Pioneer Pieces: Stick em Up!

It didn't take long berfore Stagecoaches were easy targets for bandits out to make some fast cash.  In fact, stagecoach robbers were elevated to popularity because the robbers themselves were such personalities.
One such personality was Black Bart, a mild-mannered type of guy who sported a bowler hat and always worked alone.  He robbed stages carrying gold and silver and was reported to be Wells Fargo's worse nightmare.

One day put a flour sack over his hat, grabbed a shotgun and took to robbing stages as a career from that day forward.  Black Bart always left a calling card - he was a poet - so he left his verses at the scene of the crime to identify himself.

"Here I lay down to sleep
to wake the coming morrow
perhaps success, perhaps defeat
and everlasting sorrow.
I've labored long and hard for bread
for honor and for riches
But on my corns too long you've tred
You fine, hard sons of bitches.
Let come what will and I'll try it on
My condition but be worse
And if there's money in that box
That's money in my purse."

Newspapers made him a celebrity for many years, and most all stagecoach robberies were attributed to Bart, whether he did them or not!  He was finally caught in San Francisco, in the 1870s by a laundry mark on his shirt and served a "short sentence" before disappearing from public life.

The last known stagecoach robbery was by Pearl Hart in 1899 in Arizona.

Next time - colorful newpaper editors