The Wilcox Train Robbery

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A Rawlins, Wyo., newspaper immediately suggested the thieves were Tom O’Day, an occasional Wild Bunch rider, and local toughs Bob Taylor and Manuel Manetta. The paper later replaced O’Day’s name with another area man named Cavanaugh. However, the professional detectives focused their full attention on members of the Wild Bunch, whose modus operandi matched that of the Wilcox outlaws.

The physical descriptions of the thieves, even though the men had been masked, further convinced the authorities that known outlaws were involved. ‘One man about 31 or 32 years of age…5′9′…185… blue eyes…peculiar nose, flattened at bridge’ was a definite match for ‘Flatnose’ George Currie. Born in Canada on March 20, 1871, Currie was a known rustler and thief who lived near the Hole-in-the-Wall.

‘Two men looked like brothers…5′7′ and 5′5′…about 28 and 30…very dark complexion…1/4 Cherokee…dark hair & eyes’ could easily describe Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry, and his brother Lonnie. Harvey and Lonnie often rode with Flatnose; in fact, Harvey had taken his alias from Currie, who was his mentor. The other outlaws involved in the holdup were believed to be Harry A. Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid; Ben Kilpatrick, alias the Tall Texan; and Will Carver. This trio of outlaws often rode together with the Logans and Flatnose, and all were members of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch.

While Butch Cassidy (real name Robert LeRoy Parker) has often been credited as the mastermind, he probably took no part in the actual robbery. On January 19, 1896, he had been granted a pardon by then Wyoming Governor William A. Richards and was released from the penitentiary at Laramie. The condition for Butch’s early release was his promise to never again participate in any crimes within the borders of Wyoming.

Soon after the Wilcox robbery, Butch ran into William L. Simpson, his one-time neighbor and the lawyer who had orchestrated his pardon. Simpson accused Butch of going back on his word, but Butch assured him that he had ‘nothing whatever to do with the Wilcox robbery.’ Still, Butch did apparently receive a share of the loot, and the posses following the outlaws’ trail noticed that an extra set of tracks had joined the escaping outlaws. It was believed they belonged to the gang’s leader, Butch Cassidy.

In typical Wild Bunch fashion, the outlaws had set up horse relays along their escape route, in order to outrun the posse. After dividing the money near Lost Cabin, southwest of Hole-in-the-Wall, the gang split up, to better evade a posse. Flatnose, Harvey and possibly Sundance made a brief rest stop at Al Hudspeth’s CY Ranch near Horse Ranch, Wyo., but Hudspeth quickly reported the strangers to the authorities in Casper.

By June 6, a posse led by Converse County Sheriff Josiah Hazen had tracked those three outlaws to Castle Creek, a deep ravine surrounded by rocks and crevices some 75 miles from the holdup site. (In later years, this area was renamed Teapot Dome and became infamous in a scandal involving its fraudulent leasing by Secretary of the Interior Albert S. Fall.) The outlaws were well hidden, and the posse unknowingly rode right in upon them. A fierce gunfight broke out, but it quickly ended when Hazen received a mortal wound from Harvey Logan.

The remaining posse members were so numb with fear that the outlaws managed to sneak away, leaving the posse hiding under cover. The thieves abandoned their horses and a portion of the loot in their escape on foot. Once it became apparent that the outlaws were gone, the posse quickly transported the dying Hazen to Douglas, Wyo. The posse claimed that the outlaws had managed to ambush them in part because of a relatively new invention, smokeless gunpowder.

In his book on Powder River history, local rancher J. Elmer Brock claimed that Flatnose, Harvey and Sundance got fresh horses at the Billy Hill ranch near Kaycee, Wyo., rode through the Brock family ranch near Buffalo, and headed toward EK Mountain. He further stated that well-known lawmen Joe LeFors soon after appeared with a posse and spent the night on his family’s ranch. When the possemen left, they took nearly all the family’s food and blankets. Brock’s closing comment was, ‘Isn’t it strange that as many outlaws as had been in that place that the first people to commit petty larceny should be a bunch of United States Marshals?’ Brock’s account is of particular interest because it provides insight into the feelings of many local ranchers. Since the rustlers and the outlaws had sided with Wyoming homesteaders against the larger ranch outfits during the recent Johnson County War, the small ranchers occasionally overlooked the outlaws’ questionable behavior.

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