Golden Valley chronicle. (Beach, Billings County, N.D.) 1905-1916, 1916-02-25
Box Car Thieves
Are Rounded Up
New In Jail at Dickinson, Where the
Robberies Took Place.-W. n.
Nevills, Former Beach Character,
One Of Gang.

OssO " Ssass8s
The mystery surrounding the epi-
.demic Of box car robberies which has
been puzzling Dickinson people for
. long time was finally solved last
week when five of the gang was
rounded up by the Dickinson police
force and are now awaiting hearing
in the Stark county Jail. It is al
legged that the ring leader of the gang
was w. H. Nevills, one of those cap
-tured. Nevills was formerly Of this
city, serving for a time as policeman
on the local force, later going to Bis
marck, where he was a guard at the
penitentiary for time. His local rep
utation is that Of tough citizen.
The Dickinson Press speaks of the
capture as follows:
Mayor Alf White and Chief oe
Police Pat Corbett were instrument
tai the past week in unearthing =
gang which, it is alleged, has been en-
gagged in the systematic stealing of
grain and merchandise from North
~arn Pacific freight cars for several
weeks past. AS result, ]. F. Mur-
ply of Glendive, Montana, special
secret service agent of this division
of the railway, was notified, and on
Monday night practically the entire
gang was rounded up.
It seems that w. H. Nevills and
j. O'Connor, better known as "Slim''
and "Coil-oil Johnnie" boarded a
west bound freight train at Mandan
some time last Thursday night, and
during the trip to Dickinson picked
out about 1900 worth of merchan-
disc, consisting of clothing and dry
goods, and dumped it on the ground
just as the train pulled into the
Dickinson yards. It is then alleged
that Newton Hougt, who has been
running second hand store just
south Of the Masonic temple for the
past couple of months was on. the
scene with a team and sleigh and
hauled the goods to the old Paddock
residence, north Of the court house
which he and his family occupy. The
goods were hidden in the basement
and barn, where they were later
found by the police and recovered
This is the deal that lead to detec.
tion, and the mayor and police i'm.
mediately got busy on the case.
It was later ascertained that there
were others implicated in the gang
and in addition to merchandise rob-
6eres, they had bored holes in the
bottoms Of freight cars containing
wheat, filed up a sleigh or Wagon
load and later sold it again to 10.
-sal elevators. The augur which was
used in the boring Of the holes was
later found near one of the eleya.
tors.
In addition to Nevills and O'Con.
nor, it is alleged that Pat Peters and
Wilbur Skude were implicated in tht
grain stealing deals, Peters doing
most of the hauling to the elevators
and selling.
Peters was married only a few
months ago, and lately moved with
his wife to Miles City, Mont, where
he was placed under arrest on We'd
nesday and brought back to Dickin-
son the following day by Chief Of
Police Corbett.
Hough, who is alleged to have re-
ceived the stolen merchandise and
secreted it about his premises, moved
to this city from homestead in Dunn
county couple Of years ago, and
has until recently been doing team.
ing work. A short time ago he took
over the management Of little Sec
ond hand store on Sims street, which
he was operating at the time of his
arrest.
Nevills is quite we'll kni wn II oueh-
out the S:cpe cuntry, having heen
sat one time 81 r.:icemal a, Beach,
and later As guard at :.,c state
Denitenr:arv III P,Smarck. lle has