Cochise Train Robbery

Submitted by Elizabeth Burns, June 2005

Cochise Train Robbery

Arizona the Youngest State

McClintock, 1913, page 477

For a while train robbery had popularity in Arizona, despite a statute passed, though never enforced, making the crime one punishable by death. One of the most daring train robberies occurred about midnight, September 9, 1899. Express Messenger Charles Adair, who had killed an over-adventurous train robber on the same run the year before, stepped to the door as a westbound Southern Pacific express reached the small station of Cochise. As he looked out it was into the muzzle of a revolver and he and the train force soon were lined on the platform with their hands in the air. The express car was detached and run a couple of miles westward. The messenger was known to be ignorant of the safe combination so the safe was opened with dynamite. The loot was rich, comprising a bag full of gold and currency with value of at least $10,000. The four men involved struck into the Chiricahuas, unsuccessfully followed by posses headed by Sheriff Scott White and George Scarborough.

The truth concerning the Cochise robbery came out a few months later, February 21, 1900, following a supplemental train robbery, that of the express car of a Benson-Nogales train, which was held up at Fairbank. The hero of the affair was Express Messenger Jeff D. Milton, who fought till incapacitated by a bullet wound that terribly shattered an arm. The wounded messenger who was given the highest praise for his defense of his trust, in previous days had been a cattle association detective, a customs inspector and chief of police of El Paso. The bandits numbered five. One of them was captured the next morning six miles from Tombstone, where he had fallen from his horse and abandoned by his companions. He was Jess Dunlap, alias Three-Fingered Jack, a well-known cowboy horse thief. He died a few days later in the Tombstone hospital, having received in the body a buckshot load from Milton's shotgun. In a pass of the Dragoon Mountains Sheriff White captured three of the others, who proved to be the leader, Bob Burns and John and Lewis Owens. With them was the booty, which consisted of only seventeen Mexican pesos. The robbers had expected that the Fort Huachuca payroll would be in the express car safe. Soon afterward the score was made complete by the arrest at Cananea of Tom Yoes, alias "Bravo John" who had been shot in the leg.

Before Dunlap died, he gave the officers the first information concerning the Cochise robbery, implicating Burt Alvord, Constable at Wilcox and William Downing, a well-to-do cattleman. There was some humor in the situation owing to the fact that Alvord had been one of the noisiest and most active pursuers of the train robbers. Later, W.N. Stiles, Deputy Constable at Pearce, confessed the details of the whole affair. He and another cowboy, Matt Burts, did the work alone, but the job was planned and supplies for it were furnished by Alvord and Downing. Alvord had provided the dynamite, secured by breaking into a Wilcox powder house. Immediately after the job was done, the spoil was taken to Alvord and Downing at Wilcox for division. Stiles received only $480 for his share and consequent dissatisfaction is said to have been the reason for his confession. It is evident, however, that Stiles suffered from remorse, though not for his crimes. Considered merely a witness for the Government he was allowed some liberty. He repaid confidence in April 1900 by entering the Tombstone jail and after shooting the jailer through the leg, releasing Alvord and "Bravo John." Downing refused to leave and Burts, who had been arrested in Wyoming, happened to be outside at the time with a deputy sheriff. So the trio hung upon them all the weapons they could find in the sheriff's office and took to the hills on stolen horses.

They were next heard of at Alvord's ranch near Wilcox, where they made announcement that they proposed to rob a few more Southern Pacific trains. When the Tombstone Prospector criticized the sheriff's office in connection with the escape, the sheriff's brother replied by hammering Editor Hattich over the head with a revolver. In addition to various rewards offered by the sheriff and territorial authorities, W.C. Greene offered $10,000 for the capture of the two outlaws, who were understood to have especial animus against himself.

Alvord surrendered in 1902, tired of the free life of a roving bandit and expressed himself well pleased at being back where he would be sure of three square meals a day. He had been in the bandit business three years since he laid the plans for the train robbery at Cochise. He had spent most of the intervening time in Sonora, where Captain Mossman of the Rangers followed and secured expression of a wish to return to the United States if assured of reasonable clemency. But it was to his old friend Sheriff Del Lewis that the surrender was made on the border near Naco. Alvord's way was made easier by the fact that he had assisted in the capture of Chacon, a notorious Mexican murderer. At Tombstone he was discharged from custody, owing to the events of the territorial statute that provided death as the only penalty on conviction of train robbery, but he was rearrested and taken to Tucson on the charge of interfering with United States mails. Alvord and Billy Stiles came into the limelight again in December 1903 when they dug out of the Tombstone jail and for the second time escaped. A week before Alvord had been convicted on the charge of robbery of the mails. He had been held at Tombstone merely as a witness in the case against Stiles. Alvord later was taken at Naco but had only two years' imprisonment, managing to evade arrest on other charges at the time of liberation at Yuma. He is said to have made his way to Panama, where he bossed Spanish speaking laborers for a while, thence departing for Argentina.

When Downing was tried on a charge of train robbery he was acquitted for the reason that conviction would have meant hanging, but on another charge he served a seven year term. Downing was happily removed from necessity and used bad judgment in defying Territorial Ranger Speed, after terrorizing Wilcox for months. After his death it was learned that he had been a member of the notorious Sam Bass gang of Texas and had been driven out of that state by Texas Rangers. In Arizona he had served two penitentiary sentences, one for train robbery and one for shooting Robert Warren. Burts went to Yuma for a term and was followed by Stiles, who surrendered in the summer of 1900. The latter was reported killed in December 1908 while working in Nevada, where he was known under the name of Larkin. The killing was said to have been assassination, the man shot in the back while leading a horse.

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