Ordered to go to Alma, since it was the “southern Rendezvous for the Wild Bunch,” Siringo drifted south into Arizona, then on to New Mexico, finally arriving at Cassidy’s old hangout to finish his “horseback ride of over a thousand miles through the most God-forsaken desert country in the United States.”47 In Alma he heard tales of how Murray had talked to the barkeep Jim Lowe without realizing this was the very man he was looking for—stories that did not exactly match the reports that Murray had submitted. Siringo wrote to Murray, telling him that a friend of Lowe’s had mentioned that he and his friends were nearby preparing for a raid, and that he was planning to try to get in with the gang. But the assistant superintendent replied quickly, telling Siringo that he “was mistaken about Jim Lowe being ‘Butch’ Cassidy, as he had met Lowe and found him to be a nice gentleman.”48 Instead, Murray ordered Siringo back to Denver to follow up on other members of the Wild Bunch.
In the following months, “after much planning and scheming,” Siringo, going by the name Lee Roy Davis, “got in solid” with Jim Ferguson, who had furnished horses and food to Logan, Kilpatrick, and the Texan Bill Cruzan—usually considered the best horse thief among the members of the Wild Bunch—before the Tipton robbery.49 Ferguson had remained in close contact with several members of the gang, and Siringo was able to wheedle information from him about the Wilcox robbery and other unsolved cases. Then, obtaining a letter of introduction from Ferguson—“This is to introduce you to my friend,” it stated. “He is righter than hell.”50—Siringo went to Rawlins, Wyoming, where he fell in with more men who were friendly to Cassidy, Logan, or other members of Wild Bunch, from whom he learned a few key trade secrets of the gang. One was that “they kept a system of blind post offices all the way from the Hole-in-the-Wall in northern Wyoming to Alma in southern New Mexico, these post offices being in rocky crevices or on top of round mounds on the desert. In passing these post offices, members of the Wild Bunch would look for mail or deposit notes of importance.”51
Siringo then headed to Santa Fe to interview Elzy Lay in the New Mexico Penitentiary. In the following months he returned to his “friends” in Wyoming, and then made another slow pass through Arizona and New Mexico, all the time gathering information about relatives, hideaways, and secrets of the Wild Bunch, while once missing Logan by just two days.52
More than a quarter of a century later, Siringo wrote that he had actually gone undercover and been a “member of the Wild Bunch for four years under many assumed names,”53 a story that various writers have repeated ever since. However, although he certainly dealt with men who were on the fringes of the gang during the several years of his investigation, and he indeed used many different names with them, he never rode with the Wild Bunch himself, as shown both by his own earlier accounts and by the timing of his other investigations, which would have made his active participation impossible. His claim to be more involved than he truly was was simply an old man with a very active imagination remembering things as he wanted them to be rather than how they were. In enlarging on stories like this, he once again showed himself similar in this respect to that other master storyteller—his friend and boss, McParland.
