| Sam Bass | |
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 Photograph of Sam Bass |
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| Born | July 21, 1851 Mitchell, Indiana, U.S.A. |
| Died | July 21, 1878 (aged 27) Round Rock, Texas, U.S.A. |
| Occupation | Armed robbery |
Sam Bass (21 July 1851 in Mitchell, Indiana - 21 July 1878 in Round Rock, Texas) was a nineteenth-century American train robber and outlaw.
Contents |
Early life
Bass was orphaned at the age of 13. For the next five years, he and his siblings lived with an abusive uncle.[citation needed] In 1869, he set out on his own and spent the next year in Mississippi. In 1871, he moved to Denton, Texas.
Outlaw years
After failing at a series of legitimate enterprises, Bass turned to crime. He formed a gang and robbed the Union Pacific gold train from San Francisco. Bass and his men intercepted the train on September 18, 1877 at Big Spring, Nebraska, looting $60,000 ($1,197,000 in 2009 dollars)[1] - to this day the largest single robbery of the Union Pacific.[citation needed]
Bass and his gang staged a string of robberies, yet never netted over $500 at any one time.[citation needed] In 1878, they held up two stagecoaches and four trains within twenty-five miles of Dallas and became the object of a manhunt by Pinkerton Agents and by a special company of the Texas Rangers headed by Captain Junius Peak.
Bass was able to elude the Rangers until a member of his gang, Jim Murphy, turned informant. John B. Jones was informed of Bass's movements, and set up an ambush at Round Rock Texas, where Bass planned to rob the Williamson County Bank.
On 19 July 1878, Bass and his gang were scouting the area before the robbery. When they bought some tobacco at a store, they were noticed by Deputy Sheriff A. W. Grimes. When Grimes approached the men to request that they surrender their sidearms, he was shot and killed. [2] As he attempted to flee, Bass was shot by Ranger George Herold. He was found lying in a pasture by a group of railroad workers, who summoned the authorities.[citation needed] He was taken into custody and died the next day. Bass was buried in Round Rock. His original headstone is kept at the Round Rock Public Library.[citation needed]
Legacy
As with many figures of the American Old West, Bass captured the public's imagination.[citation needed] In 1936 the radio drama "Death Valley Days" portrayed Bass's last days before his death in Round Rock, Texas.[3] In 1954, he was portrayed by Don Haggerty in an episode of the syndicated western television series Stories of the Century. Haggerty was forty when he played the doomed 27-year-old Bass. Bass was thereafter portrayed by Jack Chaplain in an 1961 episode of The Outlaws. In the fictional 1951 film The Texas Rangers, Bass heads a gang composed of The Sundance Kid, John Wesley Hardin, Butch Cassidy and Dave Rudabaugh, then squares off against two convicts recruited by John B. Jones to bring them to justice.
References
- ^ Anonymous (1878), Life and Adventures of Sam Bass, Dallas Commercial Steam Print, p. 12.
- ^ The Officer Down Memorial Page on A. W. Grimes
- ^ [1]
- Rick Miller. Sam Bass & Gang, State House Press, 1999,
See also
External links
- The Story of Sam Bass
- Sam Bass from the Handbook of Texas Online
- Frontier Times - Outlaws: Sam Bass
- Old West Grave Sites - Sam Bass Coordinates: 30°31′02″N 97°41′51″W / 30.5173°N 97.6975°W (grave site)
- Life and Adventures of Sam Bass, The Notorious Union Pacific and Texas Train Robber: together with A Graphic Account of His Capture and Death, published 1878.
- The City of Allen's Video - The Great Allen Train Robbery- Story about the infamous first train robbery in Texas.
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