The Schell Building, formerly Plano National Bank.

Today, the A.R. Schell & Son building is home to an insurance company. Almost one hundred years ago, it was the site of murder of Plano’s first law enforcement officer, killed in the line of duty.

Officer Green Wesley Rye’s walked the streets on downtown Plano, keeping residents safe while they slept.  At 4:45 a.m. on February 18, 1920, he clocked in behind the Plano National Bank, which was housed in this building at the time.  Then Rye came upon a group of robbers just as they were making their escape from the bank with cash and loot stolen from the vault. Shots rang out, and Officer Rye was fatally wounded.

Sadly, it seems as if Plano immediately forgot the officer’s sacrifice. For decades, members of Plano’s Police Department believed no one had died in their ranks – until around 2005, when Detective Luke Grant came across a brief item about Officer Rye in a Plano history book.  He did some detective work; while it had been assumed that Rye was just a security guard, it turned out he was a sworn officer with full arrest powers.  Today, he’s honored with a moral at Plano PD headquarters.

Detective Luke Grant, right, uncovered the “lost” story of Green Wesley Rye, the first Plano law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty.