The Posse After the Reno Gang

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Principles of Posse Management:

Lessons from the Old West for Today’s Leaders.

Newspaper readers from Hartford, Connecticut, to Portland, Oregon, were shocked to read about the bold and daring robbery of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad on October 6, 1866.  It was the first robbery of its kind.  Banks and stage lines had been robbed before, but no one had perpetrated such a crime on a railroad.  According to the October 20, 1866, edition of the Altoona Tribune, three masked bandits entered the car stopped at a station near Seymour, Indiana, with the idea of taking money from the Adams Express safe.  They entered the car from the front platform, leveled their revolvers at the head of the guard on duty, and demanded he hand over the keys to the safe.  He did so with no argument.

While one of the bandits stood guard, the others opened and removed the contents of one of the three safes which included more than $20,000 in cash.  When the job was done, the desperadoes moved one of the safes to the door of the car, opened it, and tossed the box out.  The heavy safe hit the ground hard, rolled, and came to a stop.  One of the masked men pulled on the bell cord, and, as the engineer replied with the signal to apply the brakes, the robbers jumped out the train and made their escape.

The engineer saw the bandits leap off the train and speculated they were headed in the direction of Seymour.  The train slowed to a stop and one of the agents for the Adams Express Company who was on the train hopped off and ran back to the station with the news of the robbery.  He commandeered a handcar and recruited a few men to help him collect any evidence left behind by the thieves.  On the agent’s way back to the train, he found the safe tossed from the car.  The $15,000 inside had not been touched.

The Adams Express Company offered a $5,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the robbers.  A witness aboard the train the evening it was robbed told authorities he recognized the desperadoes who stole the money as the Reno brothers, John and Simeon, and one of their friends, Frank Sparks.  Citizens and detectives alike began a vigorous search, but the brothers proved impossible to locate.

Unbeknownst to the Reno boys and the gang of outlaws with whom they associated, the Pinkerton Detective Agency had been hired to protect all Adams and Express Company shipments.  Armed with the descriptions provided by the witness, Allan Pinkerton, head of the investigation firm, set out to find the culprits.  Pinkerton traced the Renos to Seymour, a lawless community where rustlers, bandits, and cutthroats from all over the area gathered.

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Principles of Posse Management: Lessons from the Old West for Today’s Leaders