A big, important-looking sedan led the caravan, followed by two large trucks and finally a sleek Buick coupe. In the coupe, two men sat cradling machine guns.

The nine men in those vehicles weren’t tourists. They’d come to Toledo to get three of their business associates and bring them back home to Canada — with their luggage.

It wouldn’t be an easy rescue, though. Their friends weren’t staying in a Holiday Inn. They were locked away in cells at the Lincoln County Jail. And their “luggage” was more than a couple of beige Samsonite bags; it consisted of roughly 400 cases of bonded Canadian whisky, rum, and brandy, along with several dozen 15-gallon cans of 190-proof straight alcohol. And it was locked securely away in the jailhouse evidence room.

The visitors were there to bust everything out of the joint, in proper gangster style. (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1932) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1809d.whale-cove-rumrunners-jailbreak-514.html)