First Peacetime Train Robbery in U.S. - Oct. 6, 1866

The Reno Brothers staged the first peacetime train robbery in the U.S. on this day in 1866.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff
Works dot Com and from the desk of Stuff You
Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore
the past one day at a time with a quick
look at what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and it's October six.

(00:21):
The Reno Brothers staged the first peacetime train robbery in
the United States on this day in eighteen sixty six.
The reason we specify that it's the first peace time
train robbery is that there had been one train robbery
before this one on May five, just at the very
end of the US Civil War. That one was on
the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad. A group of men had

(00:44):
fouled one of the tracks to cause the train to derail.
Once the train hit that track and jumped off of it,
they robbed the passengers and the Adams Express Company car.
Today Adams Express Company is an equity fund, but at
the time it was an express company that delivered letters
and packages. The robbers were described as guerrillas. They were

(01:06):
dressed in civilian clothes but armed with navy revolvers. One
of the men was called lieutenant by the others, and
another one was called captain. So most of the time,
because of all of that and the fact that had
happened right at the end of the Civil War, this
is considered part of the war rather than a matter
of civilian robbery. There also, of course, for incidents during

(01:29):
that war of people commandering entire trains for military reasons.
So the one that's usually noted as the first train
robbery in the United States is that one that happened
on October six, eighteen sixty six. The first transcontinental railroad
had not yet been completed, that would happen in eighteen
sixty nine, but more and more train routes had been established,

(01:50):
and they were traveling through very remote parts of the
United States. Often there was not any kind of law
enforcement or other person one might go to for help
anywhere nearby, and it didn't take long for people to
figure out that a train full of mail and parcels
and people who could afford train tickets, far away from

(02:10):
any source of law enforcement, might be a good target
to rob. In this case, the people who had figured
that out were the Reno Brothers. That was Frank Simon,
John and William along with their associates. They boarded this
train near Seymour, Indiana, once again on the Ohio and
Mississippi Railroad, Adams Express Car was once again on their target.

(02:30):
The robbers made their way to that car and they
demanded the keys to the safes. The attendant who was
on duty in the car, though, only had the keys
for the local mail safe, so he opened that one
up for them and they took all of its contents.
Then the gang through the entire other safe off the
train with the intent of getting it open later on.
Then they jumped off the train. So because they had

(02:52):
gotten on near Seymour and they had left without anybody
outside of the Adams Express Car knowing what's going on.
Then Jineer just continued on unaware that anything was amiss
until somebody got his attention and told him about it.
The Pinkerton's investigated and this became the first of many
many train robberies, Especially in the nineteenth century. A lot

(03:13):
of other gangs, like Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch and the
James Younger Gang, became infamous for their train robbing. A
lot of gangs just specialized in robbing trains and soon,
train companies were hiring armed guards and reinforcing their mail
cars and otherwise trying to defend themselves from this newly
created type of crime. The Reno brothers were all captured

(03:36):
in eighteen sixty eight. Frank, Simeon, and William were hanged
later on that year after being taken out of the
prison where they were being held by a vigilante mob
who then took the law into their own hands. Their brother, John,
though had been captured earlier, he was serving time in
a different prison and he was spared that particular extra

(03:58):
judicial violence. Thanks so much to Torii Harrison for her
work on this show, and you can subscribe to This
Day in History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and
wherever else you get your podcast, and you can tune
in tomorrow for the birth of a Nobel Laureate