June 3, 2025 • 59 mins
Black Bart was not his government name. While the name was fearsome and his occupation as a stagecoach robbing outlaw was typically violent and careers short-lived, Black Bart was the opposite in every way. He was a gentleman outlaw folk hero who never hurt anyone. Not only that, he left poems for the lawmen chasing after him. The secret to his success? Black Bart was not at all what anyone expected!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Do you Elizabeth scoutla dous? Not much? How you don't
look forward to see you are?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
And here I am.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I got a question for you. You'll never guess what it is?
What size are my shoes? That's not the question. Three
good guess by The question actually is do you know
it's ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I do? I you know I'm a name connoisseur. Yes,
we both thought we share that like funny names. I
respect names, except for all those like tragedies as they
say that and then you know, but and apologies if
you have one of those, you didn't pick the name.
(00:42):
So I was the other day I was listening to
Amy Poehler's podcast, and she had Michael shore On who
created Parks and Rec and was like worked on the
Office and all, and he was talking about creating names
for characters and some of like the hilarious names that
they've had on like Parks and Rec. Elissa, Sapristine. You
(01:06):
have to make sure no one else has the name.
There was one. I think it was like Sue Gretzky
Mantlebon I can't.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Dash.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah, Sue, I've been I think that's.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
What it was.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Anyway. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Live with it anyway.
So knowing this, like I thought it was really funny.
The interns forwarded me a message that we got on
Instagram from Mark mccobbin, and it's a post on Instagram
from Elite College Football with the craziest names in college
Football twenty five seasons. Because that's another thing I love
(01:41):
is the Key and Peel skit with like the names
they made up. These are real And I double checked
it because I thought, oh, there's no way, Oh yeah,
they're real.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
This is like the first one.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I don't want to say it out loud. Noah is
his first name, but his last name is k n
I G g A. He is okay. Yeah. Then there's
General Booty and he kind of looks like a weird
Kendall Nitro Tuggle Wow, Nitro Tuggle King Large.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, his family had fun.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
And his picture is pretty up. Yeah, he's all about
that mobility. No, he's real too, mo m O h ability.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Then dude person to get out, dude person different like Wyoming.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
He's from whatever the bears are. No, no, no, it's
like a purple thing going on. I don't know blazon
Loo Wong. Yes, there's sur sur Bible s I r R.
He's got another epic. Yeah what else?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Demon clowney, demon clowny, demon clown dad just went for broke.
They're like, you know what, Yeah, that's got to be's
uh brother or cousin Javeon Clowney.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Okay, yeah that's news to me. Sure there's a guy
who is on Notre Dame fighting Irish Charles Do d U,
but he uses the Chinese characters for his name on
his uniform. Yeah, so it just looks like that.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Oh I love that.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
And then Rocky Beers, Rocky Beers, Rocky Beers, and he
has a mustache. He's like teletransported from the seventies Deuce
Night Legend Journey. That's beautiful, Pooky Arterberry. And then we
wrap it up tell is Grant beer Man, Grant beer
(03:45):
but he's Grant beer Man. So Pooky Arterberry. The names
are just so good, dude persons. Yeah, so they're ridiculous,
but like in a beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yes, yes, in a very like celebratory of life way.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Exactly. We have to celebrate every aspect of life.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I love your spirit, thank you so much. Do you
know what is also it's ridiculous. Elizabeth, tell me I
have a story for you. I picked this one out
extra special for you. It's kind of like thank you
for like how you hooked me up with the Arnstein episode.
It made me my man Arnold the brain Rothstain, like
I gotta do Elizabeth's solid for you today. I have
a nor Cow story. I know you enjoy those. It's
(04:23):
the tale of a gentleman thief, which I know you
also love that. He's a wild West outlaw that parts
for me, but he's a folk hero that parts for you.
He's also a poet, love love love this. He would
rob stage coaches and leave poetry for the law.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Stop it.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yes, he was a rare wild West outlaw who was
also afraid of horses okay, which means he fled every
stage coach robbery on foot or.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
On a penny farthing.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
He was also notoriously polite, well mannered. He never cussed, never,
he's violence, never been mistreated. A lady, I just want
to tell you all this up tops.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
You don't have to Work's incredible.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, and he only wanted to get his revenge against
Wells Fargo.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I love this.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
He was a hero of the people, Elizabeth. Elizabeth's name
was Black Bart.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Get out of town.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, buckle up, Buttercup.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
This is ridiculous crame podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
heistand cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
one hundred percent ridiculous. Oh, Elizabeth, Now I know you
have a soft spot for nonviolent gentlemen or gentlewomen, also
(05:49):
especially thieves.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Now you've covered a few thieves who operate with style
pinas oh make their way through the world, sailing on
that wind of criminality. Now who is this Black Bart?
He doesn't sound like me. He would up front be
one of your people. Know. He was, as I said,
an outlaw folk hero poet okay, operating in norcl in
the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
He's like an early like Peter Coyote.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
The high Time of the Old West, right for starters.
He's deaf my kind of guy, because, for instance, Black
Bart was a self applied nickname, like how I dubbed
myself Dizzy. He never told you that anyway, My man
black Bart didn't trust the nineteenth century press to give
him a good nickname. So he's like calling me black bar.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
I believe it because we know how the papers were right,
they did you dirty shirt.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Hey, Now he was born.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Like you know, Pickle knows Johnson, Like wait, what.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
No blue tooth Gregory he was This dude was born
in Norfolk, England, eighteen twenty nine. Okay, right, But his
parents named him Charles Bowles, third to ten children. He
was not going to inherit the family spread. That was clear.
So he had to make his way in the world.
And true to this show, he chose crime. But not
at first, Elizabeth. At first he tried to go legit,
(07:01):
like when he was a toddler. His family picked up
sticks and jolly old and they left England and moved
to New York. Not New York City. The immigrant family
settled in Jefferson County. I had to look this up.
It's near a spot called Alexandria Bay, which is right
there at the Canadian border. Okay, right, So the settlement
at the time was new. If the family showed up,
the area was settled in like eighteen seventeen. The Bolls
(07:22):
family shows up in eighteen thirty one, so the buildings
still have their first code of paint yeah, yeah, right.
So anyway, if everything's going along nice, they make their
way in America and then boom, eighteen forty nine comes along.
The news washes across the continent that gold has been
discovered this place called Sutter's Fort in California. News kicks
off Gold Rush of eighteen forty nine. As you well know,
(07:43):
just twenty years old at the time, young Charlie Bowles
and two of his brothers head west to go and
find their fortune in the gold Hills of California. Exciting
now they were about it, Elizabeth. They didn't even hesitate.
They just saw the headlines and started walking west. I mean,
that's how I pictured it. I don't know anyway, they
arrived in eighteen forty nine. They made they were forty nine,
That's what I'm saying. Like they saw the first headliner
(08:05):
like good for me, I'm good.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
The wagons, yeah, I assume what are.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
These blue jeans we've heard about?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Who's this Levi Strauss fellow? I heard he makes a
good product. Now, crossing country in eighteen forty nine was
no joke. There was no trans continental railroad at this time.
But they make it out to California. I assume you're right.
They took a wagon. I don't know. They ran up
to Gold Country stake their claim as gold miners. They
mine along the North Fork of the American River. They're
(08:32):
above some Sacramento. Apparently they found jack squat because after
three years mucking about in the cold water streams, digging
in the earth, you know, panning for gold, they came
away with little to show for their efforts. Of the
three Bulls brothers head back to New York. Oh really, yeah, yeah,
that's eighteen fifty two. Okay, the Bulls Brothers still had
gold fever though, if we could just get back to California.
(08:54):
So they managed to get some scratched together and the
three turn right back around and they go back to California.
The gold rush is still kicking on at this point, right, So.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Well, and the thing is is everything was so expensive.
Oh yes, in California. It's like how now where if
people are? You know, it's like a twenty five dollars sandwich.
Well that's how it was then, and the gold rushes.
Everything was outsized price wise.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Everyone's paying for gold dust. They're like, yeah, they're paying
with gold dust.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
So if you're going and you're not successful, and then
you're not turning around and selling shovels. Totally good point,
you know, or doing people's laundries, or making crime my people,
making saddles.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, that's a good answer. Everybody needs a place to sit.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
And so yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
So, like I said, crossing continent before the Transcontinental Railroad
was no joke, right, So, and I don't just mean like, oh,
there's a threat of dispossessed natives or like the attack
by horse, the all the violent men rattling around in
the wild attack. But there's yeah, there's disease illness. When
the three Bulls brothers returned to Gold Country, both of
Charlie Bulls's brothers are severely sick from the trip.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Shortly thereafter both die. Oh no, now.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
He's alone dysentery just like an Oregon pretty much exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So, now he's alone in the world, young, grieving, still
got gold fever. So he tries to make it a
goal of it as a gold miner all by himself. Right,
He stuck it up for another two years. Luck still pitiful, Elizabeth.
So he packs it back up, heads back to east
and we head in his hands, Like I.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Get salty because it's like a five hour flight, you
know what I mean. They're just like.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Weeks and weeks off, not months.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
That takes a lot. You got a lot of metal.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So it was good that he returned home to New York, though,
because that's where he met a young woman and they
fell in love. Elizabeth. Her name was Mary Elizabeth Johnson,
just like the most nineteenth century Nativist American name you
could come up with, Mary Elizabeth Johnson.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
She would not do well in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
He would not the pair Mary, right, and they had
to make a go of it. After a few years,
he convinceds her, we need to move west. Yeah, but
she's like, I don't know about it. He's like, no,
not all the way to got to California. You don't
worry about that. I've shaken the gold fever. Let's move
to Decatur, Illinois. So they moved to Decatur, Illinois. They
make a life for themselves, or Charlie Bowles tries to
make a life for himself. They have four kids, nice family, right,
(11:20):
good nineteenth century Americans. Charlie Bowles tries his hand at farming,
does some teaching. This is around eighteen sixty and if
you know American history, you know what's blowing around in
the breeze. But it's yet to come to bloody fruition. Yeah,
the American Civil War. The war breaks out, Charlie Bowles
is they're in Decatur, Illinois. Does He's not under threat
of what's happening, but he still is like, I don't know,
this is not right. Takes him a little while, but
(11:42):
by the end of eighteen sixty two, middle of eighteen
six I think spt. August, he signs up to fight. Oh,
he joins the Union. So, like I said, out lawful Curry,
he knows to be on the right side of the
Civil War. Now he joins Company B of the one
hundred and sixteenth Illinois Regiment, signs up to fight under
General WILLI to come to Sherman, not yet a general,
but comes to Sherman. He stays with this general for
(12:04):
the duration of the war. Oh, he is there, rifle
in hand for every battle Sherman fought.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Oh wait he goes.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, he made the march. He was in the big fights,
the little fights. He was in seventeen major Civil War battles,
major ones. He was also all the major ones. Right,
So his luck holds up. He's no good at gold mining,
but he was a hell of a Civil War soldier.
He does get wounded, not once, not twice, three times.
He gets seriously hit at Vicksburg, and that's like rhea.
(12:31):
Is like post up like in the military hospital for
a while. But he survived to the end of the war.
There he is, as you asked with General Sherman when
he makes his fiery march to the to the seas
were burning down half of Georgia. Yes, yes, Queen. June seventh,
eighteen sixty five. Civil Wars won the nation, stitching itself
back together no longer a young man, Charlie Bowles goes
(12:52):
back to Illinois, back to his wife and family. Now,
I don't know if the war changed. Okay, I do
know the war because war changes everybody. So I mean,
I know it changed him, but I don't know how
it changed him. And they don't have language like PTSD
back then. Sure, they don't even have shell shock. That's
like a World War one time exactly so. But he's
walking around in Decatur, Illinois, and he cannot get back
to the quiet life of farming.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So in eighteen sixty seventy he's like, I'm going west,
but the gold rush at this point has passed in California,
so he can't go back to the Gold Hills. Instead,
he goes to Montana where they've recently discovered gold. Idaho. Yeah,
so they're finding smaller.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Pockets here on the silver, a bunch of silver as well.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, it's exactly the silver comstock load. And so he
starts mine for precious medals in Montana and Idaho. At
this point, he's still in contact with his wife and
his family, sending regular letters, sending money back home. One
of his letters, dated eighteen seventy seven, he writes to
his wife complains he had some real bad business with
the road agents from the Wells Fargo company did him dirty, right,
(13:48):
So in the letter he promises his wife that he
will get his revenge against Henry Wells and William Fargo
and Elizabeth. My man was good to his work to
do that, though Charlie bowls. He picks up state again
and he goes truly wes. This time, he returns to California.
He's like, where are them? Wells Fargo is located, So
gold rush may be over, but there's still plenty of
loose wealth, rocking and rolling around the gold country and
(14:10):
lock boxes loaded onto stage coaches operated by who well
Wells Fargo and Company. And that's who Charlie Bowles makes
the sole target of his outlaw ways.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
You're kidding them.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Just fixates on stage coaches if it's red and says
in yellow Wells Fargo, he's hitting it unlike gold mining.
When it comes to being an outlaw ful hero, Charlie
Bowles is as lucky as he was in war. He
finds he's good at being a bandit. Yeah, he holds
the record for rob stage coaches as my man black Bart.
He pulled off twenty more stage coach robberies than any
(14:44):
other highwayman wild Way.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
And I've not heard of this.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I know I had not heard about him either, ntil
I read about them to do this story for you. Yeah,
he holds the record at twenty nine successful stage coach
robberies twenty nine and his thirtieth was his fateful last
ride years black Bart frustrated the hell out of law
and all the road agents from the Wells Fargo Company.
He just reeks his earthly revenge against the bankers. So
(15:09):
now that we've met our anti hero. Let's take a
little break and after these messages we'll get to the criming. Yes,
(15:34):
we're back, Elizabeth. Oh you ready to get to know
my man Black Bart. Yes.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Every time you say his name, I think of a
Christmas story. Oh right, he wants the red writer bb
gun And it's all because I'll get you black Bart.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
That's the thing. The name his name sticks around. He
has such a compelling name, but becomes like this moniker
for villains, and yet we as you hear, he's really
not that guy, like yeah tough. Anyway, First of all,
don't let his name you I just want to let
you know Black Bart is not a black cowboy, Am
i am?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
I correct that it's black Bard.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, okay, he's in tunes too, Yeah exactly. It's a
very common stand in name for like the cowboy villain.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Total yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
And it also has that dime store novel quality.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Or dial Yes, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So fine, He's not this notorious bad Man's my point right.
