Powerful Joe, Eat-em-up Frank and the Snake River Bank
Contibuted by Steve Levi
Powerful Joe and Eat-em-up Frank put all their gold in the Snake Riverbank knowing full well it was managed by thieves who had every intent to leave miners to grieve when all clumps of doré’, nuggets and dust vanished south in September in the outbound rush. One might wonder why two men of the earth would deposit their gold in a bank with no worth, managed by those with the ethics of snakes and were always intent on the lure of the make to sequester that which someone else owned and run south with the cash from those they had boned. But Powerful Joe and Eat-em-up Frank had a devious plan which they had planned to prank, a scheme they had nurtured for many a year since the days when Nome had been up to its ears in stampeders and cons, cardsharps and men who ran the saloons and the brothels and when they had bags of gold, nuggets and dust with no place to secure them and try as they must it was dangerous to walk the streets loaded with ore for there were men who would kill as part of the chore to eat during winter when food prices were high with no hopes of a dimming ‘til the June tide.
In the boom days of summer, when steamships came in, Powerful Joe had the foresight to bring lumber in board feet and convert it with nails to brothels and stores, saloons, and skid trails,
to keep the city supplied with foodstuff and booze from June to September, when no one would snooze. Land was not cheap, so the city built up, floor upon floor, like the piling of cups with a sturdy foundation sunk into the sod so the structures would shift only when God would make the earth shake on mankind’s last day, and all would be gone, in one of two ways.
Eat-em-up Frank was the man with the plan to design all the buildings on permafrost land, be they banks or saloons, brothels or stores which sold general goods, coal and what’s more, he left room for the alleys and privy back doors to dump their residue onto Norton Sound shores.
As Powerful Joe and Eat-em-up Frank knew all the cons and disreputable banks, it was odd, the local folks said, to deposit their gold in a bank underfed with trust that one day would abscond with the cash leaving nothing in Nome but a bank vault of trash. As all had predicted, that day came at last, when the board of directors left with the cash on the last ship at the end of the season slipping aboard for a very good reason with burlap bags stuffed with all they could hold doré, nuggets and pouches of gold. And how odd it was, without saying thanks, Powerful Joe and Eat-em-up Frank had left on a steamer the previous week without saying ‘goodbye’ and proceeded to sneak aboard the outgoing ship with a suitcase apiece to follow the path of south flying geese.
Then the next June, when the Norton Sound broke its cover of ice that anyone spoke
of the scam that had sent the two men heading south and the tale of their scam was recounted by mouth how Powerful Joe and Eat-em-up-Frank has duped the board of directors of the Snake River Bank. Both the men had been watching the town lose population and knew it was down
to the few who still dreamed so it was time to flee south on a ship with more than a dime and abscond with the Snake River Bank gold leaving the bank unaware its booty been stole.
Powerful Joe and Eat-em-up Frank had been the men who constructed the bank. They had planned to leave Nome with no travail, so they left a plank in the vault lacking its nails and replaced all the gold in the burlap bags with stones and then southward did sha … It was not known when the Snake River Bank board of directors discovered the prank.
But it was learned from the news from the south and the story spread from newspaper to mouth how Powerful Joe and Eat-em-up Frank had scammed all the scammers of the Snake River Bank.