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The Notorious Men of the Wild West

Khalid Elhassan December 4, 2019 32 min

24. The Go-Getter Bandit

Sam Bass and some of his partners in crime. We Denton Did It

Sam Bass (1851 – 1878) was a go-getter. Before turning outlaw, he tried his hand at a succession of legal professions, and worked as a farmer, miner, cowboy, teamster, and saloon owner. Unfortunately, he was addicted to gambling, and not very good at it. His persistent losses in gambling dens and the race track eventually led him to try and make a quick buck by trying his hand at robbery.

Bass first gained fame as a member of the “Black Hills Bandits“, a gang that staged the biggest train robbery in the history of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1878 near Big Springs, Nevada. Bass and his crew netted about $60,000 in newly minted $20 gold coins from the express car, plus $1300 and gold watches from passengers.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.