Stagecoach Robbery and Missing Gold By Donna Schlachter – with giveaway!

Sometimes real life can be stranger than any story we could make up, and one of the biggest solved yet still mysterious stagecoach robberies in history is an example of such.

Monitor stagecoach had 5/16" steel armor and loopholes for rifles

In September 1878, at Canyon Springs Stagecoach station, near Deadwood, Dakota Territory, an infamous outlaw known as Lame Johnny, concocted a scheme to steal the payroll and gold from the Homestake Mine.

The mine sent its valuables aboard an armored stage known as the “Monitor”, specially built for bullion and payroll shipments, complete with loopholes for guns and the treasure box bolted to the floor.

Called Lame Johnny because of a deformed foot, he’d tried his hand at living legit, but cowboying wasn’t in his cards. He headed to Deadwood and gained election as a deputy, but honest work didn’t appeal to him. He tried prospecting, then got a job with the Homestake Mine as bookkeeper. Fired when somebody recognized him from his horse rustling days in Texas, he escaped and returned to a life of crime.

He formed up a gang of at least four like-minded men, and they quickly gained a reputation as horse thieves and stagecoach bandits. Because of his experience with the company, he knew the stage schedule, and by the time it pulled into the Canyon Springs station, the attendant was already incapacitated. Caught off guard, the occupants of the stage were fired upon, one killed and two critically injured. After shooting back at the bandits, one guard ran for help.

The gang dragged the Monitor into the trees and apparently had little trouble prying open the supposedly theft-proof treasure box and transferring the contents, (see list below) loading the loot into a wagon in about two hours. The gang then split up and disappeared into the hills, heading east into the canyons.

A considerable treasure was the shipment on the Monitor for this trip – including three gold ingots, 1056 ounces of gold dust and nuggets, $500 in diamonds, $500 in jewelry, and $2000 in currency — a total value of $27,075 at that time.

When the stage didn’t arrive at the Beaver Creek stage station, three men rode north to find out what had happened. Along the road, they met Davis riding for help. The four returned to the Canyon Springs Station where they found the Monitor standing abandoned with the treasure box emptied, the attendant locked in the granary, and the other employees tied to trees in the woods.

"After the holdup" posed photo of Deadwood stage as it would appear after a holdup

When word reached Deadwood, posses were formed in many towns in Dakota and Wyoming to hunt down the bandits, and Homestake posted a fat reward for their capture. The news even reached New York City by September 27th. The posse picked up the trail of the gang in the area toward Pactola. Trailing the gang east, past the boomtown of Rapid City and then out onto the prairie, they found the gang but decided to wait until daybreak to take them. However, the gang nipped out during the night. The posse split up but lost the outlaws’ trail near Fort Pierre on the Missouri River.

One gang member doubled back on the trail into Wyoming and was caught near the site of the robbery, where he was hanged on October 3rd. In October, two other outlaws tried to sell stolen bullion in Deadwood. They were arrested and packed onto a stagecoach to Cheyenne to be tried. Along the road, the stage was stopped by vigilantes who threatened the outlaws and forced a confession. Taken on to Cheyenne with a confession to convict them, the pair were held in jail until November 2. When it was learned that a trial could not be held for several more months, the two were sent back to Deadwood. On November 3rd, their bad luck dogged them and the men were dragged from the stage by five angry vigilantes near Fort Laramie on the Little Cottonwood river and hung them from nearby trees.

Lame Johnny was caught in Pine Ridge in July 1879 and taken to Chadron (Nebraska) where he was put on the Sydney-Deadwood stage to be tried in Deadwood. Lame Johnny confided to several people that he was very much afraid of his guard, who left the stage at Buffalo Gap. Not far out of town a masked rider stopped the stage and took Lame Johnny off , promptly hanging Lame Johnny from a convenient elm tree beside the creek, which is now named after him.

As a result of rewards and the efforts of the lawmen hunting them, within six weeks of the robbery, the Homestake Mine reported that 60% of the loot had been returned. Only two gold bars remained lost.

So what is left to find? Two gold bars, weighing 284 ounces, were never recovered. The bars were likely hidden by the gang somewhere between the Canyon Springs station and Pino Springs. Even the smallest bar, 115 ounces, would be worth well over $100,000 today!




Happy to offer a free ebook in a random drawing from all comments left.

References:

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/treasure-legends-south-dakota/114861-lame-johnnys-treasure-canyon-springs-stage-robbery-45-pounds-gold.html



About Double Jeopardy:

Becky Campbell leaves New York in search of her father, only to learn he was murdered. She determines to fulfill his dream— make the Double Jeopardy mine profitable.

Zeke Graumann, local rancher, will either have to take on a job to pay his overhead expenses, or sell his land. While he admires Becky, he also recognizes she was never cut out to be a rancher’s wife.

Can Becky overcome her mistrust of Zeke, find her father’s killer, and turn her mine into a profitable venture? And will Zeke be forced to give up his land in order to win Becky’s heart?



