Getting word to Utah

Kanab circa 1889

So, how did people in so-called Dixie Utah learn the train robbers were coming their way.  Will C. Barnes wrote in 1929, "O'Neill sent a frowsy-headed Navajo kid with a message to the railroad people at Winslow, telling them the direction taken by the robbers and urging that the settlements in Southern Utah, towards which they were undoubtedly heading, be wired of the fact and the officers in that region put on the lookout. "

Telegraphs sent out of Winslow would have reached the Deseret Telegraph Company, an extensive Utah communications network that began in the 1860's.  Kanab was on the far southern end of those telegraph wires.  When word was received in Kanab, messengers would have carried the news to the far flung villages of the area.  Cannonville would have been a priority to get word to since the Paria River was a long-standing travel corridor carrying horsemen north from Lee's Ferry.

We can find no evidence that Cannonville itself was connected to the Deseret Telegraph network.  Therefore it's a reasonable speculation that someone carried the news in person to the people of Cannonville.

Will C. Barnes and his cowboy Broadbent had dutifully trailed the train robbers across the Painted Desert when they finally met up with Sheriff Buckey O'Neill and his three-man posse.  Here is the full passage from Barnes' account regarding his meeting with O'Neill's group.

"There on the Navajo Indian reservation we ran into & wild-eyed shrill voiced Navajo squaw herding a band of sheep. Like most Navajos she spoke considerable Spanish. "Had she seen any mounted men recently." She certainly had. Four she held up four fingers-“Belicanos"-Americans, had visited her camp while she was out with the herd and feasted upon everything eatable in it. Also they carried off with them a whole mutton she had killed and dressed that morning and left hanging in a cedar tree. She was somewhat mollified by finding three silver dollars lying on her bed which the raiders had left to pay for her hospitality.

Here O'Neill and his party overtook us. It consisted of the Sheriff Bucky O'Neill, his Flagstaff Deputy, Jim Black, and two Santa Fe special officers-Fred Fornhoff and Carl Holton. Our horses were about worn out, and we, too, were considerably the worse for wear, and mighty glad to turn the trail over to him. They were well mounted and had a good pack mule on which to carry grub and bedding; two things we had sadly lacked. As near as we could learn from the squaw the robbers were about out of horse-flesh themselves and were not making any fast time.

From this point O'Neill sent a frowsy-headed Navajo kid with a message to the railroad people at Winslow, telling them the direction taken by the robbers and urging that the settlements in Southern Utah, towards which they were undoubtedly head. ing, be wired of the fact and the officers in that region put on the lookout. We bade the O'Neill party good-bye and good luck and struck across country for Holbrook, which we reached several days later, ourselves and horses about all in.

O'Neill reached the Crossing at Lee's Ferry to learn that the fugitives had crossed only two days before. The ferryman was mad clear through. The robbers had coaxed a man by the name of Will Lee, with whom they had struck up an acquaintance along the way, to cross on the boat ahead of them and then by waiting for night, steal the boat and cross the four robbers while the ferryman was asleep. In this way they hoped to get across without leaving any trace behind at the ferry. It leaked out, however. On April 13, 1889, a correspondent of the Deseret News at Salt Lake published a story detailing the way the robbers crossed. The big ferry-boat had been hauled out of the river for repairs, which delayed the sheriff's party a few hours, but were finally ferried across together with their horses and plunder and took up the trail on the north side of the river."

To read all about Deseret Telegraph see:

Arrington, Leonard J. “The Deseret Telegraph--A Church-Owned Public Utility.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 11, no. 2, 1951, pp. 117–139. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2113125.