Top Five Most Interesting Facts About Laura Bullion and the Wild Bunch

Enter now to win a copy of

The Last Ride: Outlaw Laura Bullion and the Wild Bunch

1. Laura Bullion holds the distinction of being the nation’s first female train robber.
Laura was not simply a girlfriend who happened to associate with outlaws. She rode with the Wild Bunch, knew its hideouts, and became involved in the world of train robbery at a time when women were rarely imagined as active participants in such crimes.

2. Women were a real part of the Wild Bunch story.
Laura wasn’t the gang’s only female associate. Five women are identified with the bandit group: Laura Bullion, Etta Place, Annie Rogers, Ann Bassett, and Josie Bassett. They had relationships with members of the gang and sometimes had access to its hideouts. Laura was romantically involved with Ben “The Tall Texan” Kilpatrick.

3. An $85 watch helped bring Laura and Ben Kilpatrick down.
In November 1901, Kilpatrick bought an $85 watch at a St. Louis pawnshop and paid with four $20 bills. The pawnbroker later took the bills to a bank, where teller Victor Jacquemin checked their serial numbers against a Pinkerton circular. They matched notes stolen in the Great Northern robbery. That purchase helped put detectives on the trail of Kilpatrick—and ultimately Laura.

4. Laura was caught with $7,500 in stolen money when her purse spilled open.
After Kilpatrick disappeared, Laura realized something was wrong and prepared to flee St. Louis by train. Detectives were already waiting at her hotel. During a struggle over her purse, it spilled open on the counter, revealing $7,500 in banknotes connected to the train robbery. A search of her room even uncovered the charred remains of money in the fireplace.

5. One of the Wild West’s most notorious women disappeared into Memphis and became a seamstress.
This may be the most remarkable part of Laura’s story. She reinvented herself as Mrs. Freda Lincoln and spent more than forty years making draperies and doing sewing work in Memphis. Her customers had no idea the quiet woman measuring their windows and sewing their curtains had once ridden with the Wild Bunch. She essentially succeeded at something many famous outlaws could not: she survived the Wild West, disappeared, and lived an ordinary life.

To learn more read The Last Ride.

Enter now to win a copy of the book.