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Where Soapy’s Luck Ran Out


Ghost Cowboy is about real tales from the 19th-century American frontier, when the Old West was young. Most of the posts here are actual news items from the 1800s and early 1900s. We'll be adding "new" content every week. Travel with us and sign up for an account, and you'll be able to leave comments and post in our forums. Your trailmasters, Ken in Alabama and Dave in Virginia, don't get to saddle up and vacation out west as often as they'd like, so they started this site. Drop us a note.

frontiersman


BERNAL'S BAND OF OUTLAWS.


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THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT BOUND TO CAPTURE THEM.

New-York Times / December 25, 1887

NOGALES, Arizona, Dec. 25. - It is learned that Gen. Moraz with a party of troops went to Otaez soon after receiving the news of the sacking of the town of Bernal. He found the houses barricaded and the streets deserted and that half had not been told regarding the outrages committed by Bernal's band. All of the able-bodied inhabitants have joined the Federal troops in an effort to exterminate the band.

THE BISBEE ASSASSINS HANGED.


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Galveston Daily News / March 29, 1883

TOMBSTONE, A. T., March 28 -- O. W. Sample, Dan Dowd, William Delane and Dan Kelly were hanged this afternoon for the Bisbee murders.

The five bandits marched up the steps of the scaffold without flinching. All declared their innocence and said Heath, who was lynched here February 23, was also innocent. They bade good-by to all their friends and expressed faith in the christian religion. They requested their bodies to be delivered to Father Gallagher. Nothing occurred to mar the sheriff’s plans. The murderers were all dropped off

Two Train Robbers Killed


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Two train robbers killed near Anderson, Texas. March 13, 1912. Photograph by Norman E. McLeod. Records of Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Full size.

ROBBED A TRAIN!


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Arizona Republican / October 2, 1894

The Quietude of Sunday Night Broken.
Southern Pacific Express No. 19 Held Up.

VERY SWIFT JUSTICE

One of the Robbers Riddled With Buckshot in Just Eight Hours After the Robbery.

SURPRISED IN THEIR CAMP.

The eastbound Southern Pacific train No. 19 was held up one mile east of Maricopa on Sunday night. The robbery was nominally successful, but eight hours later one of the outlaws was riddled with buckshot and is now lying in the county jail in deadly peril of the gallows.

The arms and horses of the band were captured and the two associates of the wounded robber are supposed to be skulking in the dense brush near Fisher’s ranch eight miles west of town. Accurate descriptions of the men have been sent out in every direction and their escape is regarded as an impossibility. They may

 

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