local residents as
suspects.
Postal inspectors thought the footprints and open window
were red herrings. It looked like an inside job. Sammons named
several post office employees but did not mention Smith.
Smith's wife noticed that he wasn't eating or sleeping.
On Jan. 4, he confessed but said he had not acted alone.
Sammons, he said, had asked him for the office key and safe
combination and said they'd split the money.
Sammons was arrested later that day, but it was November
before his case came to trial in federal court in Omaha. Out on
bond, he assembled a powerful legal team led by a former U.S.
senator and assisted by two judges.
The trial was a sensation. It seemed that half of Kearney
was filling downtown Omaha streets, cafes, theaters and
hotels. The defense said Smith stole the money himself, but
multiple witnesses vouched for his whereabouts. And the
footprints in the snow were too small to have been made by
Smith but not by Sammons. Other witnesses cast doubt on
Sammons' alibi.
Sammons remained cool. He testified that he had
confronted Smith, appealing "to all that was good and manly
in him to exonerate me by telling the truth." Smith, Sammons
Sammons' trial was held in the Omaha Post Office, which doubled as a federal courthouse and office building. Built in 1898, the
landmark building at 16th and Dodge streets was demolished in 1966. NSHS RG3348-6-388
Evening World-Herald, Nov. 19, 1914.
