Stagecoaches and robberies

A friend recently asked me to validate a stagecoach robbery that purportedly occurred in the late 1880’s.

According to the report on one of those Treasure Hunter Internet sites, there was $85,000 in gold taken during the robbery and it was never found; and that was compelling enough for my friend who has time on his hands and a metal detector!

The report went like this: “In the late 1880's, the stage on the Florence-Pinal Wells route was robbed of an $85,000 payroll bound for the old Pinal Silver Mine. The holdup took place along the stage road at a bend in Queen Creek about 3 miles E of Hewitt's Station, located in a canyon now named after it and E of Comet Creek, about 12 miles NW of Old Pinal Town. The bandits rode off to the W following Queen Creek and were caught by a posse about 10 miles down the creek and off to the hills around Comet Peak. One of the outlaws was shot and killed, another escaped and the third was badly wounded. The dying man confessed that the loot was, "...buried along the trail under a Palo Verde tree." A search was made, but nothing was found.”

I looked at the request as a real challenge. Having never done any research into the authenticity of old stagecoach robberies or anything in “the old west”; when I sat down at my desk to begin working on it, I was excited.

First thing I did was to break the story down into individual research components; each predicated on the success of the previous goal. If the first goal wasn’t successful, then there was no reason to go on with the remainder.

However, because I’ve only lived in Arizona a short time, I took this opportunity to learn more about my state’s rich history of mining and the old west as well as accomplish the overall research mission.

Research Goals
TD01 - Validate the holdup / robbery actually took place. “In the late 1880's, the stage on the Florence-Pinal Wells route was robbed of an $85,000 payroll bound for the old Pinal Silver Mine”
TD02 - Validate the amount of money. “an $85,000 payroll”
TD03 - Validate the money was never recovered. “A search was made, but nothing was found.”
TD04 - Determine location of Hewitt’s Station “3 miles E of Hewitt's Station”
TD05 - Determine location of Hewitt’s Canyon “located in a canyon now named after it”
TD06 - Determine location of Comet Creek “and E of Comet Creek”
TD07 - Determine location of Florence-Pinal Wells route. “the stage on the Florence-Pinal Wells route”
...You get the picture.....

The primary goal was to validate whether or not the holdup actually took place. Stage coach robberies were well publicized in those days and since they had the telegraph, news accounts of such daring holdups went far and wide across the nation; being printed in many newspapers. In addition, the name Wells-Fargo was mentioned in the story, which meant that the company more than likely had a report of this in their archives somewhere. Eighty-five thousand dollars is a lot of heavy gold. That one should show up for sure and certain on the radar somewhere because of that fact alone.

The search began with archived newspapers. Although there were many news stories of holdups and robberies of stages; nothing about this particular robbery was found. I did read about the purported “last” stagecoach robbery in the old west; which was executed in 1898 by a woman named Pearl Hart and her accomplice Joe Boot. They robbed the Globe, AZ., stage. Pearl was 27 and working in an Arizona mining camp as a cook. She used her feminine wiles to convince poor old Joe that they could make a heap of money and not have to work so hard by pulling off a few robberies. They held up a stage all right and got a little over four hundred dollars. But, being new to the thievery game, after they robbed the stage they got lost in the Arizona desert where the posse found them several days later. The trial was a sensation because of this ornery woman. Old Joe Boot got 35 years and Pearl got 5. She was the sole female prisoner in the Yuma Territorial Prison, and the governor was relieved when he released her after 2 1/2 years. I found her in the 1900 U.S. Federal Census for Yuma, Arizona Territory, Roll T623_48; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 85 where both her and Joe were listed as prisoners.

With no luck finding any report of this stagecoach robbery thus far, I switched to a search of books at several Internet sites which boast in their promotions of having thousands or millions of digitized books on hand. Again, after a few hours of searching, I found nothing on this specific robbery.

I then focused on general Internet searches and again logged goose eggs for my trouble. When I tried to send an email to the owner of the web site goldrushmining.net in an effort to ask about the source for the story; the email address offered for contact was returned indicating it was now defunct.

Finally, I came across a book - "Encyclopedia of Stagecoach Robbery in Arizona" – by R. Michael Wilson ISBN 0966592530 Published: 2003 - and ordered a copy from Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Stagecoach-Robbery-Arizona-Michael/dp/0966592530

While waiting for the book to arrive, I read information about it located here: http://www.wildwesttales.com/books_articles/Stagecoach_Robbery_Arizona.htm which told me that stage coach robberies began in earnest in between 1876 and 1903 and in fact the last robbery was not by Pearl Hart in 1898, but instead “The last stagecoach robbery in the Arizona Territory occurred near Yuma in 1903”.

I used Google Maps to plot the details of the landmarks in the report. I wanted to see if the underlying context of the story made sense, especially for robbers riding horses and found in fact, the story had plausibility from that perspective:

Once the book arrived, I read it and found it to be very thorough and well written. I searched it thoroughly for any sign of this robbery; but could find nothing. I wrote to the author asking where he got his information and if he’d ever heard of this event. R. Michael Wilson (http://www.wildwesttales.com/index.htm) was kind enough to express an opinion by saying that this reported robbery “sounds like one of those "lost or hidden treasure" stories concocted by someone trying to create a fascinating event. There are many such stories, and many actual events are manipulated or twisted to make it seem as if there are millions of dollars in gold or silver hidden somewhere to be found by some fortunate person”.

While writing "Encyclopedia of Stagecoach Robbery in Arizona", Mr. Wilson researched stagecoach robberies in Arizona by scanning every major AZ newspaper for the pertinent years (1865-1910) to find any mention of stagecoach robberies and once found, followed up with date/place-specific research. I would recommend the purchase of this book for anyone interested in a reference about the old west and in particular stagecoach robberies.

Mr. Wilson indicated that it's not uncommon to find outright hoaxes in "true" magazine stories and many instances of manipulation by those writing "lost treasure" stories. Mr. Wilson has researched over 650 stagecoach robberies and has found only a few instances where there might have been a lost treasure, as captured robbers typically traded hidden plunder for a reduced prison sentence.

Based upon what I discovered, I told my friend that I believe this event never occurred; however, I sent inquires to the Pinal County Historical Society, the Superstition Mountain Historical Society and the Wells Fargo History Museum asking for their opinions. I also sent a query to the Pinal County Main Library Reference Desk challenging them to weigh in on the authenticity of this story since the story supposedly happened in Pinal County, AZ. None of these organizations responded.

My friend and I are going to take a drive out to Pinal County, AZ., just to take a look around the areas that were included in the story. It’s so interesting to think that the remains of old Pinal, Hewitt’s Station and other artifacts of the old west and stagecoach days are still there today.

While researching this event, I also ran across the old ghost town of Pinal, AZ. In its heyday, the local newspaper was “The Pinal Drill”. The publisher was one James Denoon Reymart and in another author’s eyes (Warren Getler), this individual could have been a member of the KGC (Knight’s of the Golden Circle) and came to Pinal County to help store and guard a cache of gold that would allow the Confederacy to rise again.

The book is - "Shadow of the Sentinel: One Man's Quest to Find the Hidden Treasure of the Confederacy" – by Warren Getler and Bob Brewer - 2003. This book mentions the author finding hidden underground areas in Pinal County, AZ. It speculates that the publisher of the Pinal Drill was actually a Confederate sympathizer who worked to store hidden caches of gold for the Confederacy.

I’m reading this book now and it’s also really interesting. You can pick up a copy here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Yg8qM3AD9uEC&sitesec=buy&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Gregory