• • •
The end of Siringo’s assignment did not conclude the agency’s role in the hunt for the Wild Bunch. Nor did it end the history of the gang. Following the Winnemucca robbery, the key remaining players—Cassidy, Longabaugh, Logan, Carver, and Kilpatrick—met up in Fort Worth, Texas, although it has been debated whether it was for a celebration of their success, the wedding of Will Carver, or just a good time.54 On November 21, 1900, they donned Sunday suits and bowler hats for a now famous photograph, taken by John Swartz at his studio. Apparently Swartz was so pleased with the photo, he displayed an extra copy in his gallery. When Wells Fargo agent Fred Dodge happened to spot it and recognized Carver, he sent copies to a variety of law-enforcement agencies. Pinkerton’s then used the pictures on new wanted posters that were distributed throughout the West.55
The almost mocking portrait of the Wild Bunch made it seem that once again they had had the last laugh, and before long a picture of Longabaugh and his partner Etta Place taken in February 1901 in New York City, created another stir at Pinkerton’s. “What a great pity we did not get the information regarding the photograph while this party was in New York,” William Pinkerton wrote to his brother. “It shows how daring these men are, and while you are looking for them in the wilderness and mountains, they are in the midst of society.”56 A few weeks later—on February 20, 1901—Longabaugh, Place, and, most likely, Cassidy boarded the steamer Herminius, bound for Buenos Aires, Argentina.57
The disappearance of the leader of the Wild Bunch and his closest crony did not interfere with the Pinkerton’s investigation. Two weeks later, McParland was scheduled to go to Laramie to interview Bob Lee, although he had to postpone the trip when he came down with “a case of Grippe” and “discovered that my temperature was 101.”58 Nor did the departure of Cassidy and Longabaugh change the manner in which the remaining members still figured to make money—stealing it. In March, Logan, Carver, and Ben and George Kilpatrick began planning the robbery of the First National Bank of Sonora, Texas.59 But late that month, the Kilpatrick family ranch was visited by a neighbor, Oliver C. Thornton, who had been complaining about the pigs of the Kilpatricks’ brother, Boone. Whether that issue escalated or Thornton heard plans for the robbery, he didn’t leave alive: Logan killed him on the spot. On April 2, Carver and George Kilpatrick rode into Sonora, where the local sheriff and several deputies tried to arrest Carver for Thornton’s murder. When the outlaws resisted, Carver was shot dead.
Two and a half months later—on July 3, 1901, as much of the country prepared for celebrations of the 125th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—the Wild Bunch pulled off its last great robbery—the Great Northern Railroad’s Express No. 3, outside of Wagner in remote northern Montana.60 The robbery was likely led by Logan, who, along with Kilpatrick, O. C. Hanks, and from one to three other men, escaped with up to forty thousand dollars in unsigned bank notes, gold, and silver coins. That was the beginning of the end, however. In November 1901, Kilpatrick—having been mistaken for Longabaugh—was arrested in St. Louis. Once officials discovered who he actually was, he was indicted for seventeen federal currency offenses. Rather than risk extradition to Montana—which had instituted the death penalty for train robbery—he pled guilty and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.61
That same month, Logan began spreading his stolen bank notes around Knoxville, Tennessee, and one evening there he became involved in a brawl in a poolroom.62 Two policemen—William Dinwiddie and Robert Saylor—came in to break up the fight, and Logan shot each repeatedly, disabling both of them. Logan made a getaway, but was injured, and was caught a couple days later. When tried in federal court, he was convicted of stealing, forging, and passing forged federal bank notes. He was sentenced to between 20 and 130 years in prison. His lawyers appealed, but were unsuccessful. In June 1903, when he was about to be transferred to federal prison in Columbus, Ohio, he somehow escaped on the sheriff’s horse.
On June 7, 1904, Logan, George Kilpatrick, and a man thought to be Dan Sheffield—the brother of Boone Kilpatrick’s wife—held up the Denver & Rio Grande Western’s No. 5 train near Parachute, Colorado. After a posse hunted down the three, Logan was wounded in a shootout. Choosing to avoid capture, he fatally shot himself in the head.
Meanwhile, Cassidy, Longabaugh, and Etta Place settled on a large piece of public land—where they could raise sheep and cattle—in the southern Argentine valley of Cholila, overlooked by the Andes and close to the Chilean border. They had not been there long before, in March 1903, the highly successful Pinkerton’s operative Frank Dimaio, who was on assignment in São Paulo, Brazil, was sent to Buenos Aires to confirm their whereabouts.63 By studying Argentine public records and ship company documents, checking bank and hotel records, and cond
ucting numerous interviews, he was able to learn exactly where the desperadoes were living. However, the U.S. vice consul in Buenos Aires advised him not to try to reach their retreat during the rainy season, as the roads would be impassable. With months to wait, Dimaio returned to New York, but not before he had arranged for wanted posters of the two men to be printed in Spanish and distributed throughout the country.
