The blog's purpose is to help John Parsons prepare to eventually write a story about the Canyon Diablo Train Robbery that took place March 20, 1889. Please send any commentary about this topic to arizonahistorystories@gmail.com.
Monday, December 30, 2019
The Moon Phase
Some accounts say The Canyon Diablo Train Robbery took place under the full moon. That's not quite true. The full moon occurred on March 17. The moon light on March 20 was still quite bright but it wasn't technically a full moon. Now we have to figure out where in the sky the moon was located at 11 PM.
Atlantic & Pacific Train Schedule
Numerous accounts of the CDTR say the train pulled into Canyon Diablo at precisely 11 PM. That would check out with the official schedule printed in Flagstaff's "Arizona Champion" newspaper. The Eastbound train left Flagstaff at 9:15 PM and was scheduled to arrive in Winslow at 11:30 PM.
Source: https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/digital/collection/sn82016246/id/2935/rec/134
The Night of the 100th Anniversary
So, you have to realize The Canyon Diablo Train Robbery is not new with me. It goes back to the mid-80's...or even earlier, I can't remember. Reading the story for the first time left such an indelible impression on me I couldn't ever forget it and never have. It's always been sort of a Mile Stone in my pantheon of Life Stories. It defines what I've always thought Arizona and The West was All About.
So, let's rewind ourselves into the Way Back Time Machine. I had a Dear Friend Shawn. He and I were returning from Lees Ferry after shuttling a vehicle north. As day turned to night, I told Shawn about The Canyon Diablo Train Robbery and how it happened 100 years ago that very day. Shawn was intrigued and absorbed by the story and kept prodding me for more. Of course, I had more, and poured forth all I knew.
As we approached Flagstaff, I proposed to Shawn the idea that we drive out to Canyon Diablo on the 100th Anniversary of The Robbery to just stand there and "soak it all in". Shawn was totally ALL IN on the idea.
So, we refueled with gas and adult beverages and headed east on I-40, chattering all the while about what it would have been like 100 years ago. As chance would have it, conditions in 1989 closely replicated those in 1889 on the same day.
If you've ever been to Canyon Diablo you know it ain't easy going to get there. It's a rough anatomy road that takes some fortitude to navigate, especially at night. So we bounced ourselves over the sharp-edged limestone and drew ever closer to our goal.
As we strained our eyes, we thought we could see a glimmer of light someplace. I stopped the 4x4 truck and turned to Shawn. I said, "Wouldn't it be great if we could find a place to truly tell the story?" He took another sip of his adult beverage and nodded.
We proceeded on and, as we approached the railroad tracks the tiny light grew ever brighter. We parked the truck and I said, "Let's go rally up whoever is in that caboose."
So, we stumbled over the rough limestone to the caboose and I climbed up the steps and banged on the door. A wide-eyed young man opened the door and yelled out "What do you want?"
I told him we just wanted to tell The Story of The Canyon Diablo Train Robbery on the occasion of the exact 100th Anniversary of its actual occurrence and we NEEDED a place to tell the story and could we please come in!
Well, he didn't know what the hell we were talking about but he somehow trusted us and let us into his caboose which at that time had a glowing fire in the stove and was as warm and toasty as you could imagine.
Shawn sat down on a bench and the caboose guy kept a wary eye on me. And then I launched off. Man, I launched off. I told The Story of The Canyon Diablo Train Robbery better than its ever been told before or since. NOBODY could ever match me on that night's rendition of the story, I let it ALL loose like some volley from The Story Gods.
Even as I told The Story that Night I was actually listening to myself and thinking to myself, "Gosh, where did you get THAT?" But it was so good.
SO Very Good.
We climbed off that caboose that night and each went our own way to Destiny.
And Then tonight....The Guy in The Caboose Comes Back!
Oh! My! Gosh!
Why Buckey?
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| Photo by Ellen Jo Dahlberg Roberts |
Buckey is My Personal Hero and there's so much more to say about that. I began my political career in 1986 and the results helped forever change The Face Of The Verde River. In 1988 I ran again, just like Buckey did back in his day. And those results, too, cemented forever the gains I had made for The Verde. I channeled Buckey every day. That's what you do when you have a Hero.
In the 1988 Election, since I was running for US Congress, The Arizona Republic was required to interview me and write and publish an article on me. The newspaper had long since developed a "stock" series of questions. So, one of the questions the reporter asked me was "Who Are Your Heroes?"
I was running as an Independent so I could have whoever Heroes I felt like! My Heroes were (and forever are) Sharlot Hall and Buckey O'Neill. It was SO great to see The Arizona Republic publish my answers to their candidate survey. I know danged well that raised the reporter's eyebrows when I answered his question!
ALL the other candidates replied their Heroes were Ronald Reagan or John Kennedy, depending on political party, of course.
It's 31 years later and my answer would still be the same. Two Of The Greatest People to EVER set foot on Arizona Soil!
Canyon Diablo Atlantic & Pacific R.R. Station
Well, the telegrapher at the tiny Canyon Diablo Station played an important eye-witness role in The Canyon Diablo Train Robbery. He "thought" about the idea of bagging himself some train robbers and collecting the fat reward but, as he sneaked around the building, one of the robber spotted him and winged a pistol bullet his way. That cured the telegrapher of any desire for reward money.
Naturally, we've always been curious as to what that building looked like and how the telegrapher was situated. Ralph Keithley's 1949 book includes a fuzzy photo on Page 107 that purports to show the original 1889 building.