Black Bard doesn't have a surly demeanor, doesn't have noxious vibes.
He's not a big gruff villain, but he gives himself
this gnom to crime. So it was, as I said,
based on his literary leanings. Yeah, he is. He's a
different kind of folk caro outlaw.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
He was known like for instance, he was known to
read the Bible regularly. He was partial to the words
of Shakespeare, would quote him. He black Bart, he has
as I said, didn't didn't smoke, didn't drink. He also
didn't smoke opium or hashish. As the newspapers would point out,
they he doesn't smoke opium. It's like, I guess it
was common enough you had to point this out. So
he also he didn't swear. And if if it weren't
for the you know, all the stage coach robberies. Really
(16:58):
an exemplary life for a golden sure.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
But as I told you up top, as Billy Bob
Thorton put it in Tombstone, black Bart was pretty brave
for a man who didn't go healed in the Old West.
Maybe he didn't carry shooting irons either, Yeah, neither out
in the open or secreted on his person. Really, Yeah,
but he did. Black Bart did carry a double barrel
shotgun that he saw it off and he used that
when he was working as an outlaw stage coach Bandit okay,
(17:23):
but a lot of people out of historians think it
was never loaded headed off shot, but I found in
interviews he said it wasn't as an emergency precaution. He
just never had to use it. Yeah, I don't think
anybody would go out there with an unloaded weapon and
being like, I'm going to point this this somebody who
may have a loaded weapon.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Exactly see how this plays, because when you when you
start to draw it out from something, if he's pulling
it from under a jacket, that's when you get shot. Yeah,
before you even have it fully exactly what.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
It's a gun. It's a gun. Someone else sees it,
they're gonna be.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Like, oh gun, gun stop persisting.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
In his record twenty nine, stage coach rob as I said,
not once does he ever fire his double barrel sot
off shotgun. The street sweepers there for show, but the
stage coach drivers are known. This is where we get
the term shotgun. They have a guy riding next day,
he carries a shotgun. That's the shotgun seat. So he's
going mano a mano with them in terms of like, oh,
(18:17):
I've got what they've got now. When he would rob
a stage coach, he never bothered the passengers because he
was he was very was known to be kind to
the ladies. He used his best manners. He would always
say ma'am, please and thank you, and they could let
him know. And he was also that he wasn't gonna
hurt anybody. And he was also very compliant with stage
coach drivers about like oh me, hold your horses, you
get down, you know, like seriously, he was just like
(18:39):
incredibly considerate. And I mentioned in my intro, but by
far this is my favorite detail is that he's terrified
of horses. So he's an outlaw who does not ride
a horse, cannot escape on a horse. He rides a
stage coach and then he just walks away into the woods.
Just trying to picture that.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
He's like Homer Simpson drifting.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Back in the exactly just put into like valley oaks.
So at this point for his outlaw look, he was
also a partial to long dusters, like those coats if
you know, like they're they're made interestingly for riding horses
to protect you from like the choya and the cactus,
and they supposed to cover your legs. I guess he
just liked the look, so he would wear those. He
also liked a bowler. He was a bowler man, a
(19:21):
professional bowler, I mean like the rounded top hats. So
when he was not working, when he's not doing his
outlaw business, he would have on it was common to
have a bowler. Sometimes he would have like a gold
tip cane, stylish rakish gentleman. Right, But when he was
working as an outlaw, he'd pull a flower sack over
his head, cut out two eye holes and then it
he's like basically something Stooby Dudes, yeah, villain or the Zodiac.
(19:43):
Yeah right, it was quite the look. It was shocking
for people then as it would be now now. But Elizabeth,
I'd like to take you back to the eighteen seventies,
to northern California, to the Gold Country and to get
to robbing stage coaches. But first I think we need
to discuss one last thing, which is stage coaches themselves. Yeah,
I feel like you need to know a little bit
more about the black parts targets. Do you know much
about stage coaches.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I mean I'm not an expert or anything. I've seen
one of the original Wells Fargo ones they have like
it's been refurbished at the big Wells Fargo Financial district.
But yeah, so that you can see it through a
window which you can also go inside link and rocks
(20:23):
and yeah, I don't think I've ever been in it,
but like it's not huge.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
No, those are the more common ones. Those are a
little bit smaller than what I'm describing, which is for
the luxury line of stage coaches. It was something called
the concord okay, and the stage coach that one could
hold nine people inside the coach. It was much bigger
than like the ones you used to probably fit like six,
yeah comfortably. No, the driver would sit up front and
then there would be a dress seat next to the driver.
(20:49):
That's where the man the chotgun right you. So then
also there's roughly a dozen seats they're called the Dickey
seats that were located on top of the coach. You
could just ride in the free air up there with
the luggage with like the brass rails, exactly like a
train in India. So that's how people would ride. They're
(21:10):
called Dickey seats, and they'd have no shielding from the
dust so when the weather anything, but the seats are cheap,
I guess, and they'd be up there with the leather
mail bags, right, so.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Beneath the woods and the pine branches by a low branch.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
So also, I forgot to tell you there's the beneath
the mule skinner seats. That's the wagon driver's name, right. Yeah,
there's something called the lock box, so the aka the
treasure box. This is where Wells Fargo would put their
gold coin, the bullion, the gold dust collected from the hills,
and all their precious metals, right, but also stocks, bawds,
treasury bills, you name it, they're all there in the
lock box. This whole rig gets pulled by a team
(21:49):
of usually four to six horses, and to keep these
animals from tiring out and pulling over all this weight
over hill and dale and mountain path and valley floor,
the horses would travel about ten miles and then they
would be changed out. This ride is stopping every ten miles, yeah,
and then changing out all the horses, which takes time,
and they're feeding them and everything. And that's why it's
(22:10):
called a stage coach. He goes in stages.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I don't know that.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, there you go. So when the horses get uncoupled
from the stage coach and the new team horses get
strapped in every ten miles or so. This makes them
vulnerable to banditry. But that's also where they are at,
like some way station. There's people there. It's not an
easy target. Only the craziest bandits would hit people there. Yeah,
this is what you see in a lot of Westerns.
It's just like, oh, this band's drained, she's hitting the
(22:35):
way station. Yeah, most reasonable bandits would just wait for
them to get two miles down the road between exactly
and then just hit them. And so then they have
to do that though, you got to stop the wagon.
And these guys are cooking along, right, So how do
you do that? Well? With this old Civil War veteran,
with his combats experience under General Sherman, he's done a
(22:56):
bunch of raids and he's dealt with wagons. He figured
out I can do in my one man war against
Wells Fargo. I know I can do this. So he
makes himself a name people can fear Black Bart and
then he just is willing to step out in front
of the wagon with this crazy look, the flower sack
over his head and the double barreled sawed off shotgun
aimed at the driver and they yeah, drivers like this
(23:17):
this guy means business, and so they yell woe and
pull over. So you may be wondering where did he
come up with the name black Bart just struck a.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Genius, very Blackberrier, rapid transit, that's a very differ. That's
a strange name. Where did he get it?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
His gnome to crime comes from his love of poetry
and literary pursuits.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
There was this story that ran in the old Sacramento
Union newspaper a couple of years prior. It's called the
Case of Summerfield by this written by Caxton, which is
meant to be like a Roman like, oh, this is
my writing eponym, right or pseudonym.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
The author's real name was William Henry Rhodes. He was
a lawyer and he wrote a lot of stories. Right.
So this was a fictional early sci fi tale about
this chemical like a recipe that this guy has in
these secret vials that will turn water into something that
will burn, that'll catch fire. So that this is a
secret It's happening in the Old West. The people are
fighting over these vials. So imagine like the show The
Wild West where they have like some crazy inventor and
(24:14):
they have to get chased down by Jim West. Yeah. Right,
that's basically what it is.
Speaker 6 (24:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
But in that story, you got a bad man named
black Bart, and he robs Wells, Fargo stage coaches as
part of a campaign of fear and terror against the
bankers and so, and he's the one who covets this
secret that can destroy the world. Right. So black Bart
is described as having.
Speaker 6 (24:32):
Like wild gray eyes, a bushy black beard, straggly wind
kept hair, and this becomes the inspiration for this full
hero outlaw character he plans to build.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
In reality, Charles Bowls is like five foot eight. He's
well built, well proportioned, right, all the newspapers of the
day point out. But he's not this big, terrifying fit.
But his name sounds like it. So the Los Angeles
Evening Express they describe the band at black Bart back
in eighteen eighty eight as quote Charles E. Bowles, better
known Black Bar, a name which he himself assumed, is
(25:02):
the most romantic figure in the history of American crime.
The lone highwayman who spares life and takes only from
the rich is the one criminal tolerated by fiction. Yet
fiction has never portrayed a character where craftiness, cunning, and
intelligence are so strongly blended with purposeless criminality, gentleness and
(25:24):
courtesy with desperate courage, as in the nature of one
Black Bart. Right, So at this point he's forty six
years old. When he's doing all this, it is in
his forties. He gets caught, he's forty eight, but when
they're writing about him, he's at the forty six. So
he decides to become Black Bart. He's a forty year
old former veteran of the Civil War who's like walked
(25:44):
away from his family and former gold miner, and he's
just like, I'm gonna become this literary figure.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
He has seen some of the worst things carnage garage
for years.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So in the summer of eighteen seventy five July to
be exact, for his first stage coache Blackbart opts to
hit a Wells Fargo stage coach running between Sonora and
Twallamee County and Milton and Calveras County. Yeah, so up
there in the true Gold Country, like Mark Twain the Jumping.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
So he's going from Sonora up to they're going.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
From Sonora up to Milton in Calaveras County.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Okay, Yeah, So they're just running the length of the foothill.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, exactly, Okay, So Caliverra's county, As I said, Jumping
frog contest Mark Twain, this is real gold Hill country now,
just outside of a town called Copperopolis, Oh, Calaveras County. Right,
our newly minted outlaws sets his trap. Now after the fact,
the stagecoach driver said that the outlaw stepped out of
the woods in front of the stage coach. He wore
the flower sack over his head with the customary two
(26:40):
eye holes cut out. He levels his double barrel shotgun
at the driver and says, throw down your box. Now
this means the strong box, the treasure box. Stage coach
driver considers his options. Right, so the outlaw clocks his hesitation.
So black Bart gives orders to his fellow bad men
secreted away in the woods. He goes.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
He dares to shoot the solid folly boys.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
The stage coach driver looks up, gazes into the woods. Right,
he spies rifles amongst the trees, all pointing back at him. Now,
I'm scared for his life. There's too many of them.
Stage coach driver throws down the lock box. He watches
as this outlaw pries it open with like an axe,
a small, little like hatchet. Yeah, he collects one hundred
and sixty dollars inside would would be about fifty five
hundred dollars today.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
The outlaw stands back off and he moses into the
woods right, just backs up, protected by other rifles aimed
at the stage coach. Now, once he's satisfied that the
highwayman is good and gone, stage coach driver hops down
to retrieve the lock box. He's got to go and
show his bosses that look, yeah, not me. Yeah, And
then that's when he sees what he believed were rifles
aimed at him were nothing more than carefully positioned sticks
(27:43):
just wedged into the tree branches. There were no other bandits.
It was just some theater in service of crime.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
So who would imagine it's just one dude and no
horses exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
You're thinking, he's gotta have a great gang, big.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Group of guys, and then a bunch of horses just
on the other this patch of.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, oh boy, So that's his first robbery.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
This is first one boom.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
He's like, I'm good at this, But by the end
of the year he's back at it. This time he's
near Marysville up in Yuba County. Yeah, north of my hometown.
You're Alma Mater, Davises December of eighteen seventy five. Again
black Bart uses the same gag. He props up sticks
in the wood, steps out in front of the stage coach,
acts like he got a team of bandits guns trained
on the driver. Again, his theater in the wild totally successful.
(28:26):
Guess he got a good haul because he takes a
year off from banditry after this point. Oh yeah, he's
down in San Francisco and enjoying the sporting life as
a professional gambler. Okay, so eventually as luck ran out,
so he hops on a ferry, goes and crosses the Bay.
He didn't go back up the Gold Country, though, he
decided I'm gonna score some more loot. He stays closer
to the Bay area. He goes up and rubs a
stage coach of Mendocino County. Oh up the coast, Yeah exactly.
(28:48):
So he decides his third robbery is that goes down
August third, eighteen seventy seven. As the stage coach thunders
down the road, suddenly out of the woods steps this
hooded figure it's Black Bart with the same flower sack
over his head, two eye holes cut out, holds up
his sawed off shotgun. Stagecoast driver seas and yells, whoa horses,
come to a stop right now. The outlaw orders the
(29:09):
driver throw down the box, which the duly complies. Again.
Black Part pretends he's got a gang outlaws in the trees, right,
and it works just as well the third time. But
I guess word had not spread amongst the drivers. There's
this guy out there pretending that there's these sticks in
the woods. There is gang.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
So he spends hours finding like really straight sticks. Yeah,
so that's like yeah, and then pulling all the bark off.
So smooth.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
So Black Part he seems to know something which is key,
which is that people are more afraid of their imaginations
than reality. Yes, they just work on their imagination. You
don't need to actually do anything scary, just make them
start thinking scary.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
And I'm sure that he saw that in warfare exactly exactly.
You know what that people you can either psych yourself
out imagining what could happen, and then you become more
of a victim walking into a situation.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Are you psych yourself up I'm gonna I'm gonna live
through this, and then we're gonna use these, like, you know,
waving sticks to indicate that we have a lot more
soldiers on this side of the.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
I'm not going to be I'm not gonna be freaked
out until i know for sure what's going on.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yes, good point, you know. So at this point a
third robbery, he pries up the locks box, steals the contents.
Black Bart tells a driver drive on right, and drivers
happily to do this. Okay, yeah, he takes off right.
