Sam Bass Train Robbery

Duane's take

The official marker tells this one, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Now, April 10, 1878: you want to talk about a bad day to be a train robber? Or maybe a worse day to be Sam Bass?

Here's what happened right here in Dallas County. Sam Bass rode up with four others, Seab Barnes, Hank Underwood, a man they called Arkansas Johnson, and Frank Jackson. Five men, one Texas and Pacific train, and what must've felt like a pretty solid plan.

They stopped that train, worked their way through it, and when the dust settled, they had themselves a hundred and fifty-two dollars. One hundred. Fifty-two.

Dollars. Now, I want you to sit with that number for just a moment, because here is what Sam Bass and his four associates did not know as they rode away feeling pretty pleased with themselves: somewhere on that train, tucked away out of sight, was a hidden shipment worth thirty thousand dollars. Thirty.

Thousand. Dollars. They missed it clean.

Thirty thousand dollars on one side of a locked door, and a hundred and fifty-two on the other, and Sam Bass walked away with the wrong side of that bargain without ever knowing it. But the story doesn't end there. Three months later, Bass was deep into planning a bank robbery when the Texas Rangers caught up with him.

And Sam Bass was fatally shot. A hundred and fifty-two dollars, a missed fortune of thirty thousand, and a date with the Rangers three months on. That's the whole ledger of Sam Bass right there, settled in full.

What the marker says

Sam Bass -- with Seab Barnes, Hank Underwood, "Arkansas" Johnson, and Frank Jackson -- held up a Texas & Pacific train here, April 10, 1878. They took $152, but missed hidden shipment of $30,000. In planning a bank robbery 3 months later, Bass was fatally shot by rangers.