When the James Gang Ruled the Rails

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Liberty, Missouri has a nice ring to it and will no doubt be remembered for as long as folks recall the Wild West’s most famous anti-establishment rebels–the James (or James-Younger) Gang. It was on February 13, 1866, that at least a dozen former Southern guerrilla soldiers, including Frank James and Cole Younger, held up the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty. Jesse James was recovering from wounds suffered as a Confederate guerrilla and probably wasn’t able to help brother Frank and Cole, but the Liberty bank job is considered the James-Younger Gang’s first robbery.

Adair, Iowa, might not have the same ring to it, but it was there on July 21,1873, more than seven years after the Liberty holdup, that another James-Younger first occurred–the gang’s first train robbery. Using their wartime guerrilla skills–riding and shooting and eluding the enemy–the boys may have robbed as many as nine banks before they got around in 1873 to tapping into this new, lucrative source of treasure, the railroad industry.

Actually, the James brothers and the Younger brothers were not the first post-Civil War train robbers in the country. Another set of brothers, the Renos, had held up an Ohio & Mississippi passenger train near Seymour, Ind., in October 1866. The Reno Gang struck again in May 1868 at Marshfield, Ind., but its third attempt at a train robbery bombed that July outside Brownstown, Ind. Within two years of the Renos’ first train robbery, the Pinkerton Detective Agency, with help from local vigilantes, had destroyed the gang.

Apparently no outlaw gang was strong enough or bold enough during the next five years to take on the railroad industry. But the railroads were routinely transporting millions of dollars in gold, silver and greenbacks, and even though the Jameses and the Youngers had made out quite well robbing small-town banks, they must have envisioned greater profits by stopping trains. In any case, by the summer of 1873, they were ready to attempt the first train holdup west of the Mississippi. Such a robbery did have a few advantages over bank jobs. They could stop a train at a point of their own choosing, and by destroying the nearest telegraph office to delay news of the robbery, they would not have to immediately contend with a posse. Also, they would have the element of surprise working for them–at least the first time.

The trouble with train robberies, especially after the James-Younger Gang reinitiated them wholesale, was that the railroads put armed guards on their trains and kept the schedules for their big shipments of bullion and currency a secret. For that reason, the gang found it necessary to spy on the railroads for information about valuable cargoes and accompanying guards. When the famous Missouri outlaws struck at Adair, they started a veritable war with the powerful railroads and their detectives.

The James-Younger Gang’s first train robbery did not come close to matching the monetary haul of its first bank robbery. In fact, the $60,000 taken at Liberty was most likely more money than was collected in any of the gang’s later robberies. The previous year, Confederate soldiers had robbed a bank in St. Albans, Vt., but the heist in Liberty is considered the first successful peacetime daylight bank robbery in U.S history.

Liberty only seemed to whet the gang’s appetite for loot. Within 15 months, three more banks in Missouri were held up, though Jesse and Frank James may not have participated in any of those robberies. The James boys, as well as Cole Younger, most likely did rob a bank in Russellville, Ky., in March 1868. After a bank holdup in Gallatin, Mo., in December 1869, the Jameses became the chief suspects in that and other crimes. As the gang fled Gallatin, Jesse James was unseated from his horse and forced to double up on Frank’s horse. Later, the fine-blooded horse left behind was recognized as belonging to Jesse James of Kearney, Mo. The James-Younger Gang went on to rob banks in Corydon, Iowa; Columbia, Ky.; and Ste. Genevieve, Mo., before it got around to working on the railroads.

In July 1873 the gang learned of a big gold shipment being sent by rail from Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. The outlaws–now probably including Cole Younger’s brothers Jim, John and Bob–planned to strike the eastbound Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific train outside Adair, Iowa, and rode into that town about July 18. Posing as businessmen, they picked up information about the train schedule and also explored the rails. On July 21, they were camped near a blind curve along the line. Before dark, according to the Leavenworth Daily Times, they pulled up several railroad spikes holding down a rail on one side of the curve. They then hitched a large rope around the end of the loosened track and waited. At dusk, they heard the loud puffing of a steam locomotive approaching their position. As the ground trembled under their feet, the bandits tugged at the rope, pulling the rail inward and out of alignment.

Aboard the train, engineer John Rafferty peered down the track through the twilight, alert as he entered a sharp curve in the line. Then there were shots, and a bullet tore through the engineer’s right thigh. Rafferty threw the engine into reverse, but it was too late. His engine lurched off the track, crashed into a ditch and toppled on its side, breaking his neck. The fireman, Dennis Foley, was badly burned but survived. A towering cloud of steam and smoke spewed from the wrecked locomotive. Wearing masks, the outlaws quickly approached the stalled cars. They broke into the U.S. Express Company’s safe but found only about $2,000. According to the Daily Times, 3 1/2 tons of gold and silver bullion was also on the train but was apparently too heavy for the outlaws to carry away. (Later accounts of the robbery maintain that a following train carried the bullion.) Disgusted, the bandits moved among the passengers, lifting wallets, jewelry and valuables before they took off, heading south.

The outlaws’ trail led straight into Missouri. Several people in the area of the robbery said that two of the outlaws looked like Frank and Jesse James. In response, on December 20, 1873, Jesse James wrote the St. Louis Dispatch from Deer Lodge, Montana Territory, denying the brothers’ complicity in that and other crimes. If Missouri Governor Silas Woodson would promise them protection, Jesse wrote, ‘we can prove before any fair jury in the state that we have been accused falsely and unjustly. The protection would be from a mob, or from a requisition from the Governor of Iowa, which is the same thing.

Just over a month after that letter was written, the James-Younger Gang targeted a train at Gad’s Hill, Mo., a flag stop 120 miles south of St. Louis on the Iron Mountain Railroad line. About 4:45 p.m. on January 31, 1874, five bandits armed with Navy Colt revolvers and double-barreled shotguns captured the stationmaster and flagged down the Little Rock Express. Conductor C.A. Alford later described the outlaws to a St. Louis Republican reporter as tall men dressed in Federal Army overcoats and wearing white cloth masks with holes for eyes and nose. One of the bandits had grabbed Alford by the collar and told him, Stand still or I’ll blow the top of your head off! The passengers, who were gaping out the windows, were warned that if anyone fired a gun, the conductor would be killed.

Boarding the train, the bandits relieved the 25 passengers of their money and jewelry, preying especially on what they scornfully called the plug-hat gentlemen. Each male passenger was asked tauntingly if he was Mr. Pinkerton, whom the outlaws said they wanted. After rifling the mailbags and robbing the Adams Express safe, one of the bandits, thought to be Jesse James, handed engineer William Wetton (or somebody else, accounts differ) a whimsical press release titled A true account of this present affair. It stated: The most daring robbery on record. The southbound train on the Iron Mountain Railroad was stopped here this evening by five heavily armed men and robbed of___dollars….The robbers were all large men, none of them under six feet tall. They were masked, and started in a southerly direction after they had robbed the train, all mounted on fine-blooded horses. There is a hell of an excitement in this part of the country! (Jesse had conveniently allowed for the railroad to fill in the amount lost, but apparently that was never done.) A 25-man posse formed the next day but was unable to follow the outlaws’ trail.

Tags: Historical Figures, The Wild West, Wild West

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