Double Trouble from Notorious Kids: Sundance and Curry

By Donna B. Ernst | Wild West  | 0 comments  | Print This Post  | Email This Post

A cold spell hit the town of Malta in north central Montana at the end of November 1892. In the wee hours of the morning on the 29th, the mercury dipped blow 16 degrees below and the stretch of the Milk River that ran through town froze over, as did the Missouri River, 45 miles to the south, for the first time that winter. Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid, had recently arrived in Malta after working as a horse wrangler for three years near Calgary, Canada. As the cold set in, he took refuge in Alex Black’s Saloon with his pals Bill Madden and Harry Bass. Bored, and probably a little drunk, the three cowboys decided to add a little excitement and some easy money to their lives. A train robbery seemed just the ticket.

Longabaugh had earned his nickname for serving an 18-month sentence for horse theft a few years earlier in a jail in Sundance, Wyo. But at age 25 he was still a novice outlaw and, after a botched holdup that night of a Great Northern Railroad train, he escaped another prison stint because of a comic confusion over his identity. In the years that followed, the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy went on a rampage with the so-called Wild Bunch, a loosely-knit band of outlaws who robbed trains and banks and stole mine payrolls in the Rocky Mountain West. The Sundance Kid’s reputation grew to mythic proportions in part because reporters often confused him with his Wild Bunch cohort Harvey Logan, who was dubbed Kid Curry and was responsible for killing at least nine law enforcement officers in five different shootings. Logan stayed behind when Butch and Sundance high-tailed it to South America in 1901 and soon after led a déjà vu heist of the Great Northern. This time, unlike Sundance and his pals nine years earlier, the holdup crew behaved like professionals, not amateurs, and rode away with $40,000 in unsigned banknotes. But when Logan and his fellow outlaws spent their loot from what is usually called the Wagner robbery, it proved to be their undoing.

Malta in 1892 was little more than a cattle shipping depot for local ranches along the Great Northern Railroad. It was part of huge Dawson County at the time; Valley County was carved out of Dawson the next year. At 3 a.m. on November 29, the Great Northern westbound express No. 23 out of St. Paul, Minn., made its regular mail and water stop at Malta. Two masked men boarded the blind baggage car and, as the train began to pick up speed again, they slipped onto the engine and ordered the engineer to stop near a fire about one mile ahead. The third outlaw waited at the bonfire with the escape horses.

Once the train halted, the thieves ordered railroad employees to open the mail car and safes in the express car. Their take was one check for $46.28 and another for $6.80, plus two packages valued at $10.42 and 30 cents—for a grand total of $63.80. The inexperienced outlaws apparently never considered the fact that the express train had left St. Paul on a Sunday, not a normal banking business day. Although frustrated with the small amount taken, the robbers toasted the crew with a drink and escaped off into the night. The Great Falls Tribune commented, “The affair occurred in less time than it takes to relate it.”

Foolishly, the thieves returned to Malta. The train continued on its regular route, stopping only to telegraph the news of the holdup: “Express car on No. 23 entered by robbers just west of Malta. Little of value taken. Nothing done to molest passengers.” J.A. Mayer of the Great Northern Railroad authorized a $500 reward for each of the outlaws, and the governor of Montana offered to match the railroad’s reward. The rewards were worth far more than the outlaws had stolen, but the railroad wanted to send a clear message that they would not tolerate train robbery.

The first officers to arrive in Malta were with a small posse led by Sheriff B.F. O’Neal of Choteau County. As soon as they arrived in town on December 1, however, they stopped in a saloon for a shot of courage. Coincidentally, it was in the same saloon where Sundance, Madden and Bass were once again drinking. The Great Falls Tribune reported: “Inside the building there were a number of men who, when they saw them coming, quickly grasped their Winchesters and began throwing cartridges into the magazines. ‘Guess you _____ of _____ of deputy sheriffs are after someone, ain’t you?’ said one of the gang. ‘Well, come right along. We’ll make it interesting for you and we’ll take even bets or give odds that you don’t take us. What do you say?’ The officers saw they were powerless. The men were undoubtedly the robbers, but they had not only been drinking, but were desperate and had resolved not to be captured….So, the Glasgow posse retired.”

The outlaws also promptly left Malta, but the Sundance Kid and Bass did not make it far. At 10 p.m. Detective W. Ed Black of the Great Northern Railroad arrested Bass and a man named William Hunt as they saddled their horses outside Alex Black’s Saloon. At about the same time, Sheriff O’Neal and Sheriff Hamilton of Cascade County arrested saloonkeeper Alex Black and the Sundance Kid as they boarded an eastbound train just leaving the Malta depot. Suspect Madden was not found.

The four men were taken to Helena, where the train conductor identified them; they were then moved to Great Falls under extremely heavy guard. According to one newspaper report, “Every man in the posse had a Winchester rifle within easy reach and a 45-calibre pistol in his pocket.” They were arraigned on December 3 before U.S. Commissioner Pomeroy, and were bound over for trial, with bail set at $300 each. However, none of them had any money; the Chinook Opinion reported that they were “out of work cowboys who had been hanging around town for some time.” Sundance was held as J.E. Ebaugh, alias J.E. Thibadoe, the names he gave at the time of his arrest.

Two days later, Bill Madden was also arrested in Malta and taken to Fort Benton, where he too was held over for trial. Madden was taken to Fort Benton rather than Great Falls because the authorities belatedly realized that the holdup had actually occurred in Choteau County, rather than Dawson County as originally believed. Once in Fort Benton, Madden was lodged in the town’s new mail-ordered log jailhouse, where each cell was a tiny 4-foot-by-8-foot-by-6-foot steel cage. Under questioning, Madden confessed his part in the robbery and implicated Bass and a man identified as “Loungbo.”

Meanwhile, on December 8, a trial was held for the four outlaws still jailed in Great Falls. The U.S. attorney, a prosecutor named Weed, and defense attorney J.B. Leslie each made his case. After giving testimony concerning the robbery, prosecution witness A.J. Shore unexpectedly made a motion “that the prisoners be discharged for the reason that nothing had been adduced to show that they were guilty of the charge proferred against them.” The prosecutor’s case fell apart; and all four prisoners were immediately released.

Bass was immediately rearrested on the courthouse steps on charges of burglary, based upon Madden’s confession. But Sundance was allowed to leave town because the authorities did not realize that he was, in fact, Loungbo, the second man implicated by Madden. A local newspaper reported, “Loungbo was supposed to have gone from Malta to a ranch on the Missouri.” The safe haven might have been Bob Coburn’s Circle C Ranch.

Bass was taken to Fort Benton, where he was placed in a cell adjoining Madden’s. Sheriff O’Neal, Detectives Black and Kilgore of the Great Northern Railroad and railroad Superintendent G.C. Gates subsequently attempted to track Sundance, to no avail. They returned to Great Falls and sent out the following wanted notice:

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Tags: 19th Century, Historical Figures, The Wild West