Not long ago those in the family who have been watching the TV program “The Curse of Oak Island” also watched the program “Beyond Oak Island” as the show hosts continue to search for buried treasure in other places. In this particular episode they were talking about a character known to anyone who grew up in Big Springs, Nebraska. Sam Bass the Train Robber.
That episode prompted me to do a little searching and just share here some of the details of Sam Bass and the train robbery.
Sam and his crew get credit for the first and largest train robbery on September 18, 1877. Big Springs wasn’t even a town yet. Sam and his gang took over the telegraph station and destroyed it. They forced the station master to signal the trail to stop and when it did, they boarded.
Finding only $450 in the mail car safe, they then went to rob the larger safe, but it had a time lock preventing it from being opened until the train reached its destination. Though they beat the express messenger brutally to get him to open it, the messenger was unable to. However, the outlaws continued to search the train car, finding some wooden boxes, which revealed $60,000 worth of freshly minted $20 gold pieces. Why these were not in the safe is unknown. The bandits then began to rob the train passengers systematically. In the end, they escaped with the $60,000 in freshly minted gold coins, $450.00 from the mail car safe, and about $1,300.00 and four gold watches from the passengers. – excerpt from Legends of America. $60,000 in 1877 is about $1.5 million in 2020.
Sam and his gang then split up and Sam was back to robbing trains. He was now a target of the famed Texas Rangers. He was shot in Round Rock Texas, and died on July 21, 1878, his 27th birthday (Story of Sam Bass from Round Rock Texas). It sounds like the hunt for Sam Bass was truly the stuff legends are made of based on the above article from Round Rock. There is “The Ballad of Sam Bass“, and his statement to law officials when he knew he was dying and refusing to provide any information on the rest of his gang was “it is ag’in’ my profession to blow on my pals. If a man knows anything he ought to die with it in him,” – copied from the Story of Sam Bass. There are books written on his life, there was a wax statue of Sam in Madam Tussaud’s Waxworks in London, and Round Rock, TX Frontier Days celebration memorialized him.
The story of the train robbery was carried in newspapers from Boston to California and at the time of the robbery I’m sure most people in the country knew of Sam Bass. It’s just a few of us who grew up in the little town that grew up around that train stop and telegraph station.
I remember hearing that the Sam Bass robbery was the inspiration for the first silent film -the 1903 The Great Train Robbery and just found the news article from the Big Springs Enterprise published in 1972 with that statement. Looking at the Wikipedia page it seems like the inspiration may have been from more current events, but the film was also based on an 1896 melodrama, so it’s hard to say for sure, I’ll continue to believe that Sam Bass at least inspired it a little bit. See the 12-minute film here
The Oak Island Crew didn’t find any of the supposed buried Sam Bass Treasure on their search, but you never know – it may turn up yet!
Additional info from “Only in Your State” – with images
Sam Bass Wikipedia Page
1878 Book on Sam Bass – Life and adventures of Sam Bass, the notorious Union Pacific and Texas train robber
Cory and Nicole Family History 