Then he goes. When he gets to the next way station,
he reports to the authorities that he was robbed and like,
look at the lock box and they so they ride
out to the scene of the crime and all they
(30:30):
find there is just evidence of the robbery. They're like, oh,
this is where it happens. They find, you know, like
different like with the hatchet he used to break up
in the lock box. But they also find a stanza
of poetry and it reads and I quote, I've labored
long and hard for bread, for honor, and for riches,
but on my corns too long. You've tread you fine
(30:52):
haired sons of bitches.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
Signed Black Bart Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
That poem with not bald up and left on the
forest floor. No, the law men were amused. The poem
gets shared with newspaper men. They put it in their papers.
Soon enough, thanks to the telegraph and the early wire service,
this newspaper readers from coast to coast are reading about
black Bart, the outlaw poet who's robbing stage coaches in California.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
It's great, that's clickbait, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Exactly, and he's an instant sensation of the nineteenth century.
For his fifth robbery the next year, in eighteen seventy eight,
black Bart hits a stage coach between Quincy up in
Plumus County, and it was on the rundown to Oraville
in Butte County. It was the summer again, July, to
be exacts. Apparently black Bart was in the mood for
a little more poetry. After he successfully robbed that stage coach,
emptied his lock box, went on his merry way. Black
(31:39):
Bart left behind another outlaw poem. His second poem went,
and I quote here I lay me down to sleep
and wait to.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
Come inmorrow, perhaps success, perhaps defeat, and everlast in sorrow.
But let come what will I'll try it on. My
condition can't be worse. If there's money in that box,
tis money in my purse, signed black Bart.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
So that little verse sealed the deal for black Bart.
The people from coast to coast now love him and
his full hero law antics right. But the authorities and
the lawmen hate how silly he's making them look. But
however try as they might, the law cannot catch this
new outlaws sensation. Black Bark just keeps right on robbing
stage coaches, just willy nilly. Right, it seems that he's
(32:29):
well aware of the local economic cycles of the area,
right he takes advantage of them. For instance, he knows
it in Mendocino County there's sheep sharing season, yes, which
means that the shepherds and the wool gatherers are going
to need to get paid, which means the stage coaches
are going to be running big loads of cash to
settle up the end of sheep sharing season, which meant
it is going to be a big payday for black Bart.
(32:50):
October eighteen seventy eight, In sheep sharing season, black Bart
robbed too wells Fargo stage coaches on back to back days.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Oh see, they don't expect that they think it'll be
a while.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And he's and he's, you'll love this. He's super casual
about it. On the first day, October second, eighteen seventy eight,
Black Bart gets spotted having a picnic by himself near
yu Kaya, right, just having a picnic now, yes, he
was enjoying the spoils of his crime. That stage coach
draws near and black Bart pops up out of his
ambush spot, levels his sawd off shotgun. Right, driver pulls
the horses to a stop. Black Bart tosses the apple
(33:22):
that he was still munching on. No, he gets down
to his outlaw business. Right. These are all from the
d eye witness descriptions. And the next day, October third,
eighteen seventy eight, back at it, he hits another stage coach,
this time again, as it always, he flees on foot.
What does he do? He just walks over to a
farmhouse a couple of miles away, and he pays the
family for dinner, and then he sits down and haves
dinner with them while everyone's out looking for him, because
(33:44):
no one would go to a family farmhouse, so he
buys himself some time. But the young daughter there, she's
the first person to take an interest in him, and
she sees him without his flower sack mask on, sure,
and no one else has seen no exactly. So he
also he didn't rob the family either, right, but they
figured out who he was, so this daughter won. Donald
McCreery said. Black Bart had quote graying brown hair, missing
(34:05):
two of his front teeth, deep set, piercing blue eyes,
under heavy eyebrows, slender hands, and intellectual and conversation well
flavored with polite jokes. Okay, so by this point Blackbart
is becoming so famous, so well known, wells Fargo has
to hire professional trackers to hunt down this outlaw. They
go like full on sundance, and butch casting is sundanced, kid, right,
(34:27):
They're like, oh, let's hire the best people. Yeah, these guys,
these professional trackers, they follow the trail of black Bart
to the McCreary farm, and then that's how they get
the news for the daughter. But it's too late when
they arrive there. The man hunters they continue to follow
Blackbart's trail for sixty miles. The trackers are on horseback,
Blackbart's on foot. Somewhere around the Eel River, the trail
(34:48):
goes cold. His trick is During the night, black Bar
keeps hiking through the rough country. By morning, he's twenty
miles east of his pursuers, so they're taking their camping down.
He's gone. He's got yeah, so free from his professional trackers.
The next day, black Bart strikes again. He hits a
junction of two wagon roads in Lake County. According to
reports of the day, black Bart was wiling away his
(35:08):
time waiting for the stagecoach, but quote by eating peaches,
the pits of which were found at the tree from
which he stepped behind. So that's his move. Just eat
some fruit, wait for some money to come down the road.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Unbeknownst to black Bart, a second professional tracker hired by
Wells Fargo, is still on his trail. He rides up
on horseback, but he's a day late. He arrives at
the scene of the crime, only there's no poem waiting
for him this time, just the peach pits. Meanwhile, black
Bart is hiked into the valley Oaks, and forty eight
hours later he's seventy miles away in Calusa County. Whoa
on foot? On foot? Yeah. From that point. Over the
(35:41):
next few years, black Bart continues to wreak havoc of
this one man campaign of vengeance against Wells Fargo. They
cannot catch him. He just continues robbing stagecouches one after another,
just like potato chips. Basically can't stuch. Obviously, as low
his luck can't last car incredible his core strength. Eventually,
even as successful as he was, black Bart was bound
to get caught.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
When we get back from these warm, delicious, fresh out
of the oven commercials, Elizabeth, I'll tell you how my
man black Bart gets popped. Yes, Elizabeth Saron, we're back. Hi.
(36:31):
You ready to hear more from my man black Bart. Yes,
the full Carol outlaw poet. Yes, thanks to his poetry
and his success is a bandit. Black Bart's famous at
this point, secured all right, everyone's talking about him coast
to coast.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Did anyone set his poems to music? Not that I
found and in the saloons and stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Hold that thought about singing his poetry. Okay, So his
success guarantees that, As I said, he's staying in the headlines.
People are loving this, and I'm talking for years. For years,
there are reports of this guy just going around on
the Old West robbing stage coaches. Freaking havoc on Wells Fart.
He's driving Wells Fargo nuts. Yeah, and they have the
money to see this as a war, and so they're like,
(37:10):
we're going to win this war. So let's go over
a few of his stage coach robbery highlights before I
tell you how it all goes pop, because they'll kind
of set up how he also gets caught.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
On October eight, eighteen eighty one, Black Bart is in
Shasta County up north. Yeah, and he's waiting to ambush
the stage coach between where Way Rika and Redding, Okay.
And when he pops up out from his ambushed spot,
the stage coach driver pulls hard on the brakes yells
WHOA to the team of horses, right they pull over.
This driver is named Horace Williams. He's apparently not terribly
afraid of Black Bart, because Horace Williams tides to strike
(37:39):
up a conversation. He throws after he throws down the
strong box and Black Bart prize it open with his hatchet.
He's scouring through the contents. The curious driver Horace Williams
wonders how much Black Bart is peeling off his bosses.
The fact cats in Wells Fargo. Yeah, Hey, how much
did you make black Bart genial? Good hearted? Is he is?
He's like, not very much for the chances I take.
(38:00):
Oh so it's like exactly anyway. At this point, it's
eighteen eighty one. So now, how many trackers and professional
manhunters do Wells Fargo have there on the roads and
in the wildman is tracking down Black Bart? Great question.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
I am so good at asking these questions.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
The answer is they had teams, teams Elizabeth teams are
professional manhunters. But these guys cannot catch Black Part for years. Yeah,
it's embarrassing, and mostly Blackbart is embarrassing because he doesn't
ride a horse, and they don't figure this out. These
professional manhunters are so used to tracking a man on
horseback or by wagon wheel they cannot get it through
(38:35):
their heads that he's just walking away.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
So October eleven, eighteen eighty one, he strikes again. Professional
manhunters rush to the scene because they had everything they
hear about it. They get a telegraph announcement and then yeah,
they go rushing there. Yeah, they track the trail that
they find and they find once again Jack Squat. This
is just once driving them those are some of the
most famous detectives in the country, being sent over from
across the country. And December of this same year, Blackbart
(38:59):
strikes it in in Marysville.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
You know, Marysville today is like overrun with wild chickens.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yes, yeah, totally anyway, exactly, he gets away on foot. Right,
there's now a whole posse because the Marysville sheriff don't play,
so he gets a whole posse chasing after him, and
the fat cat bankers have their like manhunters, and they're
all out there, this outlaw of folkiro poets embarrassing them
all in the national newspapers. And at this point, right,
as I said, gleeful copy, the newspapers are here since
(39:28):
the tennesseean right, and the newspaper in Tennessee is they
have a story of black Bart's outlaw exploits and narrow escapes,
and they chronicle him like he's the Robin Hood of
the wild West, right, and I quote now, all his
operations were in wild country where escape was easy and
no trail could be followed. The counties of Sonoma, Mendocino, Trinity,
siski U, Shasta, Plumus, Butte Yuba, Calaveras, and Placer Nearly
(39:53):
all old mining country were the scenes of his exploits.
The best of detectives and sheriffs were trying for years
to secure some clue, but the simplicity of a system
baffled them.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
So Yeah. In January of eighteen eighty two, black Bart
returns to Mendosino County. He plans to catch the stage
running between Cloverdale and Yukaya up the north. Yeah, and
he meets up with the stage coach near a town
called Hopland.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I know he used to have a really good like
music fest.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 6 (40:21):
So.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
The stagecoach driver is named Harry Force. Okay, I gotta say,
I'm wondering why this man did not change his name.
You're a stagecoach driver named Harry Horse. I'm sorry, Harry Force.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Harry for anyway, of course, he's one big Harry Force. Way, Harry.
I love that. It's they're acknowledging. It's the simplicity of
it that's the you know, wanting. It's not like they're
looking back on that. They're saying, he's doing this so
simply in these.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
They can't figure it out.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
Ding dongs can't.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah, and like they have all these way to reports
of him just walking away into the woods. You just
keep thinking he's gonna somebody picks him up and they
ride away.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Must have somewhere in their right mind walking the fork
is superior.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
It's fit, It's true. So at this point, Harry Force
is holding the reins and he has no one riding shotgun.
He's by himself. Coach is empty too. The man who
intends him to rob him doesn't know that it's empty.
So black Bart steps out from behind a valley of
the wagon driver. Harry Force sees him, and he sees
the white flower sack on his head, the two eye
holes cut out, wearing the long duster coat, and then
(41:22):
he's like whoa, especially when he sees that double barrel shotgun.
So black Bart introduces himself. On black Bart down the box.
So black Bart holds the team of horses for with
his shotgun trained on Harry.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Horse, I will hold your horse, and so he's.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Harry Force throws down the strong box right, and then
black Bart tells Harry Force go on get it, and
he's once again only too happy to oblige. And after
he's written a little distance, he comes to a toll house.
Because this road has a toll house, you have to
pay every few miles to be on this road. I
don't know how you can just like ride off the
road and go around the toll house. So I guess
with a wagon that's difficult.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
I mean, when you think of the terrain, I'm sure
like they've carved these, you know. I'm sure that it's like.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Modified like through boulder passage.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Animal passages that were then used by indigenous folks who
then mean, it's like they drive cattle and stuff through these.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
The reason why this is the only road people are
using exactly. So at this point, once he gets to
the toll house, they tell the authorities. Telegraph from now
wires light up, word spreads. Wells Fargo detectives they hear
the report, they go off in hot pursuit. They meet
up with the Sheriff's posse at the crime scene one
hour after.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
It occurs, an hour next week.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
No, that's how quick, they respond, Yeah, strong box is
still there on the ground, slit mail bags are there,
but no black bart. This trail leads off between the
oak trees. The posse and the Wells Fargo detectives. They
chase after black Bart on their thundering horses. They follow
the trail all the way to Kelseyfield, New York near
clear Lake. Yes, and that's where the trail goes cold
once again. Black Bart slips away from the Wells Fargo Manhunters.
(42:55):
In June of eighteen eighty two, he robs another stage
coach near Willetts, California. So about five miles south of Yukayah.
A hooded figure steps out of the wagon road stage
coach driver whoa hits the brakes pulls the wagon to
a stop. Driver is named Tom Force. That's right, brother
of Harry Force. What yes, drivers. So Blackbart's final stage
(43:19):
coach robbery comes one year later, November eighteen eighty three.
If you can believe it, he robs the stage coach
in the exact same spot where he robbed his first
stage coach. He begins and ends at the same spot
just outside of Copperopolis, Caerapolis and a place called funk Hill.
Funk Hill, that's it gets popped in funk Hill. So
there's this boulder there balanced high above the wagon road.
(43:40):
It's a perfect ambush spot. And that's why black Bart
returns to the spot so faithful day is November three.
He's waiting at the boulder at the bend in the
wagon road, eager for his next ambush robbery. He pulls
on his white flower sack with his two cutout eye holes.
But rather than me tell you about this, Elizabeth, I'd
like you to close your eyes. I'd like you to picture.
It's Saturday, November third, eighteen eighty three, and you, Elizabeth,
(44:02):
are riding along the wagon road from Sonora to Milton,
near the town of Copperopolis. The mule scanner has kept
good time when he stops the wagon, he's been efficient
and even consider of you, the soul passenger. You've just
used the Reynolds ferry to cross a river that was wild,
and you did meet the son of the ferryman, a
nineteen year old named Jim Rollary. But now the wagon
(44:23):
rolls through a grove of sun dappled oak trees that
line the wagon road. You gaze out at the oak
trees and the California hills, still gold from summer, not
yet greened over again by the winter rains. That's when
you hear the wagon driver yell, WHOA, that saame as odd.
It's too early for a stop to change horses. There
must be something in the road. You stick your head
out of the window to see what's in the road,
(44:44):
and there you spy a hooded figure. Is he wearing
a flower sack on his head? You think to yourself.
The sawed off shotgun tells you why he's there. The
outlaw steps forward toward the now stopped wagon. You fear
what awaits you. You've heard about how these raids and
burglaries and robberies go down in the wild West. But
he doesn't come up to your stage coach door and
yank it open. Instead, the man with the flower sack
(45:05):
over his head politely says, ma'am.
