"Black Bart" Boles

Guns? Check. Masks? Check. Poetry book? If you’re going to rob a stagecoach, here’s how to do it with flair.

If You’re A Poet, Show It

Even if you’re a no-good, law-flouting bandit, it pays to mind your manners -and your meter. In California, between 1875 and 1883, Charles E. “Black Bart” Boles held up more than two dozen Wells Fargo stagecoaches. Even though he seemed to have an intense private grudge against the bank, he was always polite to its employees, asking stage drivers to “please” throw down the money. Stranger still, Boles often left poetry at his crime scenes. This poem was his most well-known:

I’ve labored long
and hard for bread,
For honor and for riches,
But on my corns
too long you’ve tread,
You fine-haired sons of bitches.

In 1883, Boles was wounded during a holdup and accidentally left a handkerchief at the crime scene. When Wells Fargo detectives traced it back to him, he was arrested and imprisoned, and although Boles’ career as a robber was over, his literary influence was just beginning. During his imprisonment, several copycat stagecoach robbers left truly dreadful bits of poetry at the scenes of their crimes.

Spin the Media

Jesse James and his One-armed Mother

Jesse James spent as much time honing his public image as he did robbing people. In fact, James frequently wrote letters to newspapers, stressing that his gang never attacked innocent farmers, only corrupt banks and railroad companies. He also claimed lawmen hounded James and his brothers because they had been Confederate soldiers, which won the gang sympathy in the South. His letters were widely reprinted, even in The New York Times, helping turn the Missouri bandits into national legends.

One night in 1875, Pinkerton detectives threw a flare into the James family home. The agents were trying to light up the dark house so they could shoot at the outlaws, but the flare exploded in the fireplace, killing Jesse’s young half-brother and maiming his mother, who lost her right forearm. James made the incident seem even worse than it was in his letters to the press, falsely claiming the detectives had tossed a 32-pound military shell into his mother’s home. The public was horrified, and after the explosion, Pinkerton agents received little help from Jesse’s neighbors, who were often happy to provide the James gang with food, information, and hiding places.

Rob Smarter, Not Harder

A stagecoach at Yellowstone National Park

In the early 1900s, automobiles were starting to replace stagecoaches, which meant that stagecoach robbers were a dying breed. One of the last havens for the bandits was Yellowstone National Park, because the park didn’t allow motor vehicles. On the lonely, isolated trails, robbers could loot stagecoaches with remarkable efficiency.  On July 29, 1914, an ex-con named Ed Trafton chose a spot about eight miles from Old Faithful geyser, where there was only one route for stagecoaches. With the aid of an armed accomplice who kept his victims from turning around to get help, Trafton held up 15 coaches, one by one, as though he were operating a drive-through bank.

Get in Touch with Your Feminine Side

During the 17th century, English highwayman Tom Rowland menaced coach travelers with a string of holdups that lasted for 18 years, and the entire time, he was dressed like a lady. Did he put on women’s clothing as a disguise, or was it a fetish? Difficult to be sure, but Rowland worked hard to keep up the charade, even riding sidesaddle when getting away from crime scenes. Caught and convicted in 1699, Rowland was hanged at Tyburn Hill, the historic place of execution for London-area criminals. The law was strict, but jail regulations were not; Rowland spent his final morning dallying with a London prostitute, purportedly dressed as a man.

The body of Bill Brazelton, still wearing his mask.

Wait for the Other Shoe to Drop

Arizona stagecoach robber Bill Brazelton threw lawmen off his trail with a cunning horseshoe trick. Before committing a crime, he would place shoes on his horse normally, then once he’d stolen the goods, he’d quickly turn the shoes around. After he rode off, it would look as though there were two sets of tracks leading to the crime scene, but no tracks leading away.

Brazelton’s scheme worked until one day in 1878, when one horseshoe fell off his steed after a robbery. The horse left behind a bizarre set of tracks, with three shod hooves running in one direction, and one bare hoof running in the other. A suspicious tracker traced the odd hoofprints to a corral near Tucson, where a posse laid an ambush for Brazelton, and he was killed in the attack. That thing about the horseshoe being lucky? Not so much.

