"Haha, you call that gold?"
"Put your hand on the table, Jim!"
*plop!*
"Ouch!"
"If it's heavy, it's gold."
Gold - this strangely shiny transition metal, number 79 on the periodic table - framed by the disdainful mercury and its little brother platinum - has always held a special fascination for human minds and greed.
Today in Wild West Wednesday we focus on a man who struck a fabulous vein of gold in 1877, but only enjoyed it for less than a year. This was partly because the gold was on a train and partly because the man now took a liking for raiding.
Sam Bass originated from Indiana and got around as a young man. He worked in a sawmill, as a carriage driver, briefly as an assistant for a sheriff, as a cowboy, was involved in horse racing and then as a cowhand. The money he earned was spent on women and gambling by Sam and his partner Joel Collins, so new money was needed.
They hired four men and started robbing stagecoaches with limited success until the day a Union Pacific railway and Sam Bass crossed paths. The six robbed the train and captured a staggering 60,000 US dollars (a lot of money by the standards of the time) in freshly minted gold. But because gold also exerts a fascination on its original owners, all levers were set in motion to recover the gold.
Two members of the gang were caught shortly after the robbery, Sam Bass escaped and started a new posse in Texas to continue his series of moderately successful robberies. However, losing streaks wore on his force as Pinkerton detectives, Texas Rangers and sheriffs would not let go. During a raid on a bank in the summer of 1878, Sam Bass was lured into a trap and he died in the firefight where he shot another man for the first and only time.
The train robbery is still the largest train robbery in the US in terms of booty.
While we are not scheduling train or stagecoach robberies, we are planning a series of updates at regular intervals to improve the game piece by piece. Thank you for staying with us!