Speaker 6 (45:08):
If you'd be so kind as to wait inside the coach,
I won't be more than a minute. I intend to
hear rob this stage coach, but take nothing from you.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
You are struck by his candor. You nod mutely, Still
somewhat scared, you watch as he orders the driver to
throw down the box. He does it lands with the
sort of sound that promises gold coins are inside. The
bad man outlaw uses a small axe to break open
the locked box. He finds a fabulous wealth of gold
waiting inside. Your eyes light up at the sight. He
scoops up the gold, shoves it into a sack. He
(45:38):
helps the sack over his shoulder and walks off toward
the surrounding wood. And that's when you hear it. A
gunshot from a rifle, and then another, and then there's
a pause. Then another gun shot sounds. You see the
outlaw go down. It seems a third shot hit him.
A fourth gun shot sounds. When the gun smoke clears,
you see the outlaw is gone. Now standing by the
(46:00):
wagon is the son of the ferryman. It seems the
boy saw the outlaw waiting to ambush the wagon, and
he snuck back around, and when he saw he had
a moment, he grabbed a rifle from the wagon driver
and took aim at the outlaw. You certainly saw the
outlaw stumble as if he were a hit. But now
he's gone. The wagon driver hops down. He and the
ferryman's son checked the woods. All they find is evidence
(46:20):
the outlaw was indeed shot. There's a pool of his blood.
The trail leads off into the woods. The pair also
find a shirtcuff knocked off, apparently by the gunshot, and
a white silk crep handkerchief. Although you can't see him,
black Bart has yet again escaped on foot. Even though
he was shot, the bullet passed through his hand. It's
far from immortal wound, and he's able to flee. That
(46:44):
dropped silk handkerchief will spell his doom. Oh no, yes, well,
Elizabeth underknownst to you. Black Bart takes his sawed off shotgun,
his stolen fortune, secrets them away on a hollow log.
Then he heads for civilization. He tries to go and
blend in and dis appear in the streets of San Francisco.
The stagecoach driver was robbed that faithful November day. He
(47:04):
wrote a memoir twenty years later after about how the
day he was robbed by black Bart. In the manuscript,
he claims that he fired all four shots, and that
the ferryman's son, Rolliery never fired a single shot. I
guess he wanted all the credit for himself. He said
that his first shot missed, However, he was fairly certain
that the second or maybe his third shot hit his target.
In the contemporaneous reports, he said he fired the first
(47:26):
two shots, and Rolliary the boy took the gun and
fired the third one.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
I think them all the guy was like quaking in
his boots and then a young upstart exactly.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
So that means if he was right, that if two
of his shots hit, they would have hit this exact
same bullet hole because he only had one gun shot.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Anyway, as a result of being a hit, black Bart
dropped that white silk crape handkerchief and importantly it had
a laundry mark on it. They read f K seven.
That handkerchief was then handed over to one of the
Wells Fargo detectives, James Hume. This is their first good
clue they've ever had in years, so human his fellow Manhunters,
detective Harry Morse. They ride into San Francisco and they
(48:05):
figure that's where black Bart probably used a Chinese laundry.
They go to every single laundry in San Francisco. If
you were wondering how many that is, Elizabeth, at the time,
they were roughly ninety one laundries ninety San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Yes that today, No.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Not not at all. So the professional old West manhunters,
they only visit every single ninety ninety one. I finally
discover a laundry called Ferguson and Biggs California laundry located
at three one six Bush Street. The laundry lady, missus Where,
tells them that the man who owns that handkerchief which
is at the laundry just the day before, and he's
expected to be back soon to pick up his laundry.
(48:40):
This is how they learn the name of their prey.
She says his name is Charlie Bolton and that he
stays at a boarding house here in the city, not
too far away. She gives them the address. The Manhunters
go over to the boarding house. They stake out the building.
The lawmen and the Wells Fargo detectives, working together, wait
for their prey to return home. Meanwhile, Detective Morse goes
back to the laundry to wait for Black Bart There case,
he goes to pick a stuff up, and wouldn't you know, Elizabeth,
(49:02):
guess who comes walking up. According to the San Francisco
Examiner November nineteenth, eighteen eighty three edition, the laundry lady said,
why here comes mister Bolton. Now I'll just introduce you
to him for the first time ever. The manhunters, who've
tracked him for years, they finally see him for the
first time they lay eyes on him Black Bart in
San Francisco at this point, it's about five o'clock in
(49:24):
the afternoon. They go and they just rush over confront him.
Blackbart knows he's caught there, and he's like, yeah, this
is the end of my run as an outlaw.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
No, you have to be like, ah, you found my handkerchief,
it got stolen.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
He gets done in by our laundry mark. So, according
to those who knew him, Charlie Bowles had passed himself
off as a man of adventure, a former gold miner
who turned mining consultant slash mining engineer. His cover story
neatly covers why he's always taking trips up to gold
country and coming back with like flushed with cash. Yeah,
ready to live more of that good life. According to
the eighteen eighty eight edition of the Los Angeles Express,
(49:56):
Detective Morris described Blackbart as how he rest and quote
elegantly but not fleshly.
Speaker 6 (50:04):
Now.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
The same paper goes on to say that black Bart
also quote carried a gold mounted cane and wore a
Derby hat. He talked freely about valuable mining interests, and
seemed for once to have lost all his shrewdness as
he walked down Sansom Street arm in arm with Detective
Morse and upstairs into the Wells Fargo building and into
the office of Detective Hume. So they don't take him
to the police. They take him to Wells Fargo. So
(50:25):
the two Wells Fargo men, right, they braid him in
the hidden away of the Wells Fargo off for towers.
They throw down evidence they've collected over the years. Black
Bart says nothing. Won't confess to anything. So the Wells
Fargo man hunters. They go, fine, we're gonna turn you
over to the real police. So they take him up
to Calveras County and there in Gold Country. They that's
where he was arrested on an old warrant and black
(50:47):
Bart gets locked up in the Calaveras County jail. The
Wells Fargo men then sit there and plead with him
for five hours. Now that he's behind bars, he still
won't talk to him really. Then sheriff of this guy,
Captain Stone, comes in. He lays out all the evidence
he's collected over the years. Black Bart looks up says,
can you prove all that? Sheriff's Captain Stone says, I can,
the black Bart says, all right, let's travel. He leads
(51:11):
the Wells Fargo men and the Sheriff of Calveris County
on a twenty four mile ride on horsebacks, when the
few times he ever rides by terrifying and according to
the Los Angeles Express quote, despite the severeness of the
journey and the discovery of his guilt, black Bart laughed
and talked as he rode. He kept his companions in
continual merriment by his bright flashes of wit. He narrated
(51:32):
many of his adventures and the surrounding wilderness, and his
voice echoed in the canyons as he would break forth
in song.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Whoa he's saying as he goes.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Yeah, He's like the literal medieval troubadour, singing his own
outlaw song to the men. He's frustrated for years. So
good what outlaw brio?
Speaker 5 (51:50):
Right?
Speaker 3 (51:50):
So good?
Speaker 2 (51:50):
So when they arrived at the crime scene under the moonlight,
black Bart shows the lawman and the Wells Fargo manhunters
where the five thousand or so in gold he hid
into the and the hollow log and there's his trust
he sawed off shotgun. And they're like all right, So
then they take them back to San Francisco. He's tried, convicted,
sentence to six years in San Quentin. They had San
Quentin at the time. The light sentence is credited to
(52:10):
his gentlemanly ways with his victims, his kindness to ladies'
total lack of violence, and the fact that he didn't smoke,
drink Cussard duopium and else, that he worked alone. He
had no confederates. Yeah, throw the book at then. The
news of Blackbart's arrest is breathlessly reported from coast to coast.
The newspapers are a light with press coverage. After his arrest,
black Bart even wrote a letter to the wagon driver,
(52:32):
the last one the ones who he thought had fired
the shots at him. According to the Los Angeles Express,
black Bart wrote, and I quote stated that he remembered
him with nothing but the most kindly feelings. He complimented
him on his fine qualities as a driver, and was
only sorry that he could not be equally complimentary in
speaking of his marksmanship. On concluding, he wished him an unmolested,
prosperous and happy drive through life. He reassured the anxious
(52:55):
wife of the driver that her husband had nothing to
fear from the terrible Black Bart. So there's a promised
eighteen thousand dollars reward for the capture of the infamous
Black Bart, put up by Wells Fargo, State of California,
and the federal government. They all put up in this money. Yeah,
wagon driver, how much do you think he received this reward?
Elizabeth zero six hundred dollars. They promised eighteen thousand, three
(53:17):
hundred from Wells Fargo, three hundred from the State of California.
Federal government was like, what reward. I'm busy, I can't
hear you. I'man beep. Oh yeah, click it telegraphs wires broke.
There remains one question, why did Charlie Bulls become Black
part right? I told you wanted revenge? Well in court,
when asked his very question, he told the prosecutor quote,
I've had a rough life of it.
Speaker 6 (53:37):
It is an uncommon circumstance which brings me to this condition,
an uncommon and mysterious one one which no man living
except myself knows.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
And no man shall ever know. He will tell him.
Charlie Bulls also added that.
Speaker 6 (53:53):
I would rather go to San Quentin for life than
take a dime from a passenger or to injure him
in any other way. One can rob men at any place.
I never harmed a single individual and never committed any
crimes except against Wells Fargoing Company.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
He also said to the news papermen after his conviction,
if it had not been.
Speaker 6 (54:14):
For that handkerchief, I'll bet a thousand dollars they would
have never got me A thousand dollars, I say.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
But that's that's just the way of speaking. Now, you know,
I have no money. Now.
Speaker 6 (54:24):
I never was much troubled with riches, and on the
other hand, I never was absolutely needy.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
So black serves this time in San Quentin, gets released
early for good behavior. Yeah, then by hook or by crook,
with black Bart back outside. On November fourteenth, eighteen eighty eight,
a Wells Fargo stage coach is hit by a masked
Bandit not only that the robber left behind her verse
of poetry. The poet had.
Speaker 6 (54:49):
So here, I have stood while wind and rain have
set the trees a sobbing, and risked my life for
that bus that wasn't worth the robin.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Oh my god, was this evidence that my man black
Bart was back at it? The famous detective Whould helped
catch him. James Hume was brought in to investigate. He's
shown the tattered piece of poetry left at the crime scene.
This grizzled old man hunter. Right, he reads the verse
carefully like an English professor. I imagine, right, he's doing
like literary medics. Yeah, met her in rhyme. He's determining
(55:19):
from textual analysis. This is not the work of black Bart,
It's a copycat. So he determines that in the n
black Bart spent his final days in a town near
my hometown, the beautiful town of Marysville we talked about
with the Loose Chickens. Yes, a town he often haunted
back when he hit stage coaches an outlaw, and there
in Marysville he settles down and becomes a beloved pharmacist.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Wow, he died.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
He was in Knights Landing, which is literally down the
road from Davis. We used to go to Knight's Landing
to go fishing like all the time. That's allegedly where
he is buried in an unmarked grave. I cannot believe
I've never heard of this man before.
Speaker 3 (55:55):
Now, I like any excuse to head up that way.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
Let's go, And thus ends the story of Charlie Bowls
aka Charlie Naked Black Bart. That's the stagecoach Robert Poets.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
What's our ridiculous takeaway here, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (56:07):
I think that you know anytime that you can have
a full hero like a Luigisque folk hero, but who's
non violent m and who has an artistic flair to it,
that's thank you. That was the tree you enjoy that. Okah, good,
this is what about you?
Speaker 2 (56:21):
Thank you for hasking me whoa yeah, I have one.
This is how I would get caught. I give you
a successful for your years. And I get caught because
of my commitment to going to the same laundry lady,
you know what I mean like, And she'd have no
idea I was an outlaw because I had been lying
to her, even nice, and she believes me, and I'm
so nice that she knows I'm just some good guy
in the neighborhood. And then she'd tell the cops right
to find me, thinking she's helping me out, and I
(56:42):
get busted by the person trying to help me.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
You always think you're invisible, that people don't ever remember,
very very memorable, So you're always surprised when everyone knows
who you are.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
I remember thinking you were hearing that at the time.
I was like, really, yeah, Copper, you're writing a book anyway, Elizabeth,
can you want to wash this all down to talk
about to be perfect produced d Can you favor us
with one? Of course?
Speaker 6 (57:06):
Oh god, I went get.
Speaker 5 (57:17):
Okay. So I was listening to the latest episode and
I'm from Milton, Florida, and I'm just kind of internally
freaking out that my hometown was mentioned.
Speaker 3 (57:28):
On Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 5 (57:30):
This is so cool. Update y'all just shouted out KOA
Campgrounds and I'm over here fangirling.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Yes, that's right, girl, ka wait for life.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
I love it. It is weird. I'm sure it's weird
to hear small towns mentioned.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
Yeah, well, you know what.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
We like to span coast to coast, seas to seas.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
They used to call me Captain Flora Bama because I
know that spot.
Speaker 3 (57:54):
You do know this.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
As always, you can find us online of Diiculous Crime
as social media's and we have our account, Ridiculous Crime
Pod on YouTube. Go check it out. We also have
website Ridiculuscrime dot com. I think we just won what
was it the Pulitzer Yes her best website Yes, which
was a shock to us. We didn't even know where
nominated they created. So also as obviously we'd love to
(58:18):
talk back, So please go to the iHeart app download it,
record one. Maybe hear your voice here and we can
all go yeah. And also emails if you like you
like to keep it old school, go to Ridiculous Crime
at gmail dot com and please start that email. DA
produce it d Thank you for listening. We will catch
you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Utton
(58:41):
and Zaren Grenette, produced and edited by the.
Speaker 6 (58:44):
Scourge of Providence Dark Dave Kustin, and starring Annalis Rucker
as Judas.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
Research is by Ave Marissa Brown.
Speaker 6 (58:53):
Our theme song is by Technicolor, Thomas Lee and Tourmaline
Travis Dudd.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
The host wardrobe provided by Bought Me five hundred. Guest
hair and mecup by Sparkleshot and The Mister Dons Today.
Speaker 6 (59:04):
Executive producers are Bright Blue, Ben Bown and Nightshade No Brown.
