The End of the Reno Gang
The Reno Gang were arrested, but they broke out of jail and fled back to Indiana. There, they resumed train robberies, one of which netted them $96,000, a princely sum that gained the gang worldwide fame. Pinkerton Agency detectives learned of Frank Reno’s plans to rob another train. Forewarned, they staged an ambush, and soon as the gang boarded the train on July 9th, 1868, the detectives opened fire. Most of the gang escaped, but a captured member identified two others, who were arrested the next day. The train that was supposed to take them to jail in Seymour, Indiana, was stopped by masked vigilantes, who lynched the three prisoners by hanging them from a nearby tree.
Three more gang members were captured soon thereafter. The train that took them to the Seymour jail was again stopped by vigilantes, who hung the prisoners from the same tree. Ever since, the grisly site became known as Hangman’s Crossing. Frank Reno fled to Canada, but he was captured in Ontario and extradited back to America, where he was held with three other gang members in the Floyd County, Indiana, jail. On the night of December 11th, 1868, scores of masked vigilantes marched on the jail and forced the jailer to surrender the keys. Frank Reno was dragged from his cell in the early hours and lynched, followed soon thereafter by the rest of his criminal cronies.
