SHOOTOUT....The year 1899 saw a shoot-out at "Kenneth" which was the name of a small community near to modern-day France Park in Cass County, Indiana, about 6.5 miles west of Logansport. This was a limestone mining quarry back in the day and most of the people who lived in the little village of Kenneth worked at the quarry. Many residents were Italian immigrants. A large, outdoor community oven for baking bread remains in the park to this day, a reminder of the local historical significance of the area.
On a Saturday night in
April of 1899 Henry Price, a driller for the limestone operation in the quarry
at Kenneth, shot a man named Jones three times with a .38 caliber revolver.
Price had fired Jones
from his job at the quarry after a heated argument. An angered Jones, along
with an unnamed accomplice laid in waiting for Price to pick up his laundry.
All three men were armed.
None of the shots were
fatal. One of the shots knocked a gun out of Jones’ hand. One hit him in the
chest and the third struck Jones in the leg. Price fired another shot, which
knocked the hat off of the accomplice.
The unnamed accomplice
was said to be a desperate man. He was warned not to return to Kenneth.
However, at 3 o’clock that same day the man procured two good revolvers and
headed back.
The fear was that someone would probably be killed. However, it
was reported the next day that Jones escaped arrest by leaving Kenneth without
confronting Price a second time. Price swore out an affidavit in court for
Jones. Constables Smith and Surface (no first names or initials given in the newspaper account) went to Kenneth, both “armed to the teeth”,
but failed to find hm after a search of the vicinity. They suspected that Jones
was hiding in the woods.
Two days later the limestone company discharged Henry Price, recommending that he leave the area for
his own safety, which he did.
(Source: Logansport Pharos Tribune)
Above: 1800s Indiana stone quarry workers
A 1922 GUN BATTLE
In Logansport, Indiana, in 1922, the Scagnoli grocery store was located at 1234 Woodlawn Avenue. The owner was Giuseppe Scagnoli and this address was also the Scagnoli family home, which was often the case in small grocery stores of yesteryear.
On the evening of February 13, at about 7:30, a man wearing a ski hat, but no face covering entered the store and, pointing a gun, demanded Giuseppe put up his hands. Rather than comply, Giuseppe ran to the back of the building - to his living quarters - and grabbed a gun of his own.
Through a crack in the door Giuseppe could see the gunman was rifling through the cash register so he fired shots at him through that crack. The gunman returned fire; each shooting four or five times.
One of the bullets shattered the front window and other parts of the building were marked up. A scale directly in line with the robber at the cash register was hit by one of the bullets fired by Giuseppe.
A neighbor across the street later told police that he heard shots then saw the robber walk from the store, picking up a burlap sack from a barrel at the front of the store. Why he did this, police weren't sure, but Giuseppe believed that one of his bullets hit the bandit. The man got away with about $5 from the cash register.
It was considered miraculous that neither man was badly injured.
The newspaper story the next day started with this sentence "The Scagnoli store today presents a battle scarred appearance as a result of a gun battle between the proprietor and a hold up man".
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