Gun Battle in Iowa 1

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. If God won't have you the devil must."

That was the epitaph one of the citizens of Albert City, Iowa muttered as the town buried one dead outlaw on November 17, 1901. The man's death, the day before, followed Albert City's claim to the biggest gun battle that the state of Iowa had ever had.

Albert City, in 1901, was considered a quiet little town with a population of around 800. Lying just a few miles north of State Road 3 on the eastern edge of Buena Vista County, and some eight miles from Sioux City, nothing very exciting ever occurred there-that is until November 16 in 1901.

That morning town marshal Carlos Lodine had gotten a wire, telling him that three men, suspected of robbing a Greenville, Iowa bank, were possibly heading in the direction of Albert City. This was certainly big news and Lodine at once began to round up a posse. But before he could make any headway, Lodine was told that there were three strangers hanging around the train depot. Someone said they had come into town from the north, probably along the tracks of the Wabash and St. Louis Railroad.

With only a group of five other men at his side, mostly merchants that Lodine had passed out guns to, he advanced on the depot.

As the group of Albert City citizens, with Marshal Lodine at their head, neared the depot Lodine shouted to the bank robbers: "You are our prisoners!" Instantly the three bank robbers went for their guns and began firing. It was estimated later, after the smoke had cleared, that some 64 shots had been fired.

Marshal Lodine was the first man to go down, with a severe wound in the stomach. Then townsman John Sundblad was dropped with one bullet in his side and another in his chest.

Gun Battle in Iowa continued.

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