About Donna:

Donna writes historical suspense under her own name, and contemporary suspense under her alter ego of Leeann Betts, and has been published more than 30 times in novellas and full-length novels. She is a member of ACFW, Writers on the Rock, SinC, and CAN; facilitates a critique group; teaches writing classes; ghostwrites; edits; and judges in writing contests.

The Last Stage Robber--and It's a Woman!

You've probably never heard of Pearl Hart, but she committed one of the last stage robberies in the Old West. Pearl was born in Lindsay, Ontario, to affluent and religious parents, who afforded her with the best education available. She was enrolled in boarding school at the age of sixteen, where she met her future husband, who seemed to have various first names, but most often was referred to as Frederick Hart.

By Unknown photographer (Historian Insight) [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

Frederick Hart was known to be a drunkard and gambler. Pearl eloped with Hart, but quickly learned he was abusive, so she returned to her mother's home. They reunited and separated several times, resulting in two children, which Pearl left with her mother.

Pearl's husband worked a stint at the Chicago World's Fair, where Pearl developed a fascination with the cowboy lifestyle while watching Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. After the fair, the couple moved to Colorado. Hart described this time in her life: "I was only twenty-two years old. I was good-looking, desperate, discouraged, and ready for anything that might come. I do not care to dwell on this period of my life. It is sufficient to say that I went from one city to another until some time later I arrived in Phoenix." During this time Pearl worked as a cook and singer. There are also reports that she developed a fondness for cigars, liquor, and morphine during this time.

Hart ran into her husband again, and they lived in Tuscon for a time. But things went badly, and the abused started again. When the Spanish-American War broke out, Mr. Hart signed up. Pearl shocked observers by declaring that she hoped he would be killed by the Spanish.

Pearl Hart in Cosmopolitan in 1899

Pearl resided in the town of Mammoth, Arizona in early 1898. Some reports say she was working as a cook in a boarding house. Others say she operated a tent brothel near the local mine. While she did well for a time, the mine eventually closed, and her financial status took a nosedive. About this time she received a message asking her to return home to her seriously ill mother.

Hart had an acquaintance known as "Joe Boot" (most likely an alias), who worked at a mining claim he owned. When the mine didn't yield gold, Hart and Boot decided to rob the stagecoach that traveled between Globe and Florence, Arizona. The robbery occurred on May 30, 1899, at a watering point near Cane Springs Canyon, about 30 miles southeast of Globe. Pearl had cut her hair short and dressed in men's clothing, and she was armed with a .38 revolver.

The trio stopped the coach, and Boot held a gun on the robbery victims while Hart took $431.20 and two firearms from the passengers. Reports say Pearl returned $1 to each passenger to aid them in getting home. Less than a week later, a sheriff caught up to them and both were put in jail. Boot was held in Florence while Hart was moved to Tucson since the jail lacked facilities for a lady.

The room Hart was held in was not a normal jail cell but rather made of lath and plaster. Taking advantage of the relatively weak material, Hart escaped on October 12, 1899. She left behind an 18-inch hole in the wall. Just two weeks later, she was recaptured near Deming, New Mexico. After their trials, both Hart and Boot were sent to Yuma Territorial Prison to serve their sentences.

Pearl Hart in prison

In December 1902, Pearl received a pardon from Arizona Territorial Governor Alexander Brodie. After she left prison, Hart disappeared from public view for the most part. She had a short-lived show where she re-enacted her crime and then spoke about the horrors of Yuma Territorial Prison. Tales from Gila County claim that Hart returned to Globe and lived there peacefully until her death on December 30, 1955, other reports place her death as late as 1960.

Hart's exploits have been popular in western pulp fiction. The musical The Legend of Pearl Hart was based upon Hart's life, and her adventures are mentioned in the early 1900s film Yuma City. Pearl Hart was the subject of an episode of Tales of Wells Fargo that aired on May 9, 1960, played by Beverly Garland. She was also the subject of a Death Valley Days episode from March 17, 1964, titled "The Last Stagecoach Robbery", with Anne Frances playing the part of Pearl.

No One Is Too Tough to be Loved 

Join seven Texas Rangers on the hunt for a menacing gang, who run straight into romances with women who foil their plans for both the job and their futures.

In Partners in Crime by Vickie McDonough
Micah McCullough, a Texas Ranger working undercover in the Markham gang, is tasked with guarding Laurel Underwood, a silversmith, who was kidnapped to create plates for printing counterfeit money. Laurel knows she doesn’t have the expertise. Her only option is to stall and seek escape. What will the outlaws do when they learn her secret?

Bestselling author Vickie McDonough grew up wanting to marry a rancher, but instead, she married a computer geek who is scared of horses. She now lives out her dreams penning romance stories about ranchers, cowboys, lawmen, and others living in the Old West. Vickie is an award-winning author of nearly 50 published books and novellas, with over 1.5 million copies sold. Song of the Prairie won the 2015 Inspirational Readers Choice Award. Gabriel’s Atonement, book 1 in the Land Rush Dreams series, placed second in the 2016 Will Rogers Medallion Award. Vickie has recently stepped into independent publishing.