Profile: Clark Lumber

Timothy McVeigh (see November 1991 - Summer 1992, February - July 1994, September 12, 1994 and After, and September 13, 1994 and After) begins developing plans plans to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), echoing a plan developed by white supremacists in Elohim City, Oklahoma years before (see 1983). Federal authorities will later say that the “official” date of the conspiracy coincides with a federal ban on some assault weapons that goes into effect on September 13 (see September 13, 1994 and September 13, 1994), but McVeigh has been considering such a plan for some time. McVeigh uses the alias “Shawn Rivers” to rent a storage unit, Unit No. 2, in Herington, Kansas, at Clark Lumber, for four months at a cost of $80. The address McVeigh gives on the rental registration is Rt. 3, Box 83, Marion KS. McVeigh’s co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990, (September 30, 1994) and September 13, 1994) works in Marion, Kansas (see (September 30, 1994)). The clerk who rents McVeigh the storage unit is Helen Mitchell; the owner is Ray Mueller. McVeigh pays four months’ advance rent. During the latter part of September and the first two weeks of October, McVeigh and Nichols either stay at the Sunset Motel in Junction City, Kansas, or sleep in Nichols’s truck at Geary County State Park near Junction City. [New York Times, 5/9/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 810; Washington Post, 12/24/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 92; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] Nichols will soon buy a house in Herington (see (February 20, 1995)).