Speaker 5 (59:15):
Ridicus Crime Say It One More Time Giqueous Crime.
Speaker 1 (59:22):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
my Heart Radio Visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Do you Elizabeth scoutla dous? Not much? How you don't
look forward to see you are?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
And here I am.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I got a question for you. You'll never guess what it is?
What size are my shoes? That's not the question. Three
good guess by The question actually is do you know
it's ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I do? I you know I'm a name connoisseur. Yes,
we both thought we share that like funny names. I
respect names, except for all those like tragedies as they
say that and then you know, but and apologies if
you have one of those, you didn't pick the name.
(00:42):
So I was the other day I was listening to
Amy Poehler's podcast, and she had Michael shore On who
created Parks and Rec and was like worked on the
Office and all, and he was talking about creating names
for characters and some of like the hilarious names that
they've had on like Parks and Rec. Elissa, Sapristine. You
(01:06):
have to make sure no one else has the name.
There was one. I think it was like Sue Gretzky
Mantlebon I can't.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Dash.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah, Sue, I've been I think that's.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
What it was.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Anyway. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Live with it anyway.
So knowing this, like I thought it was really funny.
The interns forwarded me a message that we got on
Instagram from Mark mccobbin, and it's a post on Instagram
from Elite College Football with the craziest names in college
Football twenty five seasons. Because that's another thing I love
(01:41):
is the Key and Peel skit with like the names
they made up. These are real And I double checked
it because I thought, oh, there's no way, Oh yeah,
they're real.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
This is like the first one.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I don't want to say it out loud. Noah is
his first name, but his last name is k n
I G g A. He is okay. Yeah. Then there's
General Booty and he kind of looks like a weird
Kendall Nitro Tuggle Wow, Nitro Tuggle King Large.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, his family had fun.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
And his picture is pretty up. Yeah, he's all about
that mobility. No, he's real too, mo m O h ability.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Then dude person to get out, dude person different like Wyoming.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
He's from whatever the bears are. No, no, no, it's
like a purple thing going on. I don't know blazon
Loo Wong. Yes, there's sur sur Bible s I r R.
He's got another epic. Yeah what else?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Demon clowney, demon clowny, demon clown dad just went for broke.
They're like, you know what, Yeah, that's got to be's
uh brother or cousin Javeon Clowney.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Okay, yeah that's news to me. Sure there's a guy
who is on Notre Dame fighting Irish Charles Do d U,
but he uses the Chinese characters for his name on
his uniform. Yeah, so it just looks like that.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Oh I love that.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
And then Rocky Beers, Rocky Beers, Rocky Beers, and he
has a mustache. He's like teletransported from the seventies Deuce
Night Legend Journey. That's beautiful, Pooky Arterberry. And then we
wrap it up tell is Grant beer Man, Grant beer
(03:45):
but he's Grant beer Man. So Pooky Arterberry. The names
are just so good, dude persons. Yeah, so they're ridiculous,
but like in a beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yes, yes, in a very like celebratory of life way.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Exactly. We have to celebrate every aspect of life.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I love your spirit, thank you so much. Do you
know what is also it's ridiculous. Elizabeth, tell me I
have a story for you. I picked this one out
extra special for you. It's kind of like thank you
for like how you hooked me up with the Arnstein episode.
It made me my man Arnold the brain Rothstain, like
I gotta do Elizabeth's solid for you today. I have
a nor Cow story. I know you enjoy those. It's
(04:23):
the tale of a gentleman thief, which I know you
also love that. He's a wild West outlaw that parts
for me, but he's a folk hero that parts for you.
He's also a poet, love love love this. He would
rob stage coaches and leave poetry for the law.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Stop it.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yes, he was a rare wild West outlaw who was
also afraid of horses okay, which means he fled every
stage coach robbery on foot or.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
On a penny farthing.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
He was also notoriously polite, well mannered. He never cussed, never,
he's violence, never been mistreated. A lady, I just want
to tell you all this up tops.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
You don't have to Work's incredible.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, and he only wanted to get his revenge against
Wells Fargo.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I love this.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
He was a hero of the people, Elizabeth. Elizabeth's name
was Black Bart.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Get out of town.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, buckle up, Buttercup.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
This is ridiculous crame podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
heistand cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
one hundred percent ridiculous. Oh, Elizabeth, Now I know you
have a soft spot for nonviolent gentlemen or gentlewomen, also
(05:49):
especially thieves.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Now you've covered a few thieves who operate with style
pinas oh make their way through the world, sailing on
that wind of criminality. Now who is this Black Bart?
He doesn't sound like me. He would up front be
one of your people. Know. He was, as I said,
an outlaw folk hero poet okay, operating in norcl in
the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
He's like an early like Peter Coyote.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
The high Time of the Old West, right for starters.
He's deaf my kind of guy, because, for instance, Black
Bart was a self applied nickname, like how I dubbed
myself Dizzy. He never told you that anyway, My man
black Bart didn't trust the nineteenth century press to give
him a good nickname. So he's like calling me black bar.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
I believe it because we know how the papers were right,
they did you dirty shirt.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Hey, Now he was born.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Like you know, Pickle knows Johnson, Like wait, what.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
No blue tooth Gregory he was This dude was born
in Norfolk, England, eighteen twenty nine. Okay, right, But his
parents named him Charles Bowles, third to ten children. He
was not going to inherit the family spread. That was clear.
So he had to make his way in the world.
And true to this show, he chose crime. But not
at first, Elizabeth. At first he tried to go legit,
(07:01):
like when he was a toddler. His family picked up
sticks and jolly old and they left England and moved
to New York. Not New York City. The immigrant family
settled in Jefferson County. I had to look this up.
It's near a spot called Alexandria Bay, which is right
there at the Canadian border. Okay, right, So the settlement
at the time was new. If the family showed up,
the area was settled in like eighteen seventeen. The Bolls
(07:22):
family shows up in eighteen thirty one, so the buildings
still have their first code of paint yeah, yeah, right.
So anyway, if everything's going along nice, they make their
way in America and then boom, eighteen forty nine comes along.
The news washes across the continent that gold has been
discovered this place called Sutter's Fort in California. News kicks
off Gold Rush of eighteen forty nine. As you well know,
(07:43):
just twenty years old at the time, young Charlie Bowles
and two of his brothers head west to go and
find their fortune in the gold Hills of California. Exciting
now they were about it, Elizabeth. They didn't even hesitate.
They just saw the headlines and started walking west. I mean,
that's how I pictured it. I don't know anyway, they
arrived in eighteen forty nine. They made they were forty nine,
That's what I'm saying. Like they saw the first headliner
(08:05):
like good for me, I'm good.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
The wagons, yeah, I assume what are.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
These blue jeans we've heard about?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Who's this Levi Strauss fellow? I heard he makes a
good product. Now, crossing country in eighteen forty nine was
no joke. There was no trans continental railroad at this time.
But they make it out to California. I assume you're right.
They took a wagon. I don't know. They ran up
to Gold Country stake their claim as gold miners. They
mine along the North Fork of the American River. They're
(08:32):
above some Sacramento. Apparently they found jack squat because after
three years mucking about in the cold water streams, digging
in the earth, you know, panning for gold, they came
away with little to show for their efforts. Of the
three Bulls brothers head back to New York. Oh really, yeah, yeah,
that's eighteen fifty two. Okay, the Bulls Brothers still had
gold fever though, if we could just get back to California.
(08:54):
So they managed to get some scratched together and the
three turn right back around and they go back to California.
The gold rush is still kicking on at this point, right, So.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Well, and the thing is is everything was so expensive.
Oh yes, in California. It's like how now where if
people are? You know, it's like a twenty five dollars sandwich.
Well that's how it was then, and the gold rushes.
Everything was outsized price wise.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Everyone's paying for gold dust. They're like, yeah, they're paying
with gold dust.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
So if you're going and you're not successful, and then
you're not turning around and selling shovels. Totally good point,
you know, or doing people's laundries, or making crime my people,
making saddles.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, that's a good answer. Everybody needs a place to sit.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
And so yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
So, like I said, crossing continent before the Transcontinental Railroad
was no joke, right, So, and I don't just mean like, oh,
there's a threat of dispossessed natives or like the attack
by horse, the all the violent men rattling around in
the wild attack. But there's yeah, there's disease illness. When
the three Bulls brothers returned to Gold Country, both of
Charlie Bulls's brothers are severely sick from the trip.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Shortly thereafter both die. Oh no, now.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
He's alone dysentery just like an Oregon pretty much exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So, now he's alone in the world, young, grieving, still
got gold fever. So he tries to make it a
goal of it as a gold miner all by himself. Right,
He stuck it up for another two years. Luck still pitiful, Elizabeth.
So he packs it back up, heads back to east
and we head in his hands, Like I.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Get salty because it's like a five hour flight, you
know what I mean. They're just like.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Weeks and weeks off, not months.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
That takes a lot. You got a lot of metal.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So it was good that he returned home to New York, though,
because that's where he met a young woman and they
fell in love. Elizabeth. Her name was Mary Elizabeth Johnson,
just like the most nineteenth century Nativist American name you
could come up with, Mary Elizabeth Johnson.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
She would not do well in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
He would not the pair Mary, right, and they had
to make a go of it. After a few years,
he convinceds her, we need to move west. Yeah, but
she's like, I don't know about it. He's like, no,
not all the way to got to California. You don't
worry about that. I've shaken the gold fever. Let's move
to Decatur, Illinois. So they moved to Decatur, Illinois. They
make a life for themselves, or Charlie Bowles tries to
make a life for himself. They have four kids, nice family, right,
(11:20):
good nineteenth century Americans. Charlie Bowles tries his hand at farming,
does some teaching. This is around eighteen sixty and if
you know American history, you know what's blowing around in
the breeze. But it's yet to come to bloody fruition. Yeah,
the American Civil War. The war breaks out, Charlie Bowles
is they're in Decatur, Illinois. Does He's not under threat
of what's happening, but he still is like, I don't know,
this is not right. Takes him a little while, but
(11:42):
by the end of eighteen sixty two, middle of eighteen
six I think spt. August, he signs up to fight. Oh,
he joins the Union. So, like I said, out lawful Curry,
he knows to be on the right side of the
Civil War. Now he joins Company B of the one
hundred and sixteenth Illinois Regiment, signs up to fight under
General WILLI to come to Sherman, not yet a general,
but comes to Sherman. He stays with this general for
(12:04):
the duration of the war. Oh, he is there, rifle
in hand for every battle Sherman fought.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Oh wait he goes.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, he made the march. He was in the big fights,
the little fights. He was in seventeen major Civil War battles,
major ones. He was also all the major ones. Right,
So his luck holds up. He's no good at gold mining,
but he was a hell of a Civil War soldier.
He does get wounded, not once, not twice, three times.
He gets seriously hit at Vicksburg, and that's like rhea.
(12:31):
Is like post up like in the military hospital for
a while. But he survived to the end of the war.
There he is, as you asked with General Sherman when
he makes his fiery march to the to the seas
were burning down half of Georgia. Yes, yes, Queen. June seventh,
eighteen sixty five. Civil Wars won the nation, stitching itself
back together no longer a young man, Charlie Bowles goes
(12:52):
back to Illinois, back to his wife and family. Now,
I don't know if the war changed. Okay, I do
know the war because war changes everybody. So I mean,
I know it changed him, but I don't know how
it changed him. And they don't have language like PTSD
back then. Sure, they don't even have shell shock. That's
like a World War one time exactly so. But he's
walking around in Decatur, Illinois, and he cannot get back
to the quiet life of farming.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So in eighteen sixty seventy he's like, I'm going west,
but the gold rush at this point has passed in California,
so he can't go back to the Gold Hills. Instead,
he goes to Montana where they've recently discovered gold. Idaho. Yeah,
so they're finding smaller.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Pockets here on the silver, a bunch of silver as well.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, it's exactly the silver comstock load. And so he
starts mine for precious medals in Montana and Idaho. At
this point, he's still in contact with his wife and
his family, sending regular letters, sending money back home. One
of his letters, dated eighteen seventy seven, he writes to
his wife complains he had some real bad business with
the road agents from the Wells Fargo company did him dirty, right,
(13:48):
So in the letter he promises his wife that he
will get his revenge against Henry Wells and William Fargo
and Elizabeth. My man was good to his work to
do that, though Charlie bowls. He picks up state again
and he goes truly wes. This time, he returns to California.
He's like, where are them? Wells Fargo is located, So
gold rush may be over, but there's still plenty of
loose wealth, rocking and rolling around the gold country and
(14:10):
lock boxes loaded onto stage coaches operated by who well
Wells Fargo and Company. And that's who Charlie Bowles makes
the sole target of his outlaw ways.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
You're kidding them.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Just fixates on stage coaches if it's red and says
in yellow Wells Fargo, he's hitting it unlike gold mining.
When it comes to being an outlaw ful hero, Charlie
Bowles is as lucky as he was in war. He
finds he's good at being a bandit. Yeah, he holds
the record for rob stage coaches as my man black Bart.
He pulled off twenty more stage coach robberies than any
(14:44):
other highwayman wild Way.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
And I've not heard of this.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I know I had not heard about him either, ntil
I read about them to do this story for you. Yeah,
he holds the record at twenty nine successful stage coach
robberies twenty nine and his thirtieth was his fateful last
ride years black Bart frustrated the hell out of law
and all the road agents from the Wells Fargo Company.
He just reeks his earthly revenge against the bankers. So
(15:09):
now that we've met our anti hero. Let's take a
little break and after these messages we'll get to the criming. Yes,
(15:34):
we're back, Elizabeth. Oh you ready to get to know
my man Black Bart. Yes.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Every time you say his name, I think of a
Christmas story. Oh right, he wants the red writer bb
gun And it's all because I'll get you black Bart.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
That's the thing. The name his name sticks around. He
has such a compelling name, but becomes like this moniker
for villains, and yet we as you hear, he's really
not that guy, like yeah tough. Anyway, First of all,
don't let his name you I just want to let
you know Black Bart is not a black cowboy, Am
i am?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
I correct that it's black Bard.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, okay, he's in tunes too, Yeah exactly. It's a
very common stand in name for like the cowboy villain.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Total yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
And it also has that dime store novel quality.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Or dial Yes, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So fine, He's not this notorious bad Man's my point right.
