by Brian Crawford and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF ANNE T. KENT CALIFORNIA ROOM
Wanted poster for George Lister
The following account is excerpted from an essay by Brian Crawford for the Anne T. Kent California Room Newsletter:
In the 1920s, George Lister worked for the American Railway Express Company handling package deliveries by railroad. Lister’s office was in the Northwestern Pacific Ferry Building in Sausalito. Every day shipments arrived by train to be delivered to San Francisco on the railroad ferries, or the reverse, and George was the Messenger in charge.
Every Monday morning the Wells Fargo Bank and Union Trust Company of San Francisco shipped the company’s payroll as usual from the Bank of Italy (now Bank of America) office in San Francisco to the Bank of Sausalito at Bridgeway and Excelsior. The money was shipped in a small combination safe. Lister’s job was to open the safe, confirm the amount of currency, and walk it across the street to the bank for deposit.
The March 10 shipment consisted of $14,000 in twenties, tens, and five-dollar bills. When Lister opened the safe and counted the cash that morning, he changed the combination of the empty safe and locked it again. He put the cash in a large black bag, along with some of his clothing. Then he walked across the tracks to the ferry and caught the 8:30 boat to San Francisco.
About 9 o’clock the bank called E.W. Smith, the agent in charge of the express office, to ask why the money had not arrived. Smith checked the safe and found it locked. He presumed the cash was still inside it and had no idea what had happened to his employee.
He called in a safe expert and had the safe opened. It was empty. He notified the police, who obtained a search warrant for Lister’s house. They found nothing relevant to the crime or his whereabouts. They did learn that he had a fondness for liquor and had friends in the bootlegging business. Lister had been drinking and gambling and spending a great deal of his spare time in the local poolrooms for the past two weeks.
Sheriff Keating sent telegrams to all the police departments in the area to be on the lookout for Lister and issued a wanted poster offering a $500 reward (almost $8,000 today) for information leading to his arrest and conviction. On April 12 the New York Police Department told the sheriff they had spotted a man who looked like the face on the wanted posters. They detained and questioned him. He readily admitted that he was George Lister and said he was on his way to the police station to turn himself in. They asked him about the money, and he said that he had spent every dollar. In fact, he’d had to borrow a nickel for the streetcar fare to get to the police station. They were stunned that a man could have spent $14,000 (about $240,000 today) in less than a month.
Lister said that after the robbery he went straight to a hotel in San Francisco, where he remained for several hours. When the newspaper extras came out announcing the robbery, he bought one and went back to the hotel and read it. He took a southbound stage to Pasadena, then caught a Santa Fe train for the East.
In New York he started drinking and gambling and living the high life with show girls from the cabarets on Broadway. He handed out $100 bills to the girls, waiters in the restaurants, and doormen at the hotels, “just to make them happy.” He was spending a thousand dollars a day and suddenly found himself surrounded by newfound friends.
When the money finally ran out and he couldn’t get any more bootleg whiskey, he became despondent. Lister locked himself in the kitchen of a chorus girl friend, turned on the gas, and lapsed into unconsciousness. He was found and taken to a hospital, where artificial respiration saved his life. With nothing left to live for, he decided to turn himself in.
Sheriff Keating took the train to New York to bring him back. He kept a very close watch on him during the whole trip home to make sure he didn’t try to kill himself again. Lister proudly showed the Sheriff New York newspaper clippings that called him “Thousand-a-Day” George Lister, “the Million Dollar Kid.”
Lister was lodged in the county jail in the basement of the Marin County Courthouse on Fourth Street in San Rafael. Over the door of his cell, he posted a piece of cardboard bearing the words “The Million Dollar Kid.”
At his trial on May 5, he did not hire an attorney and pleaded guilty. On May 16th, he was sentenced to a term in San Quentin prison of from one to fourteen years.
The procedure when a prisoner received an indeterminate sentence, as Lister did, was that he would be evaluated after serving one year and then a fixed term would be set. On June 13, the State Board of Prison Directors set his sentence to five years. He was eventually discharged on March 1, 1927, having served two years, nine and a half months. What he did with the rest of his life is not recorded.
Brian Crawford’s full account can be found on https://medium.com/anne-t-kent-california-room-community-newsletter/george-lister.