The Pinkerton brothers had every intention of sending their operative back to capture Cassidy and Longabaugh, but, to their surprise, the railway companies and the American Bankers Association refused to pay for the operation. The railway reasoning was simple: Rather than extradite the criminals and risk their escape upon return to the United States, better to leave them in South America, where those authorities would be forced to deal with them.64 The Pinkertons, not wanting to invest their own money, put any intervention on hold.
In the following years, Pinkerton’s operatives continued to monitor the movements and resumed criminal activities of Cassidy and Longabaugh. These continued until early November 1908, when, following the robbery of a mining company payroll in a remote area of the Bolivian Andes, the two were discovered in the village of San Vicente, where they were killed during or after a gun battle with Bolivian army and police forces.65
Meanwhile, shortly after Dimaio had first located Cassidy and Longabaugh in South America, an article in The Sun of New York—headlined “Last of the Train Robbers”—allowed McParland to take credit for the end of the Wild Bunch. “As a result of the work of the Pinkertons, assisted by local officers and posses, the train and bank robbers who have infested various States and Territories of the United States for more than forty-five years are at the present time a thing of the past,” he said smugly. “The two greatest gangs of train and bank robbers this or any other country in the world has ever known were the Logan or Curry gang of Wyoming and Montana, and the Black Jack [Ketchum] gang of Texas.” Despite this surprising lack of knowledge about the leadership of the Wild Bunch, McParland maintained that the end of the gang could be credited to the efforts of the men under his own leadership, with a result that “the train robber of the future will have to find a new country in which to operate and a new place in which to hide.”66
CHAPTER 18
THE MAN IN CHARGE
It is not surprising that at times James McParland seemed the epitome of self-satisfaction. He was powerful, successful, and respected, and he enjoyed a celebrity in which he relished. He was also a cornerstone of a famed nationwide organization and the master of every aspect of the agency in the Western states.
In 1902, the Pinkerton brothers made a slight reorganization, reestablishing exactly who the agency’s power brokers were. George D. Bangs—previously in direct control of the Eastern Division—gave up that charge to serve strictly as the number-three man, the day-to-day national administrator, with his title changing from general superintendent to general manager. Simultaneously, Robert Pinkerton’s son, Allan, who was being groomed in the family business, was promoted to assistant general manager, in anticipation of his eventually becoming a principal. The three regional divisions remained, with the chiefs having “assistant” dropped from their designations. McParland’s title thereby became general superintendent, Western Division, while his old friend David Robertson was replaced by Edward S. Gaylor in that role in the Middle Division. John Cornish, formerly of the Boston office, was promoted to the head of the Eastern Division and stationed in New York. Two years later McParland’s title was changed to manager, Western Division.1
Soon there were twenty offices, eight under McParland, with nearly two hundred operatives in the West alone. The increase in business was so pronounced that Denver had more than thirty agents under Fraser, with four assistant superintendents: Murray, H. Frank Cary, Arthur E. Carver, and E. E. Prettyman.2
Located adjacent to the Denver office in the Opera House Block was McParland’s private headquarters. He was thus neighbor to many operatives who hoped to emulate his success, although it is unlikely that they were on social terms with him, or even felt comfortable in his presence. Although the novelist Dashiell Hammett never personally knew McParland—joining Pinkerton’s Baltimore office in 1915 and working out of Spokane only after McParland’s death3—he definitely knew his reputation, which led him to write about the character based on him: “The Old Man . . . was also known as Pontius Pilate, because he smiled pleasantly when he sent us out to be crucified on suicidal jobs. . . . The Agency wits said he could spit icicles in July.”4
It is obvious from numerous accounts that McParland at times got what he wanted by way of intimidation, bluster, and coercion, both within the company and with other agencies, including public law enforcement. “To-day I had a long confidential chat with John Leyden, who has been on the City Detective Force here in Denver for a number of years and owes his position to me,” he once wrote to William Pinkerton. “While Leyden is the best officer in the city, he used to go on a periodical drunk and get discharged, but each time I was in a position to get him reinstated.”5
