Mysterious Bombing at Bank of Oviedo

The village of Oviedo was rocked by a 1929 attack perpetrated by apparent burglars… or was there another motive?

KABOOM! The entire town of Oviedo was awoken from their Sunday night slumber by a massive explosion. It was 2:20 in the morning on November 18, 1929 and the front face Oviedo’s only bank had been blown clean off.

Bricks were thrown several hundred feet in every direction. The blast shattered the stained glass windows at the Baptist church. Windows of the Masonic lodge, post office, and other buildings for several downtown blocks were blown out. The explosion was heard up to 15 miles away in Sanford.

Citizens and police hurriedly arrived to the area within minutes. There they found a huge cloud of smoke and debris everywhere. No one witnessed any suspects fleeing the scene. The investigation began immediately.

The nation had no clue it was about to head into the Great Depression, but it was already in the midst of a recession. The stock market Panic of 1929 was only a month prior, and there had been numerous bank failures in the past year. However, the…