WASHINGTON, March 19, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:
FIRST U.S. BANK ROBBERY
Profile America — Thursday, March 19th. Banks had operated in America for about a half century before someone tried to make an unauthorized withdrawal. On this date in 1831, Edward Smith committed the first bank robbery in the U.S. — hitting the City Bank on New York's Wall Street. He entered the bank after it closed, using a duplicate set of keys, and got away with $245,000 — a huge sum at the time. By various calculations, that would be worth from $5.4 million to $6.6 million today. But he was caught, convicted and spent five years in New York's Sing-Sing Prison. Now, across the nation, there are over 97,000 commercial banking establishments. As one 20th century bank robber supposedly noted, that's where the money is — bank deposits total nearly $11.6 trillion. Profile America is in its 18th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 2773
The crime: http://americasbesthistory.com/abhtimeline1830.html
Inflation calculators:
http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi
Banking establishments/NAICS 522110:
http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ECN_2012_US_00A1&prodType=table
Bank deposits/table III-A: https://www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/quarterly/2014_vol8_4/FDIC_Quarterly_Vol8No4.pdf
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).
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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau
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