Nick Carter was a fictional detective in a series of dime novels that began publication in 1886. Carl Sandburg and his friends were avid readers of the stories. They learned all about clues, discovering and preserving evidence and finding out who didn't have an alibi when a crime had been committed.

One morning, when he didn't have anything else to do, Sandburg stopped at the Schulz cigar store at 411 East Berrien Street. There had been a robbery the night before. Someone had broken a window on the back side of the building and taken the cash from the money drawer. Between $8 and $10 had been stolen (about $280 in today's money). The thief had left muddy footprints on the storeroom floor.

Chief of Police Fred R. Hinman was there with one of the city's uniformed policemen. He was a short man with a black mustache. He wore a blue suit with a star pinned to its coat. He carefully studied what clues were available inside the store. Then, he went out to the back of the building. There were footprints in the mud as there had been heavy rain during the night. Marshall Hinman called for a piece of cardboard. He was given a shoe box. He took the lid and placed it over the footprint . He used his pocketknife to cut the cardboard in the same pattern. He used the rest of the shoe box to cut a pattern of the other footprint.

The children watched all of this and were impressed that Marshall Hinman had used the cardboard to make copies of both left and right foot prints. Later, they wondered what would be done with the cardboard cutouts. It seemed unlikely Marshall Hinman would stop men and try to fit their shoes to the cutouts.

The children had already decided there were no clues inside the store. They began to wonder how long it would take to find whose shoes matched the footprints. It could take a long time to find the man who had robbed the store. They were also sure that the store had been robbed because the rain had poured down for most of the night. That would have meant few people were out in such weather who might have witnessed activity in the store.

Carl and his friends waited to hear if Marshall Hinman had found the culprit. As time passed, there was no more mention of the incident. But when Sandburg wrote his autobiography, Always the Young Strangers, he repeated the story. It added to the number of people who wondered why someone would rob a cigar store on a stormy night.

Hinman served as city marshall from 1895 to 1902. Previously he had been a machinist for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. His family had come to Galesburg after the Civil War from Adrian, Michigan. His father, Fred H. Hinman, was an engineer for the railroad company. He died in 1888 and is buried in Hope Cemetery with his wife Annie.

Fred R. Hinman died August 8, 1922, and is buried in Linwood Cemetery. His wife Mabel Goodard Hinman died November 4, 1936.