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The article above, written by David Norris, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the November-December 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!

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From the archives of the Old West, we’ve culled a list of the most notorious places on the frontier. Here’s our countdown of the baddest of the bad, meanest of the mean, Wild West towns.

Some historians say that the Wild West wasn’t as dangerous as we’ve been led to believe by Hollywood, but there’s no doubt that some frontier towns were beyond the immediate reach of the law -places where mischief, mayhem, and murder were everyday occurrences.

8. FORT GRIFFIN, TEXAS

One of the wildest places in the old West, Fort Griffin sprouted at the intersection of the West Fork of the Trinity River and the Clear Fork of the Brazos River in northern Texas. Built in the 1860s on a hill overlooking the Brazos, the fort itself was designed to protect the folks -mostly farmers and ranchers- who lived below in the settlement of Fort Griffin.

The town was soon invaded by outlaws and cowboys driving their cattle north to Dodge City. By the 1870s, skirmishes with the Kiowa and Comanche in the north diverted the soldiers from Fort Griffin and, as a result, law enforcement broke down, which attracted even more rough types to the town.

Visiting Celebrities. The motley collection of buffalo hunters, gamblers, gunfighters, and “painted ladies” brought with them a penchant for violence. Among them were a gambler and prostitute named Big Nose Kate and her pal, the legendary gambler Doc Holliday. Also passing through were Wyatt Earp (who met Holliday for the first time at the fort), lawman Pat Garrett, and John Wesley Hardin -by some accounts the most sadistic killer to ever come out of Texas. Dustups and gun violence became so frequent that the commander of the fort finally placed the town under martial law in 1874.

7. RUBY, ARIZONA

From the days of the Spanish explorations prospectors had searched for veins of gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc near Montana Peak in southern Arizona close to the Mexican border. In 1891, high-grade gold was discovered. A local assayer judged it to be a bonanza, and the rush was on. The town of Ruby was born practically overnight.

Here Comes Trouble. Most of the miners lived in tents or rough adobe huts, and bought their meager supplies at George Cheney’s Ruby Mercantile, the one and only general store. The men provided for themselves and their families by hunting and rustling cattle. But the primary source of trouble came from Mexican bandits who frequently terrorized the settlement. By the early 1900s, Ruby was so dangerous that Philip and Gypsy Clarke, who owned a general store, kept weapons in every room of their house as well as the general store. When Philip eventually sold the store to a pair of brothers, he warned them of the danger. They didn’t heed Clarke’s warning and were soon found shot to death. Today, Ruby is a well-preserved ghost town.

6. DELAMAR, NEVADA

Delamar got its reputation as a notorious Wild West town not from gun violence but from dangerous conditions in the mines. The 1889 discovery of gold in nearby Monkey Wrench Gulch unleashed a stampede of miners intent on digging for the peculiar form of gold, encased as it was in crystallized quartz. A former ship’s captain named Joseph Raphael De Lamar bought most of the profitable mines in 1893 and built a mill to crack the quartz and refine the gold. Within a few years, the town had 1,500 citizens, a hospital, post office, opera house, school, several churches, and plenty of saloons. But then the deaths began to mount.

Dust to Dust. Operations at the mill exposed the miners -and the town- to clouds of silicon dust. The mill workers were at the greatest risk of breathing in the dust, which slowly caused silicosis of the lungs and death. At one time, 400 widows lived in Delamar, giving the town its reputation as the “Widowmaker.” Delamar began its decline in 1909 when Captain De Lamar tore down the mill. Operation started up in the mines two decades later, but eventually slowed to a halt. The last resident moved away in 1934.

5. DODGE CITY, KANSAS

Fights and gunplay were all too familiar in Dodge City in the 1870s. In its first ten years, it became a well-known gathering hole for gunslingers -so well known that companies such as the Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad came to Dodge to hire fighting men when they needed to protect their business interests. Fearless buffalo hunters, cowboys, muleteers, and

Bat Masterson

bullwhackers (wagon train drivers) populated the city. Characters with colorful nicknames arrived, among them Cherokee Bill, Prairie Dog Dave, Fat Jack, and Cockeyed Frank. Said one resident, “With a few drinks of red liquor under their belts, you could reckon there was something doing. They feared neither God, man, nor the devil, and so reckless they would pit themselves, like Ajax, against lightning, if they ran into it.”

