Texas outlaw Sam Bass inspired tall tales. (original) (raw)

He was only 27 years old when he met his maker, but during his short life he became the subject of cowboy songs and tall tales which were told around many a campfire in Texas.

According to The Handbook of Texas, Sam Bass was born on a farm near Mitchell, Indiana, on July 21, 1851. He was orphaned before the age of thirteen and spent several years being raised by his uncle. After running away from home in 1869, Bass turned up in Rosedale, Mississippi, where he worked for about a year in a sawmill.

But the young man didn�t care much for the hard work of a sawmill and decided to search for fame and fortune in the cattle country of Texas. He came to Dentonand worked on a ranch for a while, but once again he didn�t like the work and his dreams of being a cowboy were soon replaced with ideas of how to make �easy money.�

In 1874 Bass got into horse racing. He bought a fast mount dubbed the �Denton Mare� and started racing in North Texas, winning a little money in that part of the country; eventually he tried his luck in San Antonio where he wasn�t quite as successful. In 1876 he teamed up with a fellow named Joel Collins and drove some cattle herds up to Dodge City.

Although they were employed by several Texas ranchers and were supposed to sell the cattle and return with the money, it didn�t work out that way. Fact is, Bass and Collins kept the money, $8,000 worth, and squandered it gambling in Ogallala, Nebraska, and in the gold mining city of Deadwood, South Dakota.

When the money played out the duo tried their luck in the freight-hauling business, but as was their habit with any job where hard work was involved, they simply quit and went back to a life of crime. They gathered up six more unscrupulous characters and began to rob stagecoaches and trains.

Bass and his gang made their biggest haul when they robbed a Union Pacific passenger train at Big Springs, Nebraska, on Sept. 18, 1877. They took 60,000innewlymintedtwenty−dollargoldpiecesfromtheexpresscarand60,000 in newly minted twenty-dollar gold pieces from the express car and 60,000innewlymintedtwenty−dollargoldpiecesfromtheexpresscarand1,300 plus four gold watches from the passengers. The crooks divided up the loot and decided to go in pairs in different directions. Collins and several others were killed while resisting arrest but Bass made it back to Texasand put together a new gang of outlaws. Sam Bass and his bandits didn�t have much success in Texas. They did rob some stagecoaches and trains in the Dallas area but didn�t get much money. During his short-lived career, Bass got sort of a �Robin Hood� reputation in that he claimed to have only robbed the rich and never the poor.

Many a tall tale has been told about the Texas outlaw. On April 4, 1924, The Moulton Eagle ran an article about him and cited several different tales that were circulating about the man. For instance there was that time when he offered one young boy a drink of whiskey. The boy refused it saying, �Mother doesn�t allow me to drink.� The outlaw sadly answered, �That�s right sonny, mind your ma. I wouldn�t be where I am today if I had minded mine.�

Perhaps the biggest tale about Bass is the one where he was captured by a mob and hanged. The men were shooting at his body and a bullet happened to hit the rope. His body dropped and then rolled into a river. A big rattlesnake was seen crawling away from where Sam�s body hit the ground. The lynch mob supposedly dragged the river and found nothing.

After returning to town one member of the mob was asked if the notorious Sam Bass was really dead. �Well if he isn�t, he ought to be,� said the man. �He was shot, hanged, snake-bit and drowned. That ought be enough.� Whether this really happened or not is anybody�s guess but Bass did survive, although not for long. Given up by an informer, Sam Bass was ambushed and wounded in a gunfight with Texas Rangers while trying to rob a bank in Round Rock, Texas. He managed to escape but was later found in a pasture north of town. He was brought back to Round Rock and died there on July 21, 1878, his twenty-seventh birthday. The young outlaw who inspired many a song and campfire yarn is buried in Round Rock, not far from where he died.

� Murray Montgomery

August 24 , 2009 Column
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