The Last Day of Sam Bass

Sam Bass

Unlike many “Wild West” outlaws, whose lives passed with nary an obit and a tombstone, Sam Bass gained legendary status with the likes of Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid.  He was born on July 21, 1851, two miles outside of Mitchell, Indiana.  Both parents died while he was still a child.  Illiterate until his death, Bass was raised on a farm with his uncle and nine children, a life where grinding manual labor held sway over education and the promise of a secure future.  At eighteen, he struck out on his own, ending up at the Mississippi town of Rosedale.  While working at a lumber mill, he learned the skills that would define many an outlaw - cards and pistol shooting.  Deciding he wanted to be cowboy, he traveled to Denton, Texas where was employed by Sheriff W.F. “Dad” Eagan.  Unfortunately, he was not employed as a deputy, but as a farmhand, the occupation he had hoped to leave behind.  It wasn’t all feeding chickens and milking cows; he also took up horse racing, earning enough to leave farming for good.  Ironically, Sheriff Eagan would later join in the manhunt for his former employee. 

While in San Antonio, Bass met Joel Collins. Together, they purchased a herd of longhorns on credit.   They drove them to Nebraska, earning a tidy sum of $8,000 which they never repaid.  Their next occupations proved more risky - prospecting for gold in the South Dakota Black Hills.  They went broke, using up all the money from the cattle drive.  Faced with an impoverished life in the remote Black Hills, they turned to robbing stagecoaches.  The rewards didn’t outweigh the risk; they joined an outlaw gang, turning to train robbery instead. 

At Big Springs, Nebraska, the gang robbed their first and most profitable train.  It netted them $60,000 in newly minted gold coins.  In 1878, Bass assembled his own gang in Texas, robbing four trains near Dallas.  Such exploits brought the full weight of federal, state and local law down on the Bass Gang.  The profit-laden railroads offered huge rewards for their apprehension.  The heavy brush and tangled woods, outside of Dallas, offered ample hideaways from local posses, who often stumbled over themselves and others trying to find Bass.  Governor Richard “Jumbo” Hubbard, who weighed all of 400 pounds, turned to a top notch Texas Ranger, Major John B. Jones, to lead the search.  Jones brought unmatched, military-style discipline to the Rangers, converting them from unruly Indian fighters into a model for public law enforcement. 

Despite Jones’ efforts, law officials were still frustrated in their attempts to nab Bass.  Instead, they rounded up Bass Gang associates and family members.  Gang associate, Jim Murphy, along with his ailing dad, was taken into custody.  In return for his freedom and continued medical treatment for his dad, Murphy agreed to become an informant; a risky venture that would lead to an immediate execution if Bass felt he was being betrayed.  The gang combed central Texas for bank robbery prospects, finally settling on the Williamson County Bank in Round Rock.  Somehow, Murphy managed to get a letter off to Jones, almost getting caught by Bass in a Georgetown post office.  Jones frantically began searching for Rangers to dispatch to Round Rock.  He selected Rangers Dick Ware, George Harold and Chris Conner from his own company.  Jones took a train to Round Rock.

On July 19, 1878, the Bass Gang arrived to scout out the Williamson County Bank a final time.  The Sheriff and the Texas Rangers were waiting, but they weren’t entirely sure of what Sam Bass and his gang looked like.  Unlike a typical Western movie scene, they didn’t ride up en masse, dressed in black, and into a deserted town.  To avoid detection, they mingled innocuously with the Round Rock locals.  Ranger Ware later recollected that he had walked right past Bass without realizing who he was.  Luckily, Williamson County Deputy Sheriff A. W. Grimes spotted Bass and fellow gang members, Seaborne Barnes and Frank Jackson at a tobacco shop.  Grimes and Travis County Deputy Sheriff Maurice Moore approached them from behind, and then asked them to surrender their pistols.  Instead, the outlaws spun around and shot Grimes dead. Moore was wounded in the chest.  Alerted to the scene, Rangers George Harold and Richard Ware gunned down Barnes and mortally wounded Bass as they were trying to escape on their horses.  Ware had been getting a shave at the local barber shop before the gunfire erupted; his face was still lathered when he ran outside.  Just west of town, a posse found Bass; who shouted out, “Hey, I’m over here. I’m Sam Bass, the one you are looking for.”  He was hauled in, but died the following day on his 27th birthday: July 21, 1878.  

Frank Jackson escaped and was never found.  Given the unflattering nickname “Judas” after Bass’ death, Murphy committed suicide the following year.  Bass was buried in the Round Rock Cemetery.  The famous shootout is re-enacted each year at Round Rock’s Frontier Days celebration.