Black Bard doesn't have a surly demeanor, doesn't have noxious vibes.
He's not a big gruff villain, but he gives himself
this gnom to crime. So it was, as I said,
based on his literary leanings. Yeah, he is. He's a
different kind of folk caro outlaw.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
He was known like for instance, he was known to
read the Bible regularly. He was partial to the words
of Shakespeare, would quote him. He black Bart, he has
as I said, didn't didn't smoke, didn't drink. He also
didn't smoke opium or hashish. As the newspapers would point out,
they he doesn't smoke opium. It's like, I guess it
was common enough you had to point this out. So
he also he didn't swear. And if if it weren't
for the you know, all the stage coach robberies. Really
(16:58):
an exemplary life for a golden sure.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
But as I told you up top, as Billy Bob
Thorton put it in Tombstone, black Bart was pretty brave
for a man who didn't go healed in the Old West.
Maybe he didn't carry shooting irons either, Yeah, neither out
in the open or secreted on his person. Really, Yeah,
but he did. Black Bart did carry a double barrel
shotgun that he saw it off and he used that
when he was working as an outlaw stage coach Bandit okay,
(17:23):
but a lot of people out of historians think it
was never loaded headed off shot, but I found in
interviews he said it wasn't as an emergency precaution. He
just never had to use it. Yeah, I don't think
anybody would go out there with an unloaded weapon and
being like, I'm going to point this this somebody who
may have a loaded weapon.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Exactly see how this plays, because when you when you
start to draw it out from something, if he's pulling
it from under a jacket, that's when you get shot. Yeah,
before you even have it fully exactly what.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
It's a gun. It's a gun. Someone else sees it,
they're gonna be.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Like, oh gun, gun stop persisting.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
In his record twenty nine, stage coach rob as I said,
not once does he ever fire his double barrel sot
off shotgun. The street sweepers there for show, but the
stage coach drivers are known. This is where we get
the term shotgun. They have a guy riding next day,
he carries a shotgun. That's the shotgun seat. So he's
going mano a mano with them in terms of like, oh,
(18:17):
I've got what they've got now. When he would rob
a stage coach, he never bothered the passengers because he
was he was very was known to be kind to
the ladies. He used his best manners. He would always
say ma'am, please and thank you, and they could let
him know. And he was also that he wasn't gonna
hurt anybody. And he was also very compliant with stage
coach drivers about like oh me, hold your horses, you
get down, you know, like seriously, he was just like
(18:39):
incredibly considerate. And I mentioned in my intro, but by
far this is my favorite detail is that he's terrified
of horses. So he's an outlaw who does not ride
a horse, cannot escape on a horse. He rides a
stage coach and then he just walks away into the woods.
Just trying to picture that.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
He's like Homer Simpson drifting.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Back in the exactly just put into like valley oaks.
So at this point for his outlaw look, he was
also a partial to long dusters, like those coats if
you know, like they're they're made interestingly for riding horses
to protect you from like the choya and the cactus,
and they supposed to cover your legs. I guess he
just liked the look, so he would wear those. He
also liked a bowler. He was a bowler man, a
(19:21):
professional bowler, I mean like the rounded top hats. So
when he was not working, when he's not doing his
outlaw business, he would have on it was common to
have a bowler. Sometimes he would have like a gold
tip cane, stylish rakish gentleman. Right, But when he was
working as an outlaw, he'd pull a flower sack over
his head, cut out two eye holes and then it
he's like basically something Stooby Dudes, yeah, villain or the Zodiac.
(19:43):
Yeah right, it was quite the look. It was shocking
for people then as it would be now now. But Elizabeth,
I'd like to take you back to the eighteen seventies,
to northern California, to the Gold Country and to get
to robbing stage coaches. But first I think we need
to discuss one last thing, which is stage coaches themselves. Yeah,
I feel like you need to know a little bit
more about the black parts targets. Do you know much
about stage coaches.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I mean I'm not an expert or anything. I've seen
one of the original Wells Fargo ones they have like
it's been refurbished at the big Wells Fargo Financial district.
But yeah, so that you can see it through a
window which you can also go inside link and rocks
(20:23):
and yeah, I don't think I've ever been in it,
but like it's not huge.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
No, those are the more common ones. Those are a
little bit smaller than what I'm describing, which is for
the luxury line of stage coaches. It was something called
the concord okay, and the stage coach that one could
hold nine people inside the coach. It was much bigger
than like the ones you used to probably fit like six,
yeah comfortably. No, the driver would sit up front and
then there would be a dress seat next to the driver.
(20:49):
That's where the man the chotgun right you. So then
also there's roughly a dozen seats they're called the Dickey
seats that were located on top of the coach. You
could just ride in the free air up there with
the luggage with like the brass rails, exactly like a
train in India. So that's how people would ride. They're
(21:10):
called Dickey seats, and they'd have no shielding from the
dust so when the weather anything, but the seats are cheap,
I guess, and they'd be up there with the leather
mail bags, right, so.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Beneath the woods and the pine branches by a low branch.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
So also, I forgot to tell you there's the beneath
the mule skinner seats. That's the wagon driver's name, right. Yeah,
there's something called the lock box, so the aka the
treasure box. This is where Wells Fargo would put their
gold coin, the bullion, the gold dust collected from the hills,
and all their precious metals, right, but also stocks, bawds,
treasury bills, you name it, they're all there in the
lock box. This whole rig gets pulled by a team
(21:49):
of usually four to six horses, and to keep these
animals from tiring out and pulling over all this weight
over hill and dale and mountain path and valley floor,
the horses would travel about ten miles and then they
would be changed out. This ride is stopping every ten miles, yeah,
and then changing out all the horses, which takes time,
and they're feeding them and everything. And that's why it's
(22:10):
called a stage coach. He goes in stages.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I don't know that.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, there you go. So when the horses get uncoupled
from the stage coach and the new team horses get
strapped in every ten miles or so. This makes them
vulnerable to banditry. But that's also where they are at,
like some way station. There's people there. It's not an
easy target. Only the craziest bandits would hit people there. Yeah,
this is what you see in a lot of Westerns.
It's just like, oh, this band's drained, she's hitting the
(22:35):
way station. Yeah, most reasonable bandits would just wait for
them to get two miles down the road between exactly
and then just hit them. And so then they have
to do that though, you got to stop the wagon.
And these guys are cooking along, right, So how do
you do that? Well? With this old Civil War veteran,
with his combats experience under General Sherman, he's done a
(22:56):
bunch of raids and he's dealt with wagons. He figured
out I can do in my one man war against
Wells Fargo. I know I can do this. So he
makes himself a name people can fear Black Bart and
then he just is willing to step out in front
of the wagon with this crazy look, the flower sack
over his head and the double barreled sawed off shotgun
aimed at the driver and they yeah, drivers like this
(23:17):
this guy means business, and so they yell woe and
pull over. So you may be wondering where did he
come up with the name black Bart just struck a.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Genius, very Blackberrier, rapid transit, that's a very differ. That's
a strange name. Where did he get it?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
His gnome to crime comes from his love of poetry
and literary pursuits.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
There was this story that ran in the old Sacramento
Union newspaper a couple of years prior. It's called the
Case of Summerfield by this written by Caxton, which is
meant to be like a Roman like, oh, this is
my writing eponym, right or pseudonym.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
The author's real name was William Henry Rhodes. He was
a lawyer and he wrote a lot of stories. Right.
So this was a fictional early sci fi tale about
this chemical like a recipe that this guy has in
these secret vials that will turn water into something that
will burn, that'll catch fire. So that this is a
secret It's happening in the Old West. The people are
fighting over these vials. So imagine like the show The
Wild West where they have like some crazy inventor and
(24:14):
they have to get chased down by Jim West. Yeah. Right,
that's basically what it is.
Speaker 6 (24:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
But in that story, you got a bad man named
black Bart, and he robs Wells, Fargo stage coaches as
part of a campaign of fear and terror against the
bankers and so, and he's the one who covets this
secret that can destroy the world. Right. So black Bart
is described as having.
Speaker 6 (24:32):
Like wild gray eyes, a bushy black beard, straggly wind
kept hair, and this becomes the inspiration for this full
hero outlaw character he plans to build.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
In reality, Charles Bowls is like five foot eight. He's
well built, well proportioned, right, all the newspapers of the
day point out. But he's not this big, terrifying fit.
But his name sounds like it. So the Los Angeles
Evening Express they describe the band at black Bart back
in eighteen eighty eight as quote Charles E. Bowles, better
known Black Bar, a name which he himself assumed, is
(25:02):
the most romantic figure in the history of American crime.
The lone highwayman who spares life and takes only from
the rich is the one criminal tolerated by fiction. Yet
fiction has never portrayed a character where craftiness, cunning, and
intelligence are so strongly blended with purposeless criminality, gentleness and
(25:24):
courtesy with desperate courage, as in the nature of one
Black Bart. Right, So at this point he's forty six
years old. When he's doing all this, it is in
his forties. He gets caught, he's forty eight, but when
they're writing about him, he's at the forty six. So
he decides to become Black Bart. He's a forty year
old former veteran of the Civil War who's like walked
(25:44):
away from his family and former gold miner, and he's
just like, I'm gonna become this literary figure.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
He has seen some of the worst things carnage garage
for years.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So in the summer of eighteen seventy five July to
be exact, for his first stage coache Blackbart opts to
hit a Wells Fargo stage coach running between Sonora and
Twallamee County and Milton and Calveras County. Yeah, so up
there in the true Gold Country, like Mark Twain the Jumping.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
So he's going from Sonora up to they're going.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
From Sonora up to Milton in Calaveras County.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Okay, Yeah, So they're just running the length of the foothill.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, exactly, Okay, So Caliverra's county, As I said, Jumping
frog contest Mark Twain, this is real gold Hill country now,
just outside of a town called Copperopolis, Oh, Calaveras County. Right,
our newly minted outlaws sets his trap. Now after the fact,
the stagecoach driver said that the outlaw stepped out of
the woods in front of the stage coach. He wore
the flower sack over his head with the customary two
(26:40):
eye holes cut out. He levels his double barrel shotgun
at the driver and says, throw down your box. Now
this means the strong box, the treasure box. Stage coach
driver considers his options. Right, so the outlaw clocks his hesitation.
So black Bart gives orders to his fellow bad men
secreted away in the woods. He goes.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
He dares to shoot the solid folly boys.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
The stage coach driver looks up, gazes into the woods. Right,
he spies rifles amongst the trees, all pointing back at him. Now,
I'm scared for his life. There's too many of them.
Stage coach driver throws down the lock box. He watches
as this outlaw pries it open with like an axe,
a small, little like hatchet. Yeah, he collects one hundred
and sixty dollars inside would would be about fifty five
hundred dollars today.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
The outlaw stands back off and he moses into the
woods right, just backs up, protected by other rifles aimed
at the stage coach. Now, once he's satisfied that the
highwayman is good and gone, stage coach driver hops down
to retrieve the lock box. He's got to go and
show his bosses that look, yeah, not me. Yeah, And
then that's when he sees what he believed were rifles
aimed at him were nothing more than carefully positioned sticks
(27:43):
just wedged into the tree branches. There were no other bandits.
It was just some theater in service of crime.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
So who would imagine it's just one dude and no
horses exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
You're thinking, he's gotta have a great gang, big.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Group of guys, and then a bunch of horses just
on the other this patch of.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, oh boy, So that's his first robbery.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
This is first one boom.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
He's like, I'm good at this, But by the end
of the year he's back at it. This time he's
near Marysville up in Yuba County. Yeah, north of my hometown.
You're Alma Mater, Davises December of eighteen seventy five. Again
black Bart uses the same gag. He props up sticks
in the wood, steps out in front of the stage coach,
acts like he got a team of bandits guns trained
on the driver. Again, his theater in the wild totally successful.
(28:26):
Guess he got a good haul because he takes a
year off from banditry after this point. Oh yeah, he's
down in San Francisco and enjoying the sporting life as
a professional gambler. Okay, so eventually as luck ran out,
so he hops on a ferry, goes and crosses the Bay.
He didn't go back up the Gold Country, though, he
decided I'm gonna score some more loot. He stays closer
to the Bay area. He goes up and rubs a
stage coach of Mendocino County. Oh up the coast, Yeah exactly.
(28:48):
So he decides his third robbery is that goes down
August third, eighteen seventy seven. As the stage coach thunders
down the road, suddenly out of the woods steps this
hooded figure it's Black Bart with the same flower sack
over his head, two eye holes cut out, holds up
his sawed off shotgun. Stagecoast driver seas and yells, whoa horses,
come to a stop right now. The outlaw orders the
(29:09):
driver throw down the box, which the duly complies. Again.
Black Part pretends he's got a gang outlaws in the trees, right,
and it works just as well the third time. But
I guess word had not spread amongst the drivers. There's
this guy out there pretending that there's these sticks in
the woods. There is gang.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
So he spends hours finding like really straight sticks. Yeah,
so that's like yeah, and then pulling all the bark off.
So smooth.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
So Black Part he seems to know something which is key,
which is that people are more afraid of their imaginations
than reality. Yes, they just work on their imagination. You
don't need to actually do anything scary, just make them
start thinking scary.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
And I'm sure that he saw that in warfare exactly exactly.
You know what that people you can either psych yourself
out imagining what could happen, and then you become more
of a victim walking into a situation.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Are you psych yourself up I'm gonna I'm gonna live
through this, and then we're gonna use these, like, you know,
waving sticks to indicate that we have a lot more
soldiers on this side of the.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
I'm not going to be I'm not gonna be freaked
out until i know for sure what's going on.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yes, good point, you know. So at this point a
third robbery, he pries up the locks box, steals the contents.
Black Bart tells a driver drive on right, and drivers
happily to do this. Okay, yeah, he takes off right.
Then he goes. When he gets to the next way station,
he reports to the authorities that he was robbed and like,
look at the lock box and they so they ride
out to the scene of the crime and all they
(30:30):
find there is just evidence of the robbery. They're like, oh,
this is where it happens. They find, you know, like
different like with the hatchet he used to break up
in the lock box. But they also find a stanza
of poetry and it reads and I quote, I've labored
long and hard for bread, for honor, and for riches,
but on my corns too long. You've tread you fine
(30:52):
haired sons of bitches.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
Signed Black Bart Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
That poem with not bald up and left on the
forest floor. No, the law men were amused. The poem
gets shared with newspaper men. They put it in their papers.
