CINCINNATI

I'm often shocked that I can find so many things about Cincinnati that are totally new to me.  I now find that the very first train robbery in America took place right here just outside the Queen City.  Here's the way the story goes.

On May 5, 1865 (this is right at the end of the Civil War), an Ohio and Mississippi train left mid-town Cincinnati on it's way to St. Louis with stops in between.  It departed at 8 pm with about an hour of sunlight remaining.  The O&M train was made up of a steam engine and tender, three passenger cars and a caboose.  There were about 100 passengers on board. 

The train rumbled only 17 miles along the Ohio to the area known as North Bend when it came to a place where a rail had been removed from the track.  The engine and tender overturned - the other cars remained upright.  About a dozen bandits with guns held high, swarmed the cars.  Two went to each passenger car.  They passed potato sacks among the passengers in which all valuable were to be placed.  The other men went after three safes the train carried.  They were lugged away from the cars and opened with dynamite. 

The bandits finished their work at last light and made their way to boats.  They fled across the Ohio River to Kentucky and were lost forever.  More than one northern Kentucky farmer reported horses being stolen that night. 

Significantly, one of the safes contained 30 bearer bonds worth $1,000 each.  A tidy sum in those days for a dozen men.  It was reported by some of the passengers that the gang seemed like a military unit taking orders from a leader.  It was probably a remnant of the War - they may not even have known the war had ended.