The architect who became the king of bank robberies

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The architect who became the king of bank robberies

The architect who became the king of bank robberies

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Zachary Crockett

Zachary Crockett

Published:

October 01, 2024

The period between 1850 and 1920 was full of colorful ne’er-do-wells.

Career criminals like Jesse James, John Dillinger, and Butch Cassidy gained infamy for their brazen bank heists. These rebels and rule-breakers were an unsavory byproduct of American individualism, plundering their way to financial success by nefarious means.

But one oft-forgotten man was more productive than them all.

George Leonidas Leslie led a double life: By day, he was a distinguished architect who hobnobbed with New York City’s elite denizens; by night, he was one of history’s most prolific bank robbers.

Unlike other heisters of his time, Leslie’s approach was academic rather than brutish. He studied the anatomy of locks, drafted up blueprints of banks, and invented mechanical safe-breaking devices.

During his “career,” authorities estimated that his exploits accounted for 80% of all bank robberies in the entire US during his active years of 1869-78.

Altogether, he stole at least $7m ($200m in today’s money ), much of it pilfered from the bank vaults of America’s wealthiest titans.

The final bank heist he orchestrated is still, to this day, the largest in US history — an astounding $81m haul, adjusted for inflation.

But a mysterious murder would prevent him from ever seeing it play out.

A man of good standing

Born in 1842 to relative wealth, Leslie enjoyed a much different upbringing than most outlaws of his time, according to biographer J. North Conway, who explored Leslie’s life in the book “The King of Heists.”

When the Civil War broke out, Leslie’s father, a successful brewery owner in Toledo, Ohio, paid a sum of $300 (~$10.7k today) to relieve his son of his military obligation.

Instead, Leslie enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, graduated with high honors from the architecture program, and opened his own successful firm.

No known photographs of Leslie exist, so here’s Cincinnati, his college city, in the 1840s (NYPL Digital Collections; John Caspar Wild, Henry Robinson)

By all accounts, Leslie was a bright, upstanding businessman with a promising future in legitimate enterprises.

But after his parents died, he had a sudden change of heart.

In 1869, he sold the family home and his architecture firm and set off for New York City. Before leaving town, Leslie explained his motive to friends: He wanted to pursue “easy money.”

Once in New York, Leslie wasted no time falling in with an impressive cast of characters.

He took up residence at the prestigious Fifth Avenue Hotel — a gathering place for the ultra-elite of the Gilded Age, including shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt and then-president Ulysses S. Grant.

Though he wasn’t a millionaire himself, Leslie ingratiated himself into the high-status world, donning the finest suits, attending theater openings, and collecting rare books.

His apparent wealth and pedigree gained him the friendship of robber barons like Jim Fisk (a millionaire who cornered the gold market and orchestrated Black Friday), Jay Gould (a railroad magnate), and “Boss” Tweed (a corrupt politician who embezzled millions from taxpayers).

These men, and other members of high society, saw Leslie as a bon vivant of the highest order and accepted him with open arms.

Jim Fisk (left) and Jay Gould (right) were robbers of their own kind, amassing extraordinary wealth by sometimes ruthless means (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress)

But Leslie had an ulterior motive.

As Conway wrote, the 27-year-old gentleman was secretly obsessed with pulp Western novels and the hijinks of outlaws like Jesse James.

He’d come to New York City not to hobnob with pin-stripe bankers, but to rob the very banks where they were housing their riches.

And before long, he began to seek out a second, much different social group — one that could bring his vision to life.

Dipping a toe in the dark water

Leslie, of course, faced a problem.

Robbing banks wasn’t exactly the kind of profession one could learn from books. It required a strong connection to the criminal underworld. And he found just that in a woman named Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum .

Mandelbaum was New York’s greatest “fencer.”

Working with an expansive band of criminals and pickpockets across the city, she housed and resold millions of dollars of stolen goods — largely with impunity. Like...