Soon enough, thanks to the telegraph and the early wire service,
this newspaper readers from coast to coast are reading about
black Bart, the outlaw poet who's robbing stage coaches in California.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
It's great, that's clickbait, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Exactly, and he's an instant sensation of the nineteenth century.
For his fifth robbery the next year, in eighteen seventy eight,
black Bart hits a stage coach between Quincy up in
Plumus County, and it was on the rundown to Oraville
in Butte County. It was the summer again, July, to
be exacts. Apparently black Bart was in the mood for
a little more poetry. After he successfully robbed that stage coach,
emptied his lock box, went on his merry way. Black
(31:39):
Bart left behind another outlaw poem. His second poem went,
and I quote here I lay me down to sleep
and wait to.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
Come inmorrow, perhaps success, perhaps defeat, and everlast in sorrow.
But let come what will I'll try it on. My
condition can't be worse. If there's money in that box,
tis money in my purse, signed black Bart.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
So that little verse sealed the deal for black Bart.
The people from coast to coast now love him and
his full hero law antics right. But the authorities and
the lawmen hate how silly he's making them look. But
however try as they might, the law cannot catch this
new outlaws sensation. Black Bark just keeps right on robbing
stage coaches, just willy nilly. Right, it seems that he's
(32:29):
well aware of the local economic cycles of the area,
right he takes advantage of them. For instance, he knows
it in Mendocino County there's sheep sharing season, yes, which
means that the shepherds and the wool gatherers are going
to need to get paid, which means the stage coaches
are going to be running big loads of cash to
settle up the end of sheep sharing season, which meant
it is going to be a big payday for black Bart.
(32:50):
October eighteen seventy eight, In sheep sharing season, black Bart
robbed too wells Fargo stage coaches on back to back days.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Oh see, they don't expect that they think it'll be
a while.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And he's and he's, you'll love this. He's super casual
about it. On the first day, October second, eighteen seventy eight,
Black Bart gets spotted having a picnic by himself near
yu Kaya, right, just having a picnic now, yes, he
was enjoying the spoils of his crime. That stage coach
draws near and black Bart pops up out of his
ambush spot, levels his sawd off shotgun. Right, driver pulls
the horses to a stop. Black Bart tosses the apple
(33:22):
that he was still munching on. No, he gets down
to his outlaw business. Right. These are all from the
d eye witness descriptions. And the next day, October third,
eighteen seventy eight, back at it, he hits another stage coach,
this time again, as it always, he flees on foot.
What does he do? He just walks over to a
farmhouse a couple of miles away, and he pays the
family for dinner, and then he sits down and haves
dinner with them while everyone's out looking for him, because
(33:44):
no one would go to a family farmhouse, so he
buys himself some time. But the young daughter there, she's
the first person to take an interest in him, and
she sees him without his flower sack mask on, sure,
and no one else has seen no exactly. So he
also he didn't rob the family either, right, but they
figured out who he was, so this daughter won. Donald
McCreery said. Black Bart had quote graying brown hair, missing
(34:05):
two of his front teeth, deep set, piercing blue eyes,
under heavy eyebrows, slender hands, and intellectual and conversation well
flavored with polite jokes. Okay, so by this point Blackbart
is becoming so famous, so well known, wells Fargo has
to hire professional trackers to hunt down this outlaw. They
go like full on sundance, and butch casting is sundanced, kid, right,
(34:27):
They're like, oh, let's hire the best people. Yeah, these guys,
these professional trackers, they follow the trail of black Bart
to the McCreary farm, and then that's how they get
the news for the daughter. But it's too late when
they arrive there. The man hunters they continue to follow
Blackbart's trail for sixty miles. The trackers are on horseback,
Blackbart's on foot. Somewhere around the Eel River, the trail
(34:48):
goes cold. His trick is During the night, black Bar
keeps hiking through the rough country. By morning, he's twenty
miles east of his pursuers, so they're taking their camping down.
He's gone. He's got yeah, so free from his professional trackers.
The next day, black Bart strikes again. He hits a
junction of two wagon roads in Lake County. According to
reports of the day, black Bart was wiling away his
(35:08):
time waiting for the stagecoach, but quote by eating peaches,
the pits of which were found at the tree from
which he stepped behind. So that's his move. Just eat
some fruit, wait for some money to come down the road.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Unbeknownst to black Bart, a second professional tracker hired by
Wells Fargo, is still on his trail. He rides up
on horseback, but he's a day late. He arrives at
the scene of the crime, only there's no poem waiting
for him this time, just the peach pits. Meanwhile, black
Bart is hiked into the valley Oaks, and forty eight
hours later he's seventy miles away in Calusa County. Whoa
on foot? On foot? Yeah. From that point. Over the
(35:41):
next few years, black Bart continues to wreak havoc of
this one man campaign of vengeance against Wells Fargo. They
cannot catch him. He just continues robbing stagecouches one after another,
just like potato chips. Basically can't stuch. Obviously, as low
his luck can't last car incredible his core strength. Eventually,
even as successful as he was, black Bart was bound
to get caught.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
When we get back from these warm, delicious, fresh out
of the oven commercials, Elizabeth, I'll tell you how my
man black Bart gets popped. Yes, Elizabeth Saron, we're back. Hi.
(36:31):
You ready to hear more from my man black Bart. Yes,
the full Carol outlaw poet. Yes, thanks to his poetry
and his success is a bandit. Black Bart's famous at
this point, secured all right, everyone's talking about him coast
to coast.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Did anyone set his poems to music? Not that I
found and in the saloons and stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Hold that thought about singing his poetry. Okay, So his
success guarantees that, As I said, he's staying in the headlines.
People are loving this, and I'm talking for years. For years,
there are reports of this guy just going around on
the Old West robbing stage coaches. Freaking havoc on Wells Fart.
He's driving Wells Fargo nuts. Yeah, and they have the
money to see this as a war, and so they're like,
(37:10):
we're going to win this war. So let's go over
a few of his stage coach robbery highlights before I
tell you how it all goes pop, because they'll kind
of set up how he also gets caught.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
On October eight, eighteen eighty one, Black Bart is in
Shasta County up north. Yeah, and he's waiting to ambush
the stage coach between where Way Rika and Redding, Okay.
And when he pops up out from his ambushed spot,
the stage coach driver pulls hard on the brakes yells
WHOA to the team of horses, right they pull over.
This driver is named Horace Williams. He's apparently not terribly
afraid of Black Bart, because Horace Williams tides to strike
(37:39):
up a conversation. He throws after he throws down the
strong box and Black Bart prize it open with his hatchet.
He's scouring through the contents. The curious driver Horace Williams
wonders how much Black Bart is peeling off his bosses.
The fact cats in Wells Fargo. Yeah, Hey, how much
did you make black Bart genial? Good hearted? Is he is?
He's like, not very much for the chances I take.
(38:00):
Oh so it's like exactly anyway. At this point, it's
eighteen eighty one. So now, how many trackers and professional
manhunters do Wells Fargo have there on the roads and
in the wildman is tracking down Black Bart? Great question.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
I am so good at asking these questions.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
The answer is they had teams, teams Elizabeth teams are
professional manhunters. But these guys cannot catch Black Part for years. Yeah,
it's embarrassing, and mostly Blackbart is embarrassing because he doesn't
ride a horse, and they don't figure this out. These
professional manhunters are so used to tracking a man on
horseback or by wagon wheel they cannot get it through
(38:35):
their heads that he's just walking away.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
So October eleven, eighteen eighty one, he strikes again. Professional
manhunters rush to the scene because they had everything they
hear about it. They get a telegraph announcement and then yeah,
they go rushing there. Yeah, they track the trail that
they find and they find once again Jack Squat. This
is just once driving them those are some of the
most famous detectives in the country, being sent over from
across the country. And December of this same year, Blackbart
(38:59):
strikes it in in Marysville.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
You know, Marysville today is like overrun with wild chickens.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yes, yeah, totally anyway, exactly, he gets away on foot. Right,
there's now a whole posse because the Marysville sheriff don't play,
so he gets a whole posse chasing after him, and
the fat cat bankers have their like manhunters, and they're
all out there, this outlaw of folkiro poets embarrassing them
all in the national newspapers. And at this point, right,
as I said, gleeful copy, the newspapers are here since
(39:28):
the tennesseean right, and the newspaper in Tennessee is they
have a story of black Bart's outlaw exploits and narrow escapes,
and they chronicle him like he's the Robin Hood of
the wild West, right, and I quote now, all his
operations were in wild country where escape was easy and
no trail could be followed. The counties of Sonoma, Mendocino, Trinity,
siski U, Shasta, Plumus, Butte Yuba, Calaveras, and Placer Nearly
(39:53):
all old mining country were the scenes of his exploits.
The best of detectives and sheriffs were trying for years
to secure some clue, but the simplicity of a system
baffled them.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
So Yeah. In January of eighteen eighty two, black Bart
returns to Mendosino County. He plans to catch the stage
running between Cloverdale and Yukaya up the north. Yeah, and
he meets up with the stage coach near a town
called Hopland.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I know he used to have a really good like
music fest.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 6 (40:21):
So.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
The stagecoach driver is named Harry Force. Okay, I gotta say,
I'm wondering why this man did not change his name.
You're a stagecoach driver named Harry Horse. I'm sorry, Harry Force.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Harry for anyway, of course, he's one big Harry Force. Way, Harry.
I love that. It's they're acknowledging. It's the simplicity of
it that's the you know, wanting. It's not like they're
looking back on that. They're saying, he's doing this so
simply in these.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
They can't figure it out.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
Ding dongs can't.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah, and like they have all these way to reports
of him just walking away into the woods. You just
keep thinking he's gonna somebody picks him up and they
ride away.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Must have somewhere in their right mind walking the fork
is superior.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
It's fit, It's true. So at this point, Harry Force
is holding the reins and he has no one riding shotgun.
He's by himself. Coach is empty too. The man who
intends him to rob him doesn't know that it's empty.
So black Bart steps out from behind a valley of
the wagon driver. Harry Force sees him, and he sees
the white flower sack on his head, the two eye
holes cut out, wearing the long duster coat, and then
(41:22):
he's like whoa, especially when he sees that double barrel shotgun.
So black Bart introduces himself. On black Bart down the box.
So black Bart holds the team of horses for with
his shotgun trained on Harry.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Horse, I will hold your horse, and so he's.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Harry Force throws down the strong box right, and then
black Bart tells Harry Force go on get it, and
he's once again only too happy to oblige. And after
he's written a little distance, he comes to a toll house.
Because this road has a toll house, you have to
pay every few miles to be on this road. I
don't know how you can just like ride off the
road and go around the toll house. So I guess
with a wagon that's difficult.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
I mean, when you think of the terrain, I'm sure
like they've carved these, you know. I'm sure that it's like.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Modified like through boulder passage.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Animal passages that were then used by indigenous folks who
then mean, it's like they drive cattle and stuff through these.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
The reason why this is the only road people are
using exactly. So at this point, once he gets to
the toll house, they tell the authorities. Telegraph from now
wires light up, word spreads. Wells Fargo detectives they hear
the report, they go off in hot pursuit. They meet
up with the Sheriff's posse at the crime scene one
hour after.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
It occurs, an hour next week.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
No, that's how quick, they respond, Yeah, strong box is
still there on the ground, slit mail bags are there,
but no black bart. This trail leads off between the
oak trees. The posse and the Wells Fargo detectives. They
chase after black Bart on their thundering horses. They follow
the trail all the way to Kelseyfield, New York near
clear Lake. Yes, and that's where the trail goes cold
once again. Black Bart slips away from the Wells Fargo Manhunters.
(42:55):
In June of eighteen eighty two, he robs another stage
coach near Willetts, California. So about five miles south of Yukayah.
A hooded figure steps out of the wagon road stage
coach driver whoa hits the brakes pulls the wagon to
a stop. Driver is named Tom Force. That's right, brother
of Harry Force. What yes, drivers. So Blackbart's final stage
(43:19):
coach robbery comes one year later, November eighteen eighty three.
If you can believe it, he robs the stage coach
in the exact same spot where he robbed his first
stage coach. He begins and ends at the same spot
just outside of Copperopolis, Caerapolis and a place called funk Hill.
Funk Hill, that's it gets popped in funk Hill. So
there's this boulder there balanced high above the wagon road.
(43:40):
It's a perfect ambush spot. And that's why black Bart
returns to the spot so faithful day is November three.
He's waiting at the boulder at the bend in the
wagon road, eager for his next ambush robbery. He pulls
on his white flower sack with his two cutout eye holes.
But rather than me tell you about this, Elizabeth, I'd
like you to close your eyes. I'd like you to picture.
It's Saturday, November third, eighteen eighty three, and you, Elizabeth,
(44:02):
are riding along the wagon road from Sonora to Milton,
near the town of Copperopolis. The mule scanner has kept
good time when he stops the wagon, he's been efficient
and even consider of you, the soul passenger. You've just
used the Reynolds ferry to cross a river that was wild,
and you did meet the son of the ferryman, a
nineteen year old named Jim Rollary. But now the wagon
(44:23):
rolls through a grove of sun dappled oak trees that
line the wagon road. You gaze out at the oak
trees and the California hills, still gold from summer, not
yet greened over again by the winter rains. That's when
you hear the wagon driver yell, WHOA, that saame as odd.
It's too early for a stop to change horses. There
must be something in the road. You stick your head
out of the window to see what's in the road,
(44:44):
and there you spy a hooded figure. Is he wearing
a flower sack on his head? You think to yourself.
The sawed off shotgun tells you why he's there. The
outlaw steps forward toward the now stopped wagon. You fear
what awaits you. You've heard about how these raids and
burglaries and robberies go down in the wild West. But
he doesn't come up to your stage coach door and
yank it open. Instead, the man with the flower sack
(45:05):
over his head politely says, ma'am.
