A Sketchy Transition Through the Coal Chute: A Grant County Bank Scandal

I enjoy reading stories about old timey cases litigated in the Grant County courthouse. In my ongoing quest to find historic local cases, I stumbled upon State v. E.C. Davis. This was an interesting criminal case from 1923 that drew a Grant County crowd befitting a high-stakes scandal. Mr. Davis integrated a covert approach to paperwork: slipping in through a coal chute, leaving a decisive mark, and attempting to recast it as routine housekeeping. 

In June of 1923, a courtroom drama unfolded at the Grant County courthouse in Ephrata, Washington, in the matter of the State of Washington v. E.C. Davis. Mr. Davis was accused of unlawfully breaking and entering Grant County State Bank through a coal chute and forging stock certificates. What made the case captivating was that Mr. Davis was the Bank’s Manager. His Defense attorney acknowledged the unusual entry but maintained Davis believed a cashier had simply “forgotten” to mark the certificate canceled. 

An Ephrata correspondent reported the courtroom was “packed to suffocation,” with former depositors “drinking in every word of the evidence”. The integrity of this story led me to the Ephrata Public Library, where the story disappeared into the microfilm. While the outcome of the case remains unknown, there are two takeaways: fix your cashier’s paperwork during regular business hours and coal chutes are best left for receiving sedimentary rock.