McParland also had considerable charm and charisma, and to some he was the picture of all that was desirable. “He is regarded as one of the most skillful directors of detective work in the country,” reported The Seattle Daily Times, “and in personal intercourse is most agreeable. His forte is story-telling, a form of entertainment in which he excels.”6 Similarly, the famous Ringling Brothers Circus proudly linked itself to him in a yearly account of its successes: “Detective Ryan . . . entertained McParland as the circus played in Denver.”7
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, perhaps the most respected fraternal organization in the United States—and the one that most emphatically espoused American values—found McParland to exemplify its ideals of “a loyal, reverent, and dutiful American.”8 At a meeting in Salt Lake City of Elks lodges from around the West, the person who first drew attention from the press was “a medium sized man . . . whose keen blue eyes looked out from behind a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, and who apparently missed nothing that was going on. He was James McParland and . . . is the man who broke up the famous Molly Maguire gang.”9
Even decades later the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was still honoring him for his work on that case, as well as for his devotion to the parish and his many contributions to the building of Denver’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.10 He was on excellent personal terms with Denver’s Bishop, Nicholas C. Matz, who, like McParland, was an outspoken opponent of the Western Federation of Miners.11 But some of Denver’s large Catholic community undoubtedly still considered McParland a traitor, and perhaps his actions in Schuylkill County were held against him when he tried to gain entrance to the Knights of Columbus, America’s preeminent Catholic social and charitable organization.12
Or so claimed Edmund Richardson—a defense lawyer who was prepared to use such a story to smear McParland’s reputation with a jury.13 According to Richardson, when the Knights wished to expand into Denver in 1900, one of the national organizers visited McParland, on account of his connections with the Church hierarchy. McParland gladly met with Bishop Matz on their behalf, after which an application for a charter was submitted that contained the names of twenty-five of the most significant Catholic men in Denver—including McParland. The application was quickly granted, but when Denver Council 539 was instituted and its new members initiated, McParland was out of town on business. He therefore had to apply for membership and be voted in, like any other new member. As Richardson later recorded: “When his name was proposed, a number of the members decided that he would not make a desirable member. . . . When the ballot had been taken a number of the members, who had not voted, stated as a reason that the black balls [for a vote against] were exhausted and they did not care to vote. The vote was 29 black balls, 12 white balls and 24 members not voting for the reason as stated. According to the bylaws of the organization, this would debar him from membership.” Months
later, Richardson continued, McParland sought admission as a charter member of Council 615 in San Francisco, and it was there, in a place he supposedly was little known, that on January 19, 1902, he was finally able to gain admittance.
Although Richardson’s story was later accepted as fact,14 it remains uncorroborated. The national archives for the Knights of Columbus shows no record of McParland on the charter list for Denver but does show him as a charter member in San Francisco. According to the archivist, the only source that might provide such information would be the minutes book for the council of that period, but there is no record in Denver of the original meeting minutes.15 The accuracy of the story is therefore open to debate. What is certain is that McParland eventually became a fourth-degree member of the Knights, the highest ranking in the order.16
• • •
It is also certain that McParland was not “little known” in San Francisco when he became a member in the Knights of Columbus, because immediately before that he had received a great deal of acclaim there for solving one of the most widely publicized robberies of the period.
On the morning of August 6, 1901, it was discovered that thirty-seven bars of gold bullion—some as heavy as eighty-five pounds—had been stolen from the Selby Smelting & Lead Company’s plant south of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, near Vallejo. The thief had burrowed under the building and cut out a section of the iron floor into the walk-in safe. He had then taken the gold out the way he had come, through a railroad tunnel to the shore, and had apparently sailed off with it, inexplicably leaving behind two bars worth nearly $50,000. The heist was proclaimed “the largest theft of gold bullion known in this country”—with a loss estimated at $283,000.17
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