Account of Belle Fourche Bank Robbery from Empty Saddles Forgotten Names, Outlaws of the Black Hills and Wyoming by Doug Engebretson
All the facts quoted here are footnoted from Belle Fourche Times, Deadwood Pioneer-Times, and Charles Kelly’s The Outlaw Trail: The Story of Butch Cassidy and “The Wild Bunch”
When “the Curry gang” botched the June 27, 1897 robbery of the Butte County Bank the editor of the Belle Fourche Times was left to ponder a perplexing problem, one which he felt could have a national impact. “If 25 men, armed to the teeth, succeeded in killing a horse belonging to one of their own number, how many men will be required to whip Spain, in the event of war with that country?” he philosophically inquired.
. H. Chapman, C. A. Dana, Rev. Clough, E. M. Mitchell and Sam Arnold were in the bank waiting to transact business when the bank officially opened.
As Cashier A. H. Marble and accountant Tinchnor were preparing for the day’s business three or four men, their guns drawn, burst into the bank yelling, “Hold up your hands.” Those inside readily complied with the order, but as Mr. Marble testified later, the gang seemed to be at a complete loss about what they should do next. “They seemed rattled, running from one man to another, telling them to hold up their hands; they did not seem to do much of anything except run from one man to another” Marble grabbed a revolver which was hidden near his elbow. He pointed it at the nearest intruder and squeezed the trigger. The minor explosion he expected was reduced to a lowly “click” as the bullet misfired. Good authority had it that, his heroics failing, the only thing preventing Marble’s arms from being any higher in the air was his height, or rather, his lack of it.
Rev. Clough who was back of the cashier’s screen writing a letter started forward at the unusual amount of noise. He was immediately confronted by a “row of six-shooter muzzles” and ordered to put up his hands too. “Why I’m only a poor Methodist preacher,” he assured the gang. “You don’t want anything of me.” “Preacher be damned,” came the terse reply. “Put up your hands.” Discretion being the better part of valor, it was said later, the Reverend, when he discovered how lightly the gang regarded the cloth, ran into the bank vault.
Alanson Giles, from his hardware store almost opposite the bank, saw the men’s hands in the air over the window’s half curtains. Realizing that something was wrong at the bank Giles ran across the street and opened the bank door. The interior of the bank bristled with six-shooters and Giles made a hasty retreat back to his store with one of the robbers in close pursuit.
A Mr. Tracy, whose testimony would later identify Tom O’Day as a member of the gang, saw Giles and his pursuer and went to get a closer look-see. “I thought it was some kind of joke,” he testified. Giles ran out the back door of his store and sounded the alarm that the bank was being robbed.
At this Tom O’Day and Walter Punteney stepped out of the bank and began shooting up and down the street and into the stores of Giles’ and the Gay Brothers. At the sound of the shooting, O’Day’s horse, which had been left unhitched ran off to join those of the fleeing robbers, leaving O’Day on foot. In their hasty departure one of the gang had the presence of mind to scoop up the precious little money the robbery netted: ninety-seven dollars.
Although Mr. Marble’s little pistol misfired in the bank, given some good ammunition, he proved to be a real heller with a gun. City Marshal Lee Brooks testified, “When I got there Mr. Marble was shooting, but the robbers were no where in sight.
O’Day attempted to make the best of a bad situation and yelled at Brooks, “Don’t shoot at the horses, they have one of mine.” His ploy worked. No one realized O’Day was one of the bank robbers until he mounted an old mule and tried to urge it in the direction of Sundance Hill, the escape route taken by his companions.
A small crowd gathered to witness the mule grudgingly begin to move but emerge victorious – and go in the opposite direction.
O’Day then abandoned the mule and set about to find a horse. He walked down the street and broke into a run at the vacant lot between Sebastian’s Saloon and the Times office. Butcher Rusaw Bowman was the first to realize why O’Day’s horse had joined the others and took up pursuit of him. He saw O’Day run past the “water closet”, then turn around and duck into it. O’Day held his left hand in front of him, but Bowman was able to see a concealed revolver, half out of its holster. When O’Day emerged moments later, Bowman “throw down” on him and held him at bay until others arrived. Bowman then made a search of O’Day’s pockets which yielded a pint of whiskey, some .44 calibre bullets and $392.50.
From atop the elevator Frank Bennett observed a rider lagging behind the others. Bennett aimed his gun at the horse and squeezed the trigger. Town blacksmith Joseph Miller had ridden barely two hundred yards in pursuit of the robbers before “sure-shot Bennett” killed his horse out from under him. Miller’s problems were not over; it was with considerable difficulty that the angry townspeople were refrained from shooting Miller before he was recognized.
O’Day’s net loss: His freedom; his nickel-plated Colt .44 (with shells and holster, fished from the “water closet”) his horse (stolen); his gear (probably came with the horse); and the $392.50 found in his pockets. All no doubt flashed through his mind as he saw the rest of “the boys” ride out of sight over Sundance Hill. O’Day’s horse, shot in the foreleg, was found tied to a fence on Sundance Hill. Two quarts of whiskey, good whiskey according to Mr. Tracy, was found in the saddlebags. And how did Mr. Tracy know that it was good whiskey? That came out at the hearing- in an unusual bit of testimony – when Mr. Tracy inadvertently admitted to being a connoisseur of bad whiskey: Mr. Tracy: “I just happened to be looking at the whiskey he (O’Day) carried; that was how I came to notice him.” Defense Attorney: “That was good whiskey?” Mr. Tracy: “ Yes, sir – I have not tried it.”
The posse, which numbered as high as 100 at times, had sight of the gang at frequent intervals throughout the day.
The robbers, identified by James Craig as “the Curry gang”, remained just out of pistol range. Craig was familiar with them from his days as manager of the VVV Cattle Company, said the outlaws home ground was “the Hole-in-the-Wall.”
The Belle Fourche Times issue of July 18, 1897 was the first time “the Hole-in-the-Wall” was used in print to describe one of the most famous outlaw havens in the west.
Back in Belle Fourche a large mob of irate citizens had gathered around O’Day and displayed a rope and every intention of hanging him. Safely in the protective clutches of the law O’Day taunted, “Go ahead and hang me, boys. You will never see a man die any gamer than I will.”
A few days earlier a one-legged man, arrested for being drunk, had started a fire in the jail to keep warm. He had such great success in his endeavor to keep warm that the jail, with the exception of the steel cage burned to the ground. Soon after the cage had cooled down he was again placed in the steel cage and given a day and night for meditation. After showing proper gratitude for not being lynched he was released on the condition he “quit” Belle Fourche; a condition he readily accepted.
O’Day was the next illustrious “boarder” of the steel cage, remaining in it until the train was ready to leave Belle Fourche for Deadwood. After he was transferred to the Deadwood jail O’Day obtained W. O. Temple as his defense attorney.
(This article will be continued in the next Beacon.)
