The Midnight Hold-Up Near Hot Springs
A masked trio halts a Northern Pacific sleeper, terrifying passengers and making off with $1,200 in cash and gold.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Northern Pacific train from the East was held up by three masked robbers at Hot Springs last night and the passengers on the sleeping car were robbed of about $1,200 and five or six gold watches. The robbers seem to have boarded the train at Hot Springs station and remained on the rear platform of the sleeper Wadena, which was on the rear end of the train, until it had started. They then entered the car, and one went to the front end and the other two remained inside the rear door. With an oath they ordered the trembling and astonished passengers to sit still and hold up their hands as they presented revolvers at them. The two at the rear end went to work systematically. There were ten or twelve passengers on board and all were relieved of money and valuables. One man in the smoking compartment made a show of resistance, but was quickly brought to submission with a blow on the head with a revolver. Another passenger, who came to Seattle with his wife and two little daughters, was sitting across the aisle from the latter when a revolver was poked in his face. His young daughter pleaded, 'Don't move, papa. Hold up your hands and he won't hurt you.' He took the child's advice and was relieved of $800 in cash, a gold watch, and baggage checks. After completing their work, which occupied about five minutes, they signaled the train to slow, jumped off, and disappeared into the darkness.
“Don't move, papa. Hold up your hands and he won't hurt you.”
This daring heist on the Northern Pacific line captures the transition of the Pacific Northwest from a wild frontier to a landscape being stitched together by rail. While the train robbery is a trope of the American West, the specific detail of the child pleading for her father's life adds a haunting, human element that persists in the lore of the region's early boom years.
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