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News Story about train robbery at Stein's
A PASSENGER TRAIN HELD UP, Two Men Do the Slick Work Without Firing a Gun,
and Make a Clean Sweep of It.
El Paso, Tex., Feb- 23.--Capt J. N. Thacker, of the detective force of the
Wells-Fargo Express Company, gives the following details of the robbery of
the west-bound Southern Pacific Express at Stein's Pass, New Mexico, about
200 miles west of El Paso: Last night about 8 o'clock, as the west-bound
train pulled into Stein's Pass, two ordinary-looking miners seen to be
aboard the train. They were taken for tramps, as they stole on the "blind
baggage," that is, the car that has no end doors, and nothing more was
thought of them till the train suddenly stopped on the down grade about a
mile and a half out of Stein's Pass, when the astonishing discovery was
made that the train was without a locomotive and was minus the baggage,
rail and express cars. It then dawned upon the passengers that the train,
had been "held up." One of the two men who had boarded the baggage
car appeared on the tender of the locomotive when three miles out of Stein's
Pass, and, with cocked revolvers, compelled the engineer to stop the train,
his confederate having already uncoupled the passenger part of the train
and notified the brakeman to "break up" the train, which he
immediately did. As soon as the locomotive stopped the two men at once
went to Wells Fargo & Co.'s express car and demands of the messenger to
open the door, or they would blow him and the car into atoms. The car door
opened, then one of the robbers entered, the other stood out in the dark on
guard, well out of sight of any one that might try to play the Smith act
on him, the partner, meanwhile, systematically "going through" the express
car. After he had secured everything of value that the car contained, he
and his partner left, going southward. Capt. Thacker is of the opinion
that more than two men were concerned in the robbery; that although none
but the two men were seen to board the train at Stein's Pass, there were
confederates at the point where the engineer was compelled to stop the
locomotive. Nothing is as yet known of the value of the plunder secured,
farther than that the thieves made a clean sweep of all the car contained.
It must have been sufficient to have fully satisfied them, as they made
no attempt to rob the mail or baggage car which they had taken along with
them.
Current Issue: 1888-02-24 - Page 1 Dallas Morning News submitted by Janice S Rice
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