The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1893-10-28

An Adams express car attached to a
Frisco train was blown open and $780,
600 taken from the safe. Hedgepeth
and Slye, two of the robbers, were con-
victed. On the Goth of last May YER
dant Missouri youth, who had acquired
some knowledge of dynamite while
blowing up stumps on his fathers farm,
held up a Missouri Pacific train near
Pacific, Mo-, shattered the express car
and compelled the Messenger to hand
out as much gold as one man could
carry away. Wilson was overtaken and
sent to prison for long term of years.
The killing of John Sontag, the Cali
fornia bandit, two years ago, soon after
the robbery of the Los Angeles express
near Ceres, left but one organized band
of "hold ups" in the feld-the Dalton
brothers. Sontag KILLED four detectives
and wounded several others before he
was trapped and shot in the Sierra
Nevada mountains. The Daltons began
their career in California several years
ago, but were chased out of the state
and over the mountains to the Indian
Territory after holding up an express
train near Tulare, Cal, and forcing the
engineer to break open the express car
for them. They got $4,000. Their
most noted exploit was holding up
train on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas
road, which carried an armed guard of
twenty men, the railroad company hav-
ing been warned that the train would be
attacked at Adair, Ind ian Territory.
The robbers kept up such a fusilade
that the guards dared not show their
heads until the express car had been
raided and the train permitted to pro-
coed. One passenger was killed and
several wounded by flying bullets.
Bill Dalton is now the only one of the
family living, two of the brothers hav-
ing been killed in a raid on a Kansas
bank about year ago. Bill has
gathered about him as desperate a set
of bandits as ever roamed the territory,
and only few months ago they held up
train on the Atchison and Santa Fe
railroad near Dodge City, Kansas, and
got away with $4,000. The latest
job laid to the gang was the attack on
the Frisco train at Mound Valley, Kan,
on the Sd inst. Express Messenger
Chapman stepped out onto the platform
| IF bic car RI coo xuha+ moe the tropbl a
! ahead and was shot by one of the rob-
bers, said to be Bill Dalton. Chap
mans body rolled off the moving train,
and the robbers were thus frustrated,
as without his aid they were unable to
enter the safe, which resisted all efforts
to shatter it with dynamite. The pas.
sengers were robbed, however, and the
gang then rode off in the direction OF
Oklahoma. A few days later Bill Dalton
was wounded in a fight with deputy
marshals, three of the officers and one
of the bandits being killed. Dalton is
still at large, but it is only question Of
time when he will meet the fate Of
Jesse James, Bill Bass, Rube Burrows
and John Sontag.
Train robbery is on the increase
The use of explosives has rendered
futile the efforts of car builders to con
struct robber proof express cars ant
safes, and some other and more effec
tive safeguard will have to be adopted
before train robbing becomes a closed
chapter in the criminal annals of tn,
country. The problem is a grave on
for the express companies, who's
losses up to date are probably over
rather than under, s., 100000.