The Upside to the Downside. There were plenty of deaths and gunfights in the streets of “Wicked Dodge,” as writers termed it, but it could have been worse. Because so many inhabitants were known as “sluggers, bruisers, and dead shots,” most of them were wary of starting trouble with one another. Also happening on the scene were legendary lawmen such as Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Charlie Bassett, and Bill Tilghman, who stood ready to step in and jail anyone who got out of hand.

4. ELDORADO CANYON, NEVADA

Spanish explorers in the 18th century gave Eldorado Canyon its name, but it was American gold miners a century later who gave the mining camp at the canyon its reputation. The miners were drawn to a gorge on the Colorado River after prospectors discovered a vertical vein of gold there in 1861. The established the Techatticup Mine, which eventually fell into the hands of California senator George Hearst (father of publisher William Randolph Hearst). Eventually, dozens of mines in Eldorado Canyon became a magnet for prospectors, entrepreneurs, Civil War deserters, and “sporting women.” Their only connection to the outside world was a steamboat that carried the gold, silver, copper, and lead down the Colorado River to distant Yuma, Arizona.

The Original Fight Club. Political clashes among supporters of the North or South in the Civil War and greed, vigilante justice, and disputes over claims made for frequent brawls, stabbings, and gunfights. Killings became so common they were nearly a daily event. And the canyon was so remote -300 miles from the closest civilized town- that lawmen simply refused to enter it. A military post was eventually established near the settlement in 1867 to protect the steamboats and bring a sense of civility to the neighborhood.

3. DEADWOOD, SOUTH DAKOTA

Like many other famous Wild West towns, Deadwood owes its reputation for violence to the discovery of gold. In 1874, U.S. Army general George A Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills to confirm the existence of gold. The U.S. government tried to keep the gold a secret in honor of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which recognized the Black Hills as belonging to the Lakota-Sioux. But in1875, when a miner found gold in a narrow canyon lined with dead trees, the news of the find in “Deadwood Gulch” spread like wildfire. Within a year, miners stormed into the area and established the rough-and-tumble mining camp of Deadwood.

Deadwood Comes to Life. The Black Hills gold rush was in full bloom by 1876. Deadwood swarmed with men determined to get rich by any means. Dozens of saloons, gambling parlors, and brothels competed for their attention and dollars. Legendary characters Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane were town fixtures. But danger lurked everywhere. Henry W. Smith, a Methodist minister, was murdered while walking to church, and Hickok was shot in the back of the head while playing poker in one of the saloons. By 1879, the rowdy nature of Deadwood began to ebb after a town government was established. Today, the well-preserved city is a gambling destination for tourists as well as a National Historic Landmark.

2. TOMBSTONE, ARIZONA

Many consider Tombstone the most dangerous of all the Wild West towns because of its lawlessness and frequent gunfights. The named seemed appropriate enough, but it wasn’t derived from the Boothill graveyard outside town -it came from a nearby mine named by prospector Ed Schieffelin, who filed the claim in 1877. He was told by a soldier that warring Apaches controlled the area. “All you’ll find in those hills is your tombstone,” said the soldier. But Schieffelin was undeterred and named his mine the Tombstone. News of the strike brought other miners to the site, and the town of Tombstone soon came into being.

Lovely Downtown Tombstone. Consisting of 40 buildings, a post office, and 500 residents by 1878, Tombstone began to draw the usual collection of men and women from the fringes of society.

