Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

Throughout the history of Clinton County, there have been some interesting crimes. Lock Haven had the Match-Light Burglar, who broke into places using only the light from matches to see. There was also the Wrist Bag Grabber, who waited near the railroad stations for the purpose of snatching women’s’ bags and running off with them. Renovo, however, often seems to be the trendsetter in the “bizarre crime” category, with a lot of this sort of thing. Up in Renovo, there was once the Alley Bird, a man who lurked in alleys and frightened women by leaping out dressed in a dress, bonnet, and boots.

And in the winter of 1918, there were the Refrigerator Thieves.

The name came from the headline: “Refrigerator Thieves At Work In Renovo.” The story ran in column one on the front page of the Record on March 21, 1918.

“A warning is given to any one who keeps eatables outside,” the article began.
At this period in Renovo’s history, electricity was run to most of the houses. The majority of the buildings had electric lights, and electric kitchen appliances were more and more common. For space reasons, though, many people kept refrigerators outside on their porches.

This was a good idea on one level, but a mistake on another, as people began going outside in the morning to find out they’d been a victim of theft.

“Thieves are at work from one end of town to the other, and a number of cases have been reported,” the Record stated. “One case where the refrigerator was broken open, so it is advisable that eatables be kept in the house.”
Evidently, it was something of an easy crime to commit. The thieves would simply travel around town—It’s not too hard to cross Renovo on foot—And look for refrigerators outside the house. In some cases, they wouldn’t even be locked. In the very few cases that the thieves found a lock on the fridge, it wasn’t too hard to break in, especially late at night with everyone sleeping.

There wasn’t a whole lot of speculation as to why the criminals would choose to steal food, particularly. Maybe they were just eating it. Maybe they had a stolen food ring going on, marking up the price and re-selling it. This would give new meaning to the term “hot meal.”

The Record expressed their desire to see the thieves arrested, and taken to a different kind of cooler.
“There is absolutely no occasion for any thieving in Renovo,” the article opined. “Work is plenty, and anyone who is not too lazy can make a good living.”

The Record noted that the police seemed to have something of a grasp on a few locals who were likely to be habitually committing this type of crime, as small-town police often do. “There are some suspects who are being watched,” the article concluded.

The thefts seem to have ceased as abruptly as they started, with no further comment by the newspapers. Everyone was on the lookout at this point, due to the front-page notice in the Record—A notice just below mentioned that the newspaper was only two cents a copy, easy enough for everyone to read. And the police were keeping their eyes open, all of which made Renovo too hot for the criminals. (See what I did there?)

So, Renovo went back to being low-crime, or at least the stats on food-related crimes went back down. Crime doesn’t pay, folks—That’s food for thought.