Reno Gang’s Reign Of Terror

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Southern Indiana during the second half of the 1860s might not have been considered the Wild West, but it is doubtful that a California gold field or Kansas cow town could be found that was as woolly as Seymour, in Jackson County, Indiana, after the close of the Civil War. In this area arose a band of outlaws, the Reno Gang, that terrorized the Midwest and was believed to have committed the world’s first peacetime train robbery. The robbery occurred on October 6, 1866, nearly seven years before the James-Younger Gang held up its first train at Adair, Iowa. The story of the Hoosier train-robbing brothers features brazen acts and international intrigue and has a grisly ending.

Renos had been in Indiana since 1813. That year, James Reno moved his family, including son Wilkinson, from the Salt River area of Kentucky to Jackson County. They settled on a farm near Rockford, just north of present-day Seymour. In 1835 Wilkinson took a wife, Julia Ann, and began raising a family on the 1,200-acre property. In 1837 his first son, Frank, was born, followed by John in 1838, Simeon (’Sim’) in 1843, Clinton in 1847, William in 1848 and finally a daughter, Laura, in 1851.

As youths, the older Reno boys disliked school and resented their strict religious upbringing, which required hours of Bible study on Sundays. John Reno claimed in an 1879 autobiography that his criminal career began early when he and older brother Frank played crooked card games to bilk travelers passing on the road by their farm. John left home at age 11, stole a horse and headed for Louisville, Ky., and then on to New Orleans. He returned home a year later, but soon misappropriated some money from his parents and left the farm again for a short time.

Beginning in 1851, a series of mysterious fires began to break out in Rockford. Businesses and homes were set ablaze at night and sometimes even in broad daylight. During a seven-year period, almost the entire town was burned down, partially rebuilt and then burned again. No one ever discovered the identity of the arsonists, but popular rumor suggested that the Renos were involved. They had burned the town, the story went, so that they could buy the land at a reduced price and add to their holdings. These incinerations also helped the growing town of Seymour, founded in 1852 by Meedy W. Shields, a landowner who managed to convince the Ohio & Mississippi (O&M) Railroad to cross his property and intersect with the Jeffersonville, Madison & Indianapolis (JM&I) Railroad, thereby creating both a town and a railroad center.

Considered wealthy for the time, the Reno clan had both money and property, but that was not enough to hold the family together. In 1858 Wilkinson and Julia separated. Julia stayed on the farm with Simeon and Laura, while the elder Reno moved into Seymour. Ten years later, in early September, Julia died, willing her estate to Clinton and Laura. Wilkinson lived until 1877. John Reno later cited his parents’ separation as the reason for his criminal behavior.

Shortly after the Civil War began, Frank Reno and his friend Frank Sparks joined the Jackson County Volunteers. The oldest Reno boy was honorably mustered out in August 1861. In June 1861, John enlisted in the Indianapolis Grays, but deserted before the end of his enlistment and roamed the countryside for a time. William Reno’s grave in the old city cemetery in Seymour has a soldier’s marker showing he served in Company K, 140th Indiana Regiment, but no record has been found of his service. Frank and John — and perhaps Simeon, too — discovered that there was money to be made in a scheme called ‘bounty jumping.’ Prosperous draftees who wanted to avoid the war could hire someone else to go in their place. The Reno boys would accept the bounty and enlist in another’s stead, only to desert later and repeat the process using another name. They would also act as brokers for others looking to avoid the draft and would collect a finder’s fee for providing a replacement.

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