Big Nose Kate

Within a few years, the town boasted more gambling parlors and saloons than anywhere in the Southwest, as well as the largest red light district. Wyatt Earp arrived at the end of 1879 with the intentions of establishing a stage line but instead invested in a gaming parlor while riding shotgun for Wells Fargo stagecoaches. Four of his brothers followed: James opened a saloon, and Warren, Virgil, and Morgan went into law enforcement. Wyatt’s friend Doc Holliday arrived in 1880 with Big Nose Kate, who established a brothel in a tent. The Clanton gang and the McLowrey brothers terrorized the countryside, running afoul of the Earps, which led to the showdown at the town’s O.K. Corral, thus sealing Tombstone’s legend. The city has survived into the 21s century, as has its newspaper, the Tombstone Epitaph, which memorialized Tombstone as “The Town Too Tough to Die.”

1. CANYON DIABLO, ARIZONA

Nowhere in the Southwest was there a more violent place than the railroad town of Canyon Diablo, giving it the top spot on our list of the meanest Wild West towns. The settlement was born when workers laying tracks for a railroad came to the edge of the canyon, with no  way to cross over until a bridge was built. Constructing the bridge took ten years, during which time the town that came into being took its name from the canyon. It was as despicable a place to live as there was in the West. With the closest U.S. marshal 100 miles away, Canyon Diablo quickly attracted drifters, gamblers, and outlaws. Fourteen saloons, ten gambling parlors, four brothels, two dance halls, a couple of cafes, a grocery, and a dry good store did business 24 hours a day. The buildings faced each other across the aptly-named Hell Street, the town’s single rocky road just off the railroad right-of-way.

They Shot the Sheriff. Fights and gun duels were frequent among the town’s 2,000 residents, filling dozens of graves at the town’s cemetery. Bandits regularly held up the stage that ran between Flagstaff and Canyon Diablo. When mounting violence persuaded the townspeople to hire a police officer, the first one put on his badge at three o’clock in the afternoon and was dead by eight o’clock that evening. Five more who tried it lasted a month or less before being slain. But what the law couldn’t do, the completion of the bridge accomplished. The town died, and according to Western lore, completely disappeared by 1899 when its last resident, a trading post owner named Herman Wolfe, died peacefully.

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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader History’s Lists.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!

Wyatt Earp

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

The incredibly happy marriage of Wyatt Earp and Josie Marcus.

Wyatt Earp a Jew? Well, no, but he is buried in a Jewish Cemetery. Why? Read on…

In 1867, Josephine Sarah Marcus moved with her observant, immigrant, German-Jewish parents from Brooklyn, New York to San Francisco. She said her prayers every day and was taught a by-the-books good Jewish education. In 1879, young Josie was exposed to the romance of the San Francisco gold rush era.

After seeing the Gilbert and Sullivan play H.M.S. Pinafore at the age of 18, Josie caught the show biz bug. She ran away with a friend and joined the company touring the U.S. When the troupe played Tombstone, Arizona, she fell in love with the corrupt city marshal Johnny Behan. Ironically, it was Behan who introduced Josie to Wyatt Earp.

Josie and Wyatt were to soon fall in deeply in love and be married for some 50 years. The marriage was, by all accounts, a joyous one.

While we know much, factually, of Josephine Marcus, Wyatt Earp, while a true legend, had a checkered, disputed, and much-debated life history. While it is certain that Wyatt, then a U.S. Marshal, participated in the legendary “gunfight at the O.K. Corral” in 1881, the facts of that historic day remain foggy.

Wyatt, along with his brothers Morgan and Virgil and friend Doc Holliday, did participate in the shooting of the Clanton gang. The fight injured both Morgan and Virgil, while three of the Clantons were killed. The Clantons claimed it was a deliberate set-up  and that the Earps waited for them and drew first, while the Earp side claimed the Clantons drew their pistols first.

Josephine Sarah Marcus, circa 1881

During the shoot-out, Josie heard the gunshots from down the street. She ran from her house, hopped on a passing wagon and came down to the O.K. Corral. In Josie’s own words: “I didn’t know at the time who was wounded and I was all too frightened …I almost swooned when I saw Wyatt’s tall figure very much alive… He spotted me and (with companions) came across the street. Like a feather-brained girl, my only thought was ‘My God, I haven’t got a bonnet on. What will they think?’”

(Hardly a pleasing account for latter-day feminists to read, I’m sure -but remember, political correctness was still almost 100 years in the future.)

