The Santa Claus Bank Robbery: Part One: The Birth of Cisco, Texas & a Bank Robber

a Five-Part Tale of Naughty, Nice, and a Whole Lot of Trouble.

Dec 09, 2024

On December 23, 1927, in Cisco, Texas, a man donning a moth-eaten Santa suit walked into the First National Bank intending to rob it. What he didn't anticipate was everything that happened next. This incident set off a chain of events that would span for two more years, leaving death in its wake. This is a five-part series titled The Santa Claus Bank Robbery: A Five-Part Tale of Naughty, Nice, and a Whole Lot of Trouble.

Part One: The Birth of Cisco, Texas & a Bank Robber

CISCO

Cisco, Texas, officially became a city a few years after the end of America’s post-Civil War Reconstruction. That year, President Rutherford B. Hayes, who had won a very controversial election in 1876, was in office. Thomas Edison received a patent for the phonograph, and Nestle produced its very first chocolate bar.

In North Central Texas, as the landscape of Texas was transforming, at the intersection of U.S. Highway 183 and Interstate 20, Cisco, Texas, came to be. Originally called “Red Gap” by Reverend C.G. Stevens, the first two establishments built inside the borders were a post office and a church. Later, Red Gap was renamed Cisco after John A. Cisco, a New York financier primarily responsible for building up Houston and Texas Central. It was 1878 or 1879.

The small, sleepy, cattle-driven Cisco got its own train depot in 1881, propelling things forward. It was officially growing and expanding, quickly becoming a "hub of commerce" and a gateway to the West. With a working train station, the area's residents, who had once been landlocked by long distances of hot, dusty roads separating Cisco from larger cities like Fort Worth, gained access to more metropolis locations in Texas or outside the Lone Star State.

Just the same, suddenly, as all those people from places outside of Cisco, Texas, could ride the rails right on in.

The Macon Telegraph | Macon, Georgia · Wednesday, March 30, 1881

News of the new train depot trickled out into the world via newspapers. The new line improved commerce routes and helped to connect America’s west coast to the east, but it wasn’t until 1893 that Cisco, Texas, would gain international recognition. In May 1893, news of the town went across the Atlantic to England: “More Fatal Tornado in the United States,” the title read–sharing with the world the tragedy that struck at the end of April.

“Tornadoes yesterday evening devastated the Ponca Agency, Indian Territory, and Cisco, Texas,” the article out of New York read.

Western Daily Press | Bristol, Avon, England · Monday, May 01, 1893

It was ten years before Marshall Fields Ratliff was born, over a hundred miles outside of Cisco, when an F4 class tornado devastated the city. On April 28th, the tornado touched down, claiming the lives of more than twenty people and injuring nearly one hundred others. The storm caused almost $400,000 in damage. That’s over 14 million dollars in 2024.

Fort Worth Daily Gazette | Fort Worth, Texas · Tuesday, May 02, 1893

The growing community was shattered by the severe storm damage. The citizens of Cisco came together and appealed to other Texans for aid, and residents of the state pulled together to raise funds to help the town rebuild.

Forth Worth Daily Gazette | Fort Worth, Texas · Tuesday, May 02, 1893

THE RATLIFF FAMILY

In 1894, a year after the tornadoes ransacked Cisco, a man named Lee Roy Ratliff, originally from Galveston, Texas, married a young woman from Fayette County, Texas, named Nancy Jerilla “Rilla” Dearman. They married in McLennan, Texas, on December 26. By 1900, Lee Roy and Rilla had set up a homestead in Lampasas County, Texas. In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, we find them living on a farm with three children and one on the way. The oldest was a girl named Uellan (or Hellan/Hellen), born in November 1895. Then came Lee Jefferson, born in January 1897, and Anna May, born in June 1898. Ella Ratliff was born in June of 1900, about two weeks after the census was recorded.

top left: Anna Mae, center: Lee Roy, top right: Uellan, bottom left: Marshall Fields, Right of Lee Roy: Ella, and far right: Lee Jefferson

In the early 1900s, after Cisco recovered from the cyclones of the 1890s, new homes and businesses began to pop up, and Ratliff added one more child to their family, a son named Marshall Fields Ratliff, born on March 26, 1903.

