Carl Heinrich Krummel was born in late 1868, in western Germany. It is estimated that he married around 1892, and known that the couple had a son, Carl, Jr., in the spring of 1895. We cannot date anything specific during the next seven years. They spent some time in Chile, but we don’t know when or how long. It most likely began in 1895-1897, when German “colonies” in southern Chile were being strongly promoted. At some point, Krummel’s first wife died, but available records don’t say when.
Thus, in the summer of 1902, Carl and his son took ship from Chile to the U.S., landing in Seattle. Carl then found work as a bookkeeper at a Tacoma brewery. He completed their naturalization process in 1908. The following year, Krummel married Adele Utz, a Tacoma schoolteacher. She too was a German immigrant, having arrived in 1904. They had two children: Bernhard in 1911 and Elisabeth in 1919.
About a year before their daughter’s birth, Carl built or purchased a small general store in Adna, Washington. A logging town located about six miles southwest of Chehalis, Adna was then a branch station on the Northern Pacific Railway. The store included a postal cubicle and, in November 1920, Krummel was appointed Adna Postmaster.
 |
| Early Logging Site. Lewis County Historical. |
Carl, Jr. clerked at the store some, but apparently disliked or proved unsuitable for that work. Before 1926, he began twenty years of work as a laborer for the Northern Pacific Railway. At the time of the 1930 Census, Carl, Sr. seems to have been grooming Bernhard to handle the business. They were together in the store when three young men tried to rob it.
One of the three was Matt Simila – actually, Toivo Matthew Simila (his parents were immigrants from Finland). Matt was born in late 1905 in a small coal mining town located a bit over twenty miles southeast of Tacoma. The family seems to have moved around some, but they had a farm about three miles south of Adna in 1920. The hamlet was the nearest source of supplies, so Matt came to know the Krummels fairly well.
Within a few years, Matt became a logger. He soon earned a name as a skilled “high climber” or “topper,” one the most dangerous specialities in an already hazardous line of work. The topper prepared the “spar tree,” the tall anchor pole for the overhead cables used to move raw logs around the cutting area. He had to go up with just climbing spikes and a rope around the trunk. He cleared all the lower limbs on the way up and then cut off the top. The sudden release of weight causes the pole to oscillate wildly and the topper must – literally – hang on for dear life. The job is not for the faint of heart, but it paid well.
By about 1927, he and fellow loggers Stanley Filipiak and Blaine McCoy had become pals. Filipiak was born in 1908 in another tiny town about 12 miles southwest of Adna. His father, a Polish immigrant, worked in a sawmill there. (The family often gave their name as “Phillips.”) His mother died in 1914, when Stanley was not yet six years old. Then, in 1927, his father died. That was probably about a year after Stanley became a logger.
John Blaine McCoy (he went by “Blaine” in the camps) was born in 1906 in West Virginia. About a year later, the family moved to a place about nine miles west of Adna. Sadness soon visited them, as Blaine’s infant brother died in September 1910. The mother died less than four years later. Blaine was essentially orphaned at that point. He was not with his father for the 1920 Census, and cannot otherwise be found.
McCoy had no known criminal record by 1930. Nevertheless, two or three years before, he had begun to badger Matt Simila to go into the robbery “business” with him. He probably reasoned that holding people up was far less dangerous than working timber, and would probably pay better. Also, it was he who bought two revolvers from a pawn shop on a visit to Portland in the summer of 1929.
After the spring of 1930, the three might have had part-time work, but news reports imply that they had no steady employment. That would make sense if they were caught in the early layoffs in the industry. Simila later told authorities that they had held up a service station a week before the confrontation in Adna.
Saturday July 5, 1930 was a fine summer day, clear and sunny. That evening, they went looking for some entertainment. They knew of two dances, one in Adna and one further south. As they cruised through Adna, they didn’t see much. In fact, Filipiak commented (more or less), “This place is dead. Be a good time to hit the store.”
McCoy quickly agreed, and even pushed the idea. Simila objected, mostly because he was sure Krummel would recognize him. Conceding the possibility, McCoy and Filipiak grabbed the two revolvers and headed for the store. McCoy wore a rudimentary mask. Matt positioned the car with the motor running for a quick getaway, then doused the lights.