The courts saw fit to acquit Wyatt and the boys on the grounds of self-defense. The verdict caused a huge stir with many, not the least of which was the angry Clanton gang. The Clantons, in a revenge attack, ambushed Wyatt and killed his beloved brother Morgan. After that, Wyatt and Doc Holliday, along with others, raided various hideouts, killing anyone they suspected had a hand in Morgan’s death.

Now on the lam from the law, Wyatt and Josie moved to Gunnison, Colorado, where the law refused to extradite Wyatt -on the grounds that he couldn’t get a fair trial. After that, Wyatt and Josie led the happy life of a storybook couple from a Hollywood movie.

Appearing everywhere a gold, silver, or copper boom town appeared, the Earps were there to stake their claim. They invested in mines, and real estate, and operated saloons and gambling parlors in such far-flung places as Nome, Alaska and Eagle City, Idaho. For a while, they lived with Josie’s parents in San Francisco. It was here that Josie resumed some of the lessons of her Jewish upbringing.

Later, they settled in southern California and raised racehorses and lived off gambling winnings and real estate speculation. In the 1920s, they invested in oil wells, worked on Wyatt’s autobiography, and drafted a screenplay about his days as a frontier marshal. Sadly, the screenplay was never produced. A journalist named Stuart Lake wanted to make the project, but he and Josie argued about his vision, which she thought was unflattering to her beloved husband.

Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer

Wyatt Earp died in 1929, after a half-century of happiness, fun, and adventure with his darling Josie. In 1931, a book, Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal was published. Josie made sure all the offending passages in the book were stricken. The book was hugely popular. Wyatt Earp mania followed, and to this day, Wyatt Earp is one of the true American icons and legends of the Old West. At least three films have been made about Wyatt and the “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.” (The best by far is Tombstone (1993) -my all-time favorite Western. Kurt Russell nails the role of Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer also gives his best performance as Doc Holliday. I highly recommend this film.)

Widowed Josie had her beloved Wyatt’s ashes buried in the family plot at the Little Hills of Eternity Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery in Colma, California. One can surmise that as Josie’s parents were both buried in this cemetery, and Josie knew that when her time came, she would be buried beside her parents. She and Wyatt probably discussed the matter, and Wyatt, having no record of anti-Semitism and adoring his wife, probably just said, “Sure.”

Wyatt Earp was not Jewish, but his grave is surrounded by gravestones adorned with Stars of David and menorahs. Josie died in 1944, and was buried next to Wyatt.

Of course, the Earp gravesite is the most visited and popular tourist attraction in Colma. A simple, flat plaque anchors the Earps’ joint gravesite, unlike the other graves around it, which are mostly upright, stone graves. Josie once had a 250-pound block of concrete installed to mark Wyatt’s grave. Incredibly, in 1957, the concrete marker was stolen. We can presume, by huge Wyatt Earp fans!

(Image credit: Flickr user Joel Meadows)

If you had all your family’s worldy possessions and supplies for a long trip inside a wagon, do you think a couple of horses or oxen could haul it up a mountain? Minnesotastan explains how it was done, at TYWKIWDBI. Link

(Image from the book Hard Road West, by Keith Heyer Meldahl)

Link -image via AP Photo/Nevada Historical Society.

Texas Ben served in the Confederate States Army, then after the Civil War he headed south and served in Emperor Maximillian’s army in Mexico. When Maximillian fell Ben crossed back over the border into Texas, and spent the remainder of his life hiring his gun out to anyone who would pay, regardless of which side of the law it placed him on. Texas Ben even pinned on a badge as a legitimate lawman at times and supposedly put in time as a Texas Ranger at one point in his career. Thompson was even involved in the infamous Railroad War between the Atchison, Topeka  & Santa Fe RR and the Denver & Rio Grande RR. In 1884 Texas Ben shot and killed San Antonio saloon and bawdy house owner Jack Harris. Later that year, passing back through San Antonio with fellow neglected  gunfighter John “King” Fisher, he and his traveling companion foolishly  entered Harris’ former establishment and were riddled with bullets by several of the dead man’s friends. Texas Ben’s trademark tall silk hat was placed on his coffin.

