Albert City marshal to be added to national law enforcement memorial

Buena Vista County’s oldest line-of-duty loss reached the nation’s law enforcement memorial as Albert City Marshal Charles Lodine was added to the wall in Washington, D.C., more than a century after he was killed. The memorial, in the 400 block of E Street NW and dedicated Oct. 15, 1991, honors officers who died in the line of duty, and the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said 363 officers were added in 2026.

Sheriff Kory Elston told the Buena Vista County Board of Supervisors that Lodine was formally recognized during National Police Week. The honor came together after a representative from the memorial fund reached out last fall and a search of the historical record led Deputy Jake Nelson to complete the required documentation. Elston said Lodine remains the only known Buena Vista County law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty.

Lodine died in a violent confrontation tied to a bank robbery in Greenville and a standoff at the Albert City depot on Nov. 16, 1901. The robbers had blown open a safe at the Greenville bank the night before, then were trapped in Albert City when Lodine and a posse confronted them. One robber was killed, two were captured, and Lodine was mortally wounded. Another Albert City resident, John Sundblad, who had joined the posse, was also killed.

Local history records identify the men who went with Lodine as John Sundblad, Alfred Gulbranson, W.B. Gillham, Michael Conlin, E.L. Schaub and Dr. D.E. Knee. Albert City’s history page says the confrontation took place at the Medlicott Restaurant in the depot, where the men expected to make an arrest rather than enter a gun battle. That same account says the town later remembered the incident as its most famous and notorious historical event.

Memorial databases list the officer as City Marshal Charles J. Lodine, with an end-of-watch date of Nov. 23, 1901. They identify John Sundblad as Johan August Sundblad, born June 24, 1871, in Sweden and killed in Albert City on Nov. 17, 1901. For Buena Vista County, the national engraving does more than add a name to a wall. It fixes in public memory a local tragedy that had already shaped Albert City’s history for generations.

The depot itself carried that history forward. Albert City records say the building was threatened with demolition in 1977, saved by the Albert City Historical Association, moved to the museum area and later added to the National Register of Historic Places in the 1970s. Lodine’s addition to the national memorial now links that local landmark to the broader story of law enforcement sacrifice.