This broadside features an advertisement for a forthcoming issue of Rhodes’ Journal, published by Bradford Rhodes & Co., which featured details about the Dexter Bank robbery. It promised an image of Barron and a detailed, unbiased account “which will plainly demonstrate his heroic actions.” While distributed to regular subscribers, this advertisement suggested this special issue attracted wider public interest.

In February 1878, John Wilson Barron, treasurer of the Dexter Savings Bank, was found tied up and fatally injured near the vault, sparking debate over whether he was killed by robbers—possibly linked to the notorious bank robber George Leslie, who was murdered months later—or staged his death.