Train Robberies
The First Known Train Robbery in the U.S.
One of the first American train robberies took place on October 6, 1866, when the Reno Bros boarded an eastbound train in Indiana wearing masks and carrying guns. They emptied one safe and tossed another out the window. They then jumped out of the train and made an easy getaway.
A wave of train robberies followed the Reno brothers' startling hold up. Within two weeks, two trains were derailed and their safes were robbed! During another robbery in Indiana, an expressman, (a person who makes collections or deliveries for an express company), was thrown out of the window before safes were emptied of an amount of $40,000!
Train robberies reached high levels in 1870, and robbers tended to stick to certain territories. At that time, the Reno brothers operated in southern Indiana. The Farringtons terrorized trains in Kentucky and Tennessee. The then famous Jesse James gang wreaked havoc along the rails in the Midwestern states.
One witness to a train robbery in the late 1880's described the experience. "I decided to come home Thanksgiving to be with my family at Silver City. I boarded the train at Wilcox. There was a large shipment of gold on the train. Just out of Steins Pass we could see a large bonfire. One of the train-men remarked, 'Wonder what the big fire is. I hope we don't run into any trouble.' ...Then, as today, curiosity got the best of some of us so we had to find out why the train came to an abrupt stop, and why the bon-fire was put on the track. We found ourselves looking into the barrel of guns."
Private detectives were placed onboard trains, along with soldiers and other lawmen were brought in to protect the trains. By the turn of the 20th century, most of the famous train robbers, including Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and the other members of the Wild Bunch gang, had been captured, killed or were no longer operating in the United States.