The would-be robbers assumed their guns would cow Carl and Bernhard into submission. But “Hands up!” was hardly out of their mouths when Carl grabbed a .32-caliber pistol from under the counter and shouted something. Startled, the crooks opened fire. Two of their seven bullets hit Carl; either would have been fatal. Totally flummoxed, the two fled to the car, which raced away.
When they saw no pursuit, the three went on to the dance south of town. They were there when word came that Carl Krummel had been killed. The two shooters had already changed clothes, now they ditched the revolvers in a slough. Between running around half the night, and considerable moonshine, the three were sound asleep in their Centralia apartment when police came for them.
A witness had seen their car drive slowly back and forth through Adna shortly before the shooting. And, as noted above, it was the only vehicle moving in town at the time. Officials broadcast the description all around the area and a patrolman found it parked near the apartment building. The manager explained who normally used the car and their appearance generally matched what Bernhard had been able to tell police. (The son had dived for cover after the shooting started.)
Simila cracked first, after two days of steady interrogation. He outlined their activities that night and even led police to where they had tossed the weapons. The other two finally gave in too, and generally agreed with Simila’s account. McCoy, however, claimed he had fired because a bullet from Krummel’s gun had “whizzed past his ear.”
Officials brought criminologist Luke S. May into the case within a day or so of the attack. He quickly identified which of the revolvers had been the death weapon. He also found that Krummel’s pistol had not been fired. It even had a bit of undisturbed rust in the barrel. Later, McCoy and Filipiak would not, or perhaps could not, say which of the guns each had used.
The trial was rather straightforward. But then one juror refused to budge from a first-degree murder conviction, and possible death sentence. The others were swayed by the fact that the shooters had become motherless at a “tender age.” (The fact that Elisabeth was made fatherless at the age of ten somehow didn’t count.) After a long consultation among the legal teams and the judge, the three were “allowed” to plead guilty to a second degree murder charge. They all received life sentences.
Despite that, Simila was out before 1940, had a job in Walla Walla, and was learning to fly. He later became a flight instructor and airport manager. In 1948, he married a divorcee with two children. He died in 1972 in Pacific County, Washington (near the mouth of the Columbia River).
Filipiak was free and living back in Lewis County when he registered for the draft in October 1942. He married about five months later. After that, he operated a barber shop, first near the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula, then in Longview, Washington. He died there in February 1985.
McCoy was also free, living in Centralia, when he registered for the draft in October 1942. He got married two years later, while still employed as a logger. John Blaine McCoy died young, when he was just 47 years old.
For several months after the murder, Mrs. Adele Krummel served as Acting Postmistress at Adna. She soon – perhaps within a matter of months – sold the store. Carl, Jr. got married about seven months after the murder and the couple moved into Tacoma. He continued to work for the Northern Pacific for over a decade. They had a daughter in 1932, but she died after just a few months. They do not appear to have had any more children.
Bernhard got married in 1936. More ambitious and talented, he went to Harvard Business School and then worked for a large national accounting firm for at least twenty years. They had a daughter in 1939. Available records do not say whether or not they had any more children.
Daughter Elisabeth earned degrees in social work and served as a program manager for the YWCA in Denver, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. In 1953, she married civil engineer and surveyor James Carey. They had two children (in 1955 and 1957), both born in Washington state. Thus, widow Adele (Utz) Krummel could at least cherish three grandchildren before she died in February 1959.
| References: Edward Echtle, “Carbonado — Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (January 24, 2018).. |
| “[Krummel-Related News],” Daily Chronicle, Centralia, Seattle Times, Chehalis Bee-Nugget, Bellingham Herald, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Longview Daily News, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland (February 1927 – February 1985). |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). |
| David Tock, German Immigration and Adaptation to Latin American, Senior Thesis, Honors Program, Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia (1994). |
| Elmus Wicker, The Banking Panics of the Great Depression, Cambridge University Press, New York, New York (1996). |