Speaker 6 (45:08):
If you'd be so kind as to wait inside the coach,
I won't be more than a minute. I intend to
hear rob this stage coach, but take nothing from you.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
You are struck by his candor. You nod mutely, Still
somewhat scared, you watch as he orders the driver to
throw down the box. He does it lands with the
sort of sound that promises gold coins are inside. The
bad man outlaw uses a small axe to break open
the locked box. He finds a fabulous wealth of gold
waiting inside. Your eyes light up at the sight. He
scoops up the gold, shoves it into a sack. He
(45:38):
helps the sack over his shoulder and walks off toward
the surrounding wood. And that's when you hear it. A
gunshot from a rifle, and then another, and then there's
a pause. Then another gun shot sounds. You see the
outlaw go down. It seems a third shot hit him.
A fourth gun shot sounds. When the gun smoke clears,
you see the outlaw is gone. Now standing by the
(46:00):
wagon is the son of the ferryman. It seems the
boy saw the outlaw waiting to ambush the wagon, and
he snuck back around, and when he saw he had
a moment, he grabbed a rifle from the wagon driver
and took aim at the outlaw. You certainly saw the
outlaw stumble as if he were a hit. But now
he's gone. The wagon driver hops down. He and the
ferryman's son checked the woods. All they find is evidence
(46:20):
the outlaw was indeed shot. There's a pool of his blood.
The trail leads off into the woods. The pair also
find a shirtcuff knocked off, apparently by the gunshot, and
a white silk crep handkerchief. Although you can't see him,
black Bart has yet again escaped on foot. Even though
he was shot, the bullet passed through his hand. It's
far from immortal wound, and he's able to flee. That
(46:44):
dropped silk handkerchief will spell his doom. Oh no, yes, well,
Elizabeth underknownst to you. Black Bart takes his sawed off shotgun,
his stolen fortune, secrets them away on a hollow log.
Then he heads for civilization. He tries to go and
blend in and dis appear in the streets of San Francisco.
The stagecoach driver was robbed that faithful November day. He
(47:04):
wrote a memoir twenty years later after about how the
day he was robbed by black Bart. In the manuscript,
he claims that he fired all four shots, and that
the ferryman's son, Rolliery never fired a single shot. I
guess he wanted all the credit for himself. He said
that his first shot missed, However, he was fairly certain
that the second or maybe his third shot hit his target.
In the contemporaneous reports, he said he fired the first
(47:26):
two shots, and Rolliary the boy took the gun and
fired the third one.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
I think them all the guy was like quaking in
his boots and then a young upstart exactly.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
So that means if he was right, that if two
of his shots hit, they would have hit this exact
same bullet hole because he only had one gun shot.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Anyway, as a result of being a hit, black Bart
dropped that white silk crape handkerchief and importantly it had
a laundry mark on it. They read f K seven.
That handkerchief was then handed over to one of the
Wells Fargo detectives, James Hume. This is their first good
clue they've ever had in years, so human his fellow Manhunters,
detective Harry Morse. They ride into San Francisco and they
(48:05):
figure that's where black Bart probably used a Chinese laundry.
They go to every single laundry in San Francisco. If
you were wondering how many that is, Elizabeth, at the time,
they were roughly ninety one laundries ninety San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Yes that today, No.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Not not at all. So the professional old West manhunters,
they only visit every single ninety ninety one. I finally
discover a laundry called Ferguson and Biggs California laundry located
at three one six Bush Street. The laundry lady, missus Where,
tells them that the man who owns that handkerchief which
is at the laundry just the day before, and he's
expected to be back soon to pick up his laundry.
(48:40):
This is how they learn the name of their prey.
She says his name is Charlie Bolton and that he
stays at a boarding house here in the city, not
too far away. She gives them the address. The Manhunters
go over to the boarding house. They stake out the building.
The lawmen and the Wells Fargo detectives, working together, wait
for their prey to return home. Meanwhile, Detective Morse goes
back to the laundry to wait for Black Bart There case,
he goes to pick a stuff up, and wouldn't you know, Elizabeth,
(49:02):
guess who comes walking up. According to the San Francisco
Examiner November nineteenth, eighteen eighty three edition, the laundry lady said,
why here comes mister Bolton. Now I'll just introduce you
to him for the first time ever. The manhunters, who've
tracked him for years, they finally see him for the
first time they lay eyes on him Black Bart in
San Francisco at this point, it's about five o'clock in
(49:24):
the afternoon. They go and they just rush over confront him.
Blackbart knows he's caught there, and he's like, yeah, this
is the end of my run as an outlaw.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
No, you have to be like, ah, you found my handkerchief,
it got stolen.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
He gets done in by our laundry mark. So, according
to those who knew him, Charlie Bowles had passed himself
off as a man of adventure, a former gold miner
who turned mining consultant slash mining engineer. His cover story
neatly covers why he's always taking trips up to gold
country and coming back with like flushed with cash. Yeah,
ready to live more of that good life. According to
the eighteen eighty eight edition of the Los Angeles Express,
(49:56):
Detective Morris described Blackbart as how he rest and quote
elegantly but not fleshly.
Speaker 6 (50:04):
Now.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
The same paper goes on to say that black Bart
also quote carried a gold mounted cane and wore a
Derby hat. He talked freely about valuable mining interests, and
seemed for once to have lost all his shrewdness as
he walked down Sansom Street arm in arm with Detective
Morse and upstairs into the Wells Fargo building and into
the office of Detective Hume. So they don't take him
to the police. They take him to Wells Fargo. So
(50:25):
the two Wells Fargo men, right, they braid him in
the hidden away of the Wells Fargo off for towers.
They throw down evidence they've collected over the years. Black
Bart says nothing. Won't confess to anything. So the Wells
Fargo man hunters. They go, fine, we're gonna turn you
over to the real police. So they take him up
to Calveras County and there in Gold Country. They that's
where he was arrested on an old warrant and black
(50:47):
Bart gets locked up in the Calaveras County jail. The
Wells Fargo men then sit there and plead with him
for five hours. Now that he's behind bars, he still
won't talk to him really. Then sheriff of this guy,
Captain Stone, comes in. He lays out all the evidence
he's collected over the years. Black Bart looks up says,
can you prove all that? Sheriff's Captain Stone says, I can,
the black Bart says, all right, let's travel. He leads
(51:11):
the Wells Fargo men and the Sheriff of Calveris County
on a twenty four mile ride on horsebacks, when the
few times he ever rides by terrifying and according to
the Los Angeles Express quote, despite the severeness of the
journey and the discovery of his guilt, black Bart laughed
and talked as he rode. He kept his companions in
continual merriment by his bright flashes of wit. He narrated
(51:32):
many of his adventures and the surrounding wilderness, and his
voice echoed in the canyons as he would break forth
in song.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Whoa he's saying as he goes.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Yeah, He's like the literal medieval troubadour, singing his own
outlaw song to the men. He's frustrated for years. So
good what outlaw brio?
Speaker 5 (51:50):
Right?
Speaker 3 (51:50):
So good?
Speaker 2 (51:50):
So when they arrived at the crime scene under the moonlight,
black Bart shows the lawman and the Wells Fargo manhunters
where the five thousand or so in gold he hid
into the and the hollow log and there's his trust
he sawed off shotgun. And they're like all right, So
then they take them back to San Francisco. He's tried, convicted,
sentence to six years in San Quentin. They had San
Quentin at the time. The light sentence is credited to
(52:10):
his gentlemanly ways with his victims, his kindness to ladies'
total lack of violence, and the fact that he didn't smoke,
drink Cussard duopium and else, that he worked alone. He
had no confederates. Yeah, throw the book at then. The
news of Blackbart's arrest is breathlessly reported from coast to coast.
The newspapers are a light with press coverage. After his arrest,
black Bart even wrote a letter to the wagon driver,
(52:32):
the last one the ones who he thought had fired
the shots at him. According to the Los Angeles Express,
black Bart wrote, and I quote stated that he remembered
him with nothing but the most kindly feelings. He complimented
him on his fine qualities as a driver, and was
only sorry that he could not be equally complimentary in
speaking of his marksmanship. On concluding, he wished him an unmolested,
prosperous and happy drive through life. He reassured the anxious
(52:55):
wife of the driver that her husband had nothing to
fear from the terrible Black Bart. So there's a promised
eighteen thousand dollars reward for the capture of the infamous
Black Bart, put up by Wells Fargo, State of California,
and the federal government. They all put up in this money. Yeah,
wagon driver, how much do you think he received this reward?
Elizabeth zero six hundred dollars. They promised eighteen thousand, three
(53:17):
hundred from Wells Fargo, three hundred from the State of California.
Federal government was like, what reward. I'm busy, I can't
hear you. I'man beep. Oh yeah, click it telegraphs wires broke.
There remains one question, why did Charlie Bulls become Black
part right? I told you wanted revenge? Well in court,
when asked his very question, he told the prosecutor quote,
I've had a rough life of it.
Speaker 6 (53:37):
It is an uncommon circumstance which brings me to this condition,
an uncommon and mysterious one one which no man living
except myself knows.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
And no man shall ever know. He will tell him.
Charlie Bulls also added that.
Speaker 6 (53:53):
I would rather go to San Quentin for life than
take a dime from a passenger or to injure him
in any other way. One can rob men at any place.
I never harmed a single individual and never committed any
crimes except against Wells Fargoing Company.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
He also said to the news papermen after his conviction,
if it had not been.
Speaker 6 (54:14):
For that handkerchief, I'll bet a thousand dollars they would
have never got me A thousand dollars, I say.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
But that's that's just the way of speaking. Now, you know,
I have no money. Now.
Speaker 6 (54:24):
I never was much troubled with riches, and on the
other hand, I never was absolutely needy.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
So black serves this time in San Quentin, gets released
early for good behavior. Yeah, then by hook or by crook,
with black Bart back outside. On November fourteenth, eighteen eighty eight,
a Wells Fargo stage coach is hit by a masked
Bandit not only that the robber left behind her verse
of poetry. The poet had.
Speaker 6 (54:49):
So here, I have stood while wind and rain have
set the trees a sobbing, and risked my life for
that bus that wasn't worth the robin.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Oh my god, was this evidence that my man black
Bart was back at it? The famous detective Whould helped
catch him. James Hume was brought in to investigate. He's
shown the tattered piece of poetry left at the crime scene.
This grizzled old man hunter. Right, he reads the verse
carefully like an English professor. I imagine, right, he's doing
like literary medics. Yeah, met her in rhyme. He's determining
(55:19):
from textual analysis. This is not the work of black Bart,
It's a copycat. So he determines that in the n
black Bart spent his final days in a town near
my hometown, the beautiful town of Marysville we talked about
with the Loose Chickens. Yes, a town he often haunted
back when he hit stage coaches an outlaw, and there
in Marysville he settles down and becomes a beloved pharmacist.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Wow, he died.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
He was in Knights Landing, which is literally down the
road from Davis. We used to go to Knight's Landing
to go fishing like all the time. That's allegedly where
he is buried in an unmarked grave. I cannot believe
I've never heard of this man before.
Speaker 3 (55:55):
Now, I like any excuse to head up that way.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
Let's go, And thus ends the story of Charlie Bowls
aka Charlie Naked Black Bart. That's the stagecoach Robert Poets.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
What's our ridiculous takeaway here, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (56:07):
I think that you know anytime that you can have
a full hero like a Luigisque folk hero, but who's
non violent m and who has an artistic flair to it,
that's thank you. That was the tree you enjoy that. Okah, good,
this is what about you?
Speaker 2 (56:21):
Thank you for hasking me whoa yeah, I have one.
This is how I would get caught. I give you
a successful for your years. And I get caught because
of my commitment to going to the same laundry lady,
you know what I mean like, And she'd have no
idea I was an outlaw because I had been lying
to her, even nice, and she believes me, and I'm
so nice that she knows I'm just some good guy
in the neighborhood. And then she'd tell the cops right
to find me, thinking she's helping me out, and I
(56:42):
get busted by the person trying to help me.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
You always think you're invisible, that people don't ever remember,
very very memorable, So you're always surprised when everyone knows
who you are.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
I remember thinking you were hearing that at the time.
I was like, really, yeah, Copper, you're writing a book anyway, Elizabeth,
can you want to wash this all down to talk
about to be perfect produced d Can you favor us
with one? Of course?
Speaker 6 (57:06):
Oh god, I went get.
Speaker 5 (57:17):
Okay. So I was listening to the latest episode and
I'm from Milton, Florida, and I'm just kind of internally
freaking out that my hometown was mentioned.
Speaker 3 (57:28):
On Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 5 (57:30):
This is so cool. Update y'all just shouted out KOA
Campgrounds and I'm over here fangirling.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
Yes, that's right, girl, ka wait for life.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
I love it. It is weird. I'm sure it's weird
to hear small towns mentioned.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
Yeah, well, you know what.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
We like to span coast to coast, seas to seas.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
They used to call me Captain Flora Bama because I
know that spot.
Speaker 3 (57:54):
You do know this.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
As always, you can find us online of Diiculous Crime
as social media's and we have our account, Ridiculous Crime
Pod on YouTube. Go check it out. We also have
website Ridiculuscrime dot com. I think we just won what
was it the Pulitzer Yes her best website Yes, which
was a shock to us. We didn't even know where
nominated they created. So also as obviously we'd love to
(58:18):
talk back, So please go to the iHeart app download it,
record one. Maybe hear your voice here and we can
all go yeah. And also emails if you like you
like to keep it old school, go to Ridiculous Crime
at gmail dot com and please start that email. DA
produce it d Thank you for listening. We will catch
you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Utton
(58:41):
and Zaren Grenette, produced and edited by the.
Speaker 6 (58:44):
Scourge of Providence Dark Dave Kustin, and starring Annalis Rucker
as Judas.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
Research is by Ave Marissa Brown.
Speaker 6 (58:53):
Our theme song is by Technicolor, Thomas Lee and Tourmaline
Travis Dudd.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
The host wardrobe provided by Bought Me five hundred. Guest
hair and mecup by Sparkleshot and The Mister Dons Today.
Speaker 6 (59:04):
Executive producers are Bright Blue, Ben Bown and Nightshade No Brown.
Speaker 5 (59:15):
Ridicus Crime Say It One More Time Giqueous Crime.
Speaker 1 (59:22):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
my Heart Radio Visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
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