Lee Roy and Rilla divorced sometime in the early 1900s, probably after Marshall was born. The couple then married for a second time on May 28, 1907. The second marriage was short-lived, and in 1909, Lee Roy Ratliff petitioned the state of Nevada for a divorce, ending their union once and for all.

The Fallon Standard | Fallon, Nevada · Thursday, June 24, 1909

In 1910, when Marshall Fields Ratliff was roughly seven years old, he, his siblings, and his mother moved in with his Aunt Marietta, Rilla’s sister, and her husband, Robert Carter. In the U.S. Federal Census that year, Rilla claimed she was a widow. But Lee Roy wasn’t dead.

Then, things unravel even further, leaving the life of young Marshall Ratliff in turmoil.

The first person to leave their new home in Brown, Texas, was his oldest sister, Uellan. In 1914, she married Thomas Schulze, a first-generation American who worked as a fireman in Tarrant, Texas. Then, Anna Mae married Arthur Rosser, a Farmer in Bangs, Texas – it was her first marriage. Shortly after Anna Mae moved out, Aunt Marietta and Uncle Robert divorced, making way for Nancy “Rilla” Dearman Ratliff to marry her brother-in-law, Robert M. Carter, which he did in 1916. In 1917, Marshall’s older brother, Lee Jefferson Ratliff, married. He and Effie Richardson – a young woman from Brownwood, Texas, tied the knot in March of that year. The following month, Ella Ratliff wed Robert Tongate, a farmer from Brown, Texas, on April 23, 1917. Marshall was the last Ratliff living with Nancy Rilla Carter and her new husband – Robert Mayfield Carter.

1918, World War I was in full swing, and Lee Jefferson was shipped off to France.

The following year, in 1919, Conrad N. Hilton arrived in Cisco, Texas, looking to open a bank. He instead bought the Mobley Hotel because he noted all the men from the oil fields waiting for a room. That same year, Lee Jefferson Ratliff was boarding a ship in France, heading back to the United States.

This was a prison ship, unlike the one Lee had sailed on to fight for the Allies. Lee Jefferson was coming home to a prison term.

U.S. Army Transport Service Arriving and Departing Passengers List

Marshall was working on his stepfather’s farm, something he probably hated.

By 1920, Lee Jefferson and Effie had divorced, and he moved to Cisco, Texas. The city was officially booming due to the petroleum business. The population more than tripled, going from 2400 residents in 1910 to over 7400 in 1920. Some estimate that the population rose to over 15,000 at the height of the oil boom.

Cisco was the place to be.

CISCO, TEXAS & THE RATLIFF BROTHERS

Marshall joined his brother for a short time in Cisco. Together, they witnessed the rapid growth and influx of money into Cisco’s borders. On top of the oil boom, even more jobs poured into the city with the construction of the Cisco Dam (Hollow Dam) - or Lake Cisco, as the locals called it. The new dam provided drinking water and power to the “Gateway to the West!”

The Ratliff brothers had probably already begun dabbling in a life of crime when they met up in Cisco, but it wasn’t until 1926 that they would make their first headlines.

In April 1926, Lee and Marshall Ratliff decided to rob a bank in Valera, Texas. They were arrested for robbery with firearms that took place in broad daylight and brought to Coleman County Jail by Sheriff J.A. Trammell.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram | Fort Worth, Texas · Sunday, April 11, 1926

Marshall Ratliff and his brother were sentenced to 18 years in prison, but then Governor “Ma” Ferguson, one of the first female governors in the United States, did what she was known best for: She pardoned them. Marshall and Lee were released from prison in January 1927, 11 months before Marshall would return to Cisco and seal his fate.

Texas, U.S. Convict and Conduct Registers | Huntsville, Walker, Texas

What happened next? Stay tuned! Part 2 of the The Santa Clause Bank Robbery: A Five-Part Tale of Naught, Nice, and a Whole Lot of Trouble — The Coming Monday - 12/16.