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The Bank Robbers of Roslyn

After terrorizing the region for months, a gang of cattle thieves and bank robbers is captured by a posse in the hills of Oregon.

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.

Three of the Roslyn bank robbers arrived at Arlington, Oregon, today in charge of Detective Sullivan and his deputies, having been captured in the mountains. They belong to the same class as the Dalton train robbers, being cattle and horse thieves and desperate characters who have terrorized the neighborhood for years. The first clue to their rendezvous was obtained by finding a horse one of the robbers had left near Ellensburg. A posse of twenty-five men followed the trail to the Columbia River, where they engaged the fugitives in a gunfight before eventually capturing them. The prisoners were identified by Dr. Lyons, who witnessed the robbery of the First National bank in Roslyn, Washington, on September 23. It is believed this same gang held up a train on the Northern Pacific last night and operated across the Pacific coast, robbing banks in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

“The people in the neighborhood of their residence have been in constant dread of them for years.”

— Printed in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892
Then · 1892134 years apartNow · 2026

Bank robberies by outlaws were common enough to trigger territorial-wide manhunts in the 1890s, with posses often relying on local tip-offs like abandoned horses. Today, the ghost town of Roslyn is better known for its cinematic history and preservation than as a hub for notorious train and bank robbers.

The original page

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-11-26. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

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About this story

From
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, NOV 26, 1892, Page 2
Rights
Public domain
Place
47.22304, -120.99336 · placed automatically
The paper in the Library of Congress catalog ↗