Robbing Trains in the Days of the Old West

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

In Shotguns and Stagecoaches: The Brave Men Who Rode for Wells Fargo in the Wild West (no, the book was not published by Wells Fargo), John Boessenecker describes several train robberies, a few in some detail. As a result, aficionados get a sense of how outlaws managed to rob trains—not an easy task, when you think about it.

Although this painting is dramatic, it's also probably unrealistic, as trains were not often, if ever, robbed in this manner.

(Click the image to enlarge it.)

For example, Andrew Johns (“Big Jack”) Davis and five of his gang “slipped aboard a Central Pacific train,” and, after capturing the crew, uncoupled the passenger cars from “the engine, coal tender, and express car,” thereby preventing “the many passengers, some of whom were armed, from” assisting the crew. The engine continued to a rendezvous point farther along the track, where an accomplice waited with horses and mules, and the robbers made off with $46,000 from the express car (108).

Another robbery was more complicated and protracted. After breaking into a section house, Frank Hawley, David Francis, and their gang of three captured, gagged, and bound five Chinese workers, locking them and four captured “white section bosses . . . in the water-tank building.” As the eastbound passenger train approached, at 1:00 AM, a gang member, using a red lantern, flagged down the engineer (221).

Section house

After the train stopped, the gang captured and bound the crew, leaving them inside the section house (a small building for storing tools and equipment needed to maintain a railroad section) with the gang's other captives. The gang next ordered Aaron Ross, the express messenger, to vacate the express car, but Ross refused, arming himself with a shotgun. Despite exchanges of gunfire between Ross and the gang, despite the gang's attempt to “batter” their way through the wall of the car using coal picks, and despite the gang's forcing the brakeman to uncouple the express car from the “mail and baggage coach” and repeatedly ram the express car in an effort to get to Ross or to force him out of the express car, Ross continued to resist the gang. Their hope of burning the express care was dashed when the gang realized that its engine burned coal, not wood (222-223).

Baggage coach

During the gang's unsuccessful two-hour-long siege, Ross held out, wounding two of the robbers, one seriously. When the gang learned that the next passenger train would arrive at the station within half an hour, they finally gave up and left (224).

Other train robberies are described as well, including an unsuccessful “trestle robbery” (291-297), which is similar in some ways to an incident in my novel-in-progress, tentatively called Bound for Glory.

How to Read a Wanted Poster

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Wanted posters were issued by both government law-enforcement agencies and by private companies or other organizations—whoever had the money and the motive to put a price, in the form of a “reward,” on the outlaw's head.

Bounty hunters hunted such prey, as did sheriffs, U. S. marshals, and other lawmen, any of whom was eligible for the reward.

The fugitive from justice was often represented by a sketch; less often, by a photograph; and occasionally by nothing more than a description.

Although, thanks to Hollywood, we often think that rewards were issued for tens of thousands of dollars, most were considerably less. Of course, money went a lot further in the latter half of the nineteenth century than it does today. Five-hundred dollars was a good reward; today, it would be equivalent to $11,162. Only the most notorious outlaws would fetch $5,000 or (rarely) $10,000. The Jesse James poster's reward, equal to about $111,623 today, indicates he was “wanted,” indeed.

Above the photograph, sketch, or description of the outlaw, the word “WANTED” would appear, centered. Government agencies and organizations were not permitted to offer rewards for the return of dead fugitives, so the Jesse James poster offering its $5,000 reward for the outlaw, “DEAD OR ALIVE,” was issued not by federal, state, or local authorities, but by a private organization, as the text at the poster's lower right side informs us: “Pinkerton's Detective Agency and Union Pacific Railroad.”

Most likely, the railroad issued the reward; the Pinkertons were probably hired by the railroad to effect the arrest, to take charge of James following his apprehension, or to pay the reward on behalf of the railroad.

Interestingly, the Jesse James poster isn't really a Jesse James poster at all, for it advertises a reward for the apprehension of either Jesse or his brother Frank: “WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: JESSE OR FRANK JAMES.” Therefore, it's actually a Jesse-and-Frank-James poster.

To the left of Jesse's portrait, the poster identifies the reason for the reward (and the criteria for its payment): “$5,000.00 for the capture of the men who robbed the bank at NORTHFIELD, MINN.” The text to the right of Jesse's photograph identifies the suspected robbers as either “JESSE JAMES AND HIS BAND OR THE YOUNGERS,” and warns that “THESE MEN ARE DESPERATE,” meaning, of course, dangerous. (The poster, it seems, now becomes a Jesse-and-Frank-James-AND-Younger-brothers poster!)

At the bottom of the poster, the Pinkertons and the Union Pacific Railroad explain, further, that Jesse and Frank are “notorious” robbers “of trains and banks.”

Previous rewards were offered by the same party or parties, but these previous offers are superseded, the poster declares, by the current offer, which was issued on July 26, 1881 (the same year, incidentally, that Wyatt Earp and his brothers Virgil and Morgan shot it out with the Clanton-McLaury gang in Tombstone, Arizona). 

Apparently, Jesse and Frank have been “wanted” for quite some time, and the reward offered for their apprehension has increased along with their notoriety.

Finally, at the very bottom of the poster, another contact, besides the Pinkerton's Detective Agency, is identified: the sheriff of Daviess County, Missouri, the James boy's home stomping ground.