Naturally, that caused us to dig into the "standard plans" so common with railroads. Was that building within the specifications of the design genre back then? Sure enough, we found an excellent article describing small station design and the Canyon Diablo building would have been well with the ubiquitous dormer bay structures. We would imagine the railroad had a series of plan sheets each scaled according to the size needed for any particular site.
Source of station plan information:
https://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/1981spring_bohi.pdf
Canyon Diablo Train Robbery Project Explained
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| Source: https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/digital/collection/histphotos/id/5865/rec/1 |
For years we struggled with how to retell the story and whether to make it a fictional rendition or to stick with the facts.
Finally, after a few decades of deliberation, we've decided to simply be an Editor. We will assemble various account of the fabled incident and describe how each account may or may not stray from the facts. Of course, the so-called "facts" are relatively few and far between. There are so many mythical accounts of the saga it's difficult to separate fact from fiction.
That's why it makes a whole lot more sense to simply attempt to be an impartial referee rather than an author trying to reinvent the wheel.
Heck, there is so much stuff relating to this story, it will take a good size book just to corral it all between two covers!
It's really fun to revisit a legend that I first learned about in the mid-80's. Much of my own memory fogged facts from yesterday. SO I am relearning the story anew. The whole project will take an long and undetermined amount of time. However, since it's one of my all-time favorite stories and one that I never tire of reading, reciting and reflecting, it's all an immense amount of fun.
The group of four men is the posse that captured the robbers in Wahweap Canyon (discussed earlier today). My Hero Buckey O'Neill is second from right in the group.
The solitary individual is the incredibly famous Will C. Barnes. Barnes figures prominently in the Canyon Diablo Train Robbery Story but that incident was just a mere a fly speck in his amazing overall life story.
Studying Buckey's Life Story and the robbery saga has brought all these guys to back to life in my mind's eye and spirit.
Source: https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/digital/collection/histphotos/id/5826/rec/1
The Train
Yet another piece of out long-running puzzle came into focus today. Many of you know we are an addicted rail fan so we just HAD to know the probable Atlantic & Pacific locomotive and baggage and coach car type in use at the time of the 1889 Canyon Diablo Train Robbery.
As luck would have it, world famous and legendary photographer William Henry Jackson took a fabulous photos of an express train posed on the Canyon Diablo bridge roughly in the same era as the robbery.
It would be reasonable to speculate it was an American type 4-4-0 engine such as the one Jackson photographed. The 4-4-0 American was just about as generic a locomotive as was possible to be in those days and was a common workhorse of both the Atlantic & Pacific and their successor, the AT&SF R.R.
The first 3 images were extracted as screen clips from an enlarged version of the fourth photo.
Photo source: https://digital.denverlibrary.org/digital/collection/p15330coll21/id/7736
The 4-4-0 American type locomotive was still being used on the AT&SF in the 90's.
This photo is said to be circa 1895.
Famed photographer William Henry Jackson had a "good eye" for all subjects but he had an especially "good eye" for All Things Railroad. It's a very little known part of his career but Jackson actually traveled the Union Pacific side of the first transcon from Nebraska to Promontory Summit in the summer of 1869 and recorded some stunning images along the way. Plus, he kept a detailed daily journal! His photographic work on the railroad helped catapult him to future fame.
In any event, Jackson was undaunted when it came to getting "the best angle" for railroad infrastructure. This is a classic example of his work...standing in the bottom of Canyon Diablo looking up at the trestle. On my second visit to Canyon Diablo back in the mid-80's, I figured out how to climb down to the bottom of the steep canyon. Trust me, it was difficult and I wasn't carrying cumbersome antique photographic equipment such as Jackson would have been. What a sweet photo!
Photo source:
Wahweap Canyon
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| Right push pin is 37.2888 -111.78175 |
But what's the puzzle? Well, it's all about The March 1889 Canyon Diablo Train Robbery. The four robbers had a narrow escape in Cannonville, Utah, and then once again began their run from the law. Sheriff Buckey O'Neill and his posse of three hard-riding deputies got to Cannonville not long after the robbers skedaddled so their trail was easy to follow.
O'Neill and his men caught up with the robbers in Wahweap Canyon and, after a substantial shootout, were able to capture the outlaws.
Since I first became smitten by this story in the mid-1980's, I always associated Wahweap Canyon with the Wahweap we all know today...near the marina on Lake Powell near Page.
Well, after more than 30 years, today we finally pieced that part of the pule together. The shootout and captures didn't take place anywhere near what's now Wahweap Marina. Nope, the climax of the posse pursuit occurred many, many miles to the north.
In the past couple of days we've read perhaps a half dozen accounts of the pursuit and shootout. Using details in those accounts, plus currently available online descriptions of Wahweap Canyon, plus our own knowledge of the Cannonville, Utah, area we finally figured it out.
The robbers would have ridden east of Cannonville out past Kodachrome Basin toward what's now known as Grosvenor Arch near the head of Cottonwood Wash. By crossing a ridge east of the arch, they would have dropped into the Wahweap Creek drainage. The robbers weren't very bright and they rode out to a point overlooking Wahweap Canyon where they were surrounded by cliffs on three sides. Meanwhile, the posse had the fourth side--their escape route. and that's when and where the shooting started.
In the graphic, the left arrow shows Cannonville and the right arrow is the most likely site of the shootout and capture. This puzzle piece fits even better when considering the timeline of the robbers departure from Cannonville matched up with the approximate speed of a horseman in that rough country.
Finally, at least, we can plunk down another piece of this jigsaw puzzle. It's starting to come together!
Here's the Wahweap Creek Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahweap_Creek
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