BUZZ MAGAZINE – The original alignment of Route 66, which ran north-south through Macoupin County from 1926-30 and is Illinois Route 4 today, has long been rumored as a highway for gangster movement. The road was also used for smaller, less organized crimes.
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In early 1928, a crime spree that stretched from Peoria to Girard used the original Route 66 as part of its getaway, racing through Macoupin County before being nailed by an unlikely source – a Staunton newspaper editor who was in the right place at the right time.
The whirlwind tale began in Peoria at around 10 p.m. on Saturday evening, Jan. 7, 1928, when two men around 18 years old, Raymond Smith and Kenneth Knight (who apparently went by the name of Robert Fitzgerald), stole a Buick Brougham. The thieves raced south toward St. Louis, heading down the new Route 66 (present-day Illinois Route 4) for much of the way.
They hit Girard around 2 or 3 a.m. and continued their crime spree. There, Smith and Knight broke into a hardware store, grabbing three shotguns, several boxes of cartridges, tobacco, cigars, and “a handful of pennies.” They also chose to eat breakfast inside the store before resuming their ride, going all the way to Granite City.
There, they started running low on gas, and had no money to buy more. So, true to form, they chose to steal another vehicle for the return trip to Peoria. The two then drove back to Edwardsville and found a Buick sedan, which they proceeded to wreck on a turn at a high rate of speed.
As a result, they kept their car from Peoria and headed north to Staunton, apparently deciding they either had enough gas to make it, or stealing some along the way.
By now, the Edwardsville police had learned of the theft of the sedan, and Chief Anton Safko in Staunton was quickly advised of the situation. Along with two other men, Safko stationed himself at the Deep Rock filling station at the corner of Pearl and Hibbard, waiting for the thieves to arrive.
Smith and Knight hit town, promptly saw Safko waiting at the Deep Rock, and whipped their Brougham around the intersection of Pearl and Hibbard, racing west.
Just then, Armin Kurz, the longtime editor of the Staunton Star-Times, just happened to be driving down the street on this Sunday morning. Whether he had received word of the situation is unknown, but as the Macoupin County Enquirer reported, he came in “handy” – or at least his car did.
On the spur of the moment, Kurz loaned his car to the police chief for a chase of two auto robbery suspects. Kurz’ car was “immediately deputized,” and the “officers piled in to give chase to the fleeing miscreants.”
The crooks maintained their rate of speed, which prevented them from turning onto Hackman Street, so they “continued west past the cemetery,” where the road was not paved.
In a front-page story, the Star-Times noted “it was soon apparent to the thieves that they could make but little headway” and they abandoned the car “a block west of the Vogelsong residence,” fleeing on foot “in a southeasterly direction across the fields.”
Safko and his men were tenacious, however. Within minutes, the men were apprehended “back of the Harry Whalen residence.”
So ended the chase, but not the prosecution. The Edwardsville police chief and a deputy drove up to Staunton on Sunday afternoon to escort Smith and Knight back to the Madison County Jail.
The Star-Times reported that “after Madison County finishes with them,” the Macoupin County sheriff was expected to bring them back to face charges in the Girard hardware store theft.
The owner of the Brougham was in Staunton on Monday morning to reclaim his car. Smith and Knight eventually confessed to sixteen robberies in Peoria.
Kurz, meanwhile, chose not to brag of himself in his own front-page article, which only referenced him once, and not by name – only as “the editor of the Star-Times.” In Carlinville, the Enquirer was more charitable, running a page-four headline reading “Editor Kurz Aids in Arrest.”
It was one episode in a long local career for Kurz, whose family was the longtime owners of the Star-Times. Armin was named editor in 1918 and became a local leader, serving as President of the Staunton Rotary Club, among other involvements.
In the late 1930s, he moved north and ran the Carlinville Democrat for a number of years. But on one Sunday in Staunton in the winter of 1928, Kurz was not just reporting the story – he was actually part of it, and Route 66 played a role, too.
Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville. He may be reached at ilcivilwar@yahoo.com or 217-710-8392. Some of this information was taken from route66news.com.
This story originally ran in the June 2026 issue of The Prairie Land Buzz Magazine: http://www.thebuzzmonthly.com