Also learn about Luke Short, Pearl Hart, and Long-haired Jim Courtright in this post at Balladeer’s Blog. Link

Jesse James’ First Train Robbery

Photo from History of the James-Younger Gang

The Great Gold Robbery of 1855

Police had no clue what had happened and a two-month investigation ensued. Hundreds of people were questioned without any hope of a lead, but by August, suspicion fell on Edward Agar. Agar was sent to prison for passing a fake check, but wanted to make sure that the mother of his child had money to provide for the young one. He informed her that she would be receiving £7,000 from a colleague of his, and when the money didn’t show, he blew the whistle on the whole operation. He and the colleague, William Pierce, had hatched a complicated plot to steal the gold years earlier. They involved a clerk in the railway office when they found out that he briefly had possession of the keys that locked the boxes the gold was sealed in; the clerk was able to get the keys to Agar who made an impression of them in wax and later had the keys replicated.

There was a second key to the safes that wasn’t quite as easy to get. Agar ended up sending a £200 box of bullion on the same route (under an assumed name, of course), then showed up to collect it and watched the clerk carefully to see where he got the second key to the safe. Turned out it wasn’t quite as complicated as they thought – the key was simply stored in a cupboard that wasn’t very well guarded at all. When the time came, Agar and Pierce strolled right into the office when it was unoccupied and made a quick wax imprint of the key.

They brought the lead shot onto the train in carpet bags; Pierce got into a first class carriage and Agar boarded with the train’s guard, James Burgess, who was in on the whole thing. Agar took the iron bars off with a mallet and chisel, replaced the gold bars with lead shot, replaced the iron bars and stuck a new wax seal on the box to make it look like it had never been tampered with.

When Agar turned Pierce in, police recovered about £2,000 of the £12,000 worth of gold stolen.

Michael Crichton later based his novel The Great Train Robbery on the incident, which was turned into a movie starring Sean Connery as William Pierce. (pictured)
Photo from MGMHD.

The First Known Train Robbery in the U.S.

On October 6, 1866, the Reno brothers jumped onto an Ohio and Mississippi Railway train in Indiana and emptied one of the safes. They tossed another one out the window so they could take it with them, and then they jumped off of the train, completing the first train robbery in the United States. It was definitely a catching trend – in the two weeks following the Reno brothers’ first moving holdup, two more trains were robbed. A passenger testified that he saw the faces of two of the robbers from the first holdup, but after he was shot and killed, other passengers clammed up and none of the burglars were charged. At least, not at that time. After their fifth robbery a couple of years later, the Pinkertons finally caught up with the Reno brothers. Ten agents were waiting on the train to bust the boys, and although most of them escaped, they were arrested the next day.

Some members of the gang were hanged, but a lynch mob got to the others before official justice could be served.

The Great Train Robbery of 1963

They didn’t pull it off, though – the gang left the train rife with fingerprints, and left all kinds of evidence littered about the farmhouse they took refuge in for five days in Buckinghamshire. Not only were fingerprints found, they were allegedly found on a Monopoly board that the robbers had used to amuse themselves with while they were holed up. They used real money, of course.

13 of the gang members were eventually caught (that’s a few of them in the picture), although at least one of them didn’t stay caught for long. Ronnie Biggs escaped about 15 months into his prison sentence and moved to Paris, where he had plastic surgery. Then he moved to Australia and lived under the radar for quite a few years, until his identity was exposed, forcing him to move to Brazil. He lived there until 2001, when a series of strokes made him want to return to England to buy a proper pint before he died, although most people suspect he wanted the healthcare. He was returned to jail to finish out his sentence and is still there – Biggs was just denied parole on July 2 because the Justice Secretary felt that “Mr. Biggs is wholly unrepentant.”

Photo from HowStuffWorks

The Train Robbery that Brought Down George Parrot

I’ve been neglectin’ mah duties of posting our weekly Bizarro comic (Sorry, Dan!) Well, let’s get that fixed right now.

For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog!