Sam Bass.
The Black Hills Bandits, active from 1876 to 1877, included Sam Bass, Joel Collins, Jack Davis, Tom Nixon, Bill Heffridge, and Jim Berry. These outlaws first robbed some seven stagecoaches in the Deadwood, South Dakota, area. Four of these robberies were directed at the same stage line – the Deadwood Stage. On the fifth attempt on March 25, 1877, the outlaws killed the stage driver, Johnny Slaughter. At the sound of the shot, the horses bolted toward Deadwood, some two miles away. Folklore has it that the runaway stage was stopped by none other than Calamity Jane as it entered Deadwood.
Big Springs, Nebraska train.
The gang soon decided their profits from stage robberies were too low and turned their attention to the more lucrative business of robbing trains. After making their way to the isolated station at Big Springs, Nebraska, they carried out their first train robbery on September 18, 1877. Capturing the station master, John Barnhart, and destroying the telegraph, they forced him to signal the eastbound express train to stop. At 10:48 p.m., the six bandits boarded the train. They found only $450 in the mail car safe, then went to rob the larger safe, but it had a time lock that prevented it from opening until the train reached its destination. They brutally beat the express messenger to get him to open it, but he could not. However, the outlaws continued searching the train car and found wooden boxes containing $60,000 in freshly minted $20 gold pieces. Why these were not in the safe is unknown. The bandits then began to rob the train passengers systematically. Ultimately, they escaped with the $60,000 in freshly minted gold coins, $450.00 from the mail car safe, and about $1,300.00 and four gold watches from the passengers.
Splitting up the money, the outlaws separated into pairs, each heading in a different direction. Joel Collins and Bill Heffridge were pursued to Buffalo Station (now Gove), Kansas, where they were killed. Jim Berry was captured near his home in Mexico, Missouri. Wounded during the capture, he died two days later. Sam Bass returned to Texas, where he formed the Sam Bass Gang. On July 21, 1878, he was killed in an ambush by Texas Rangers at Round Rock, Texas. Tom Nixon and Jack Davis were never apprehended.
©Kathy Alexander-Alexander/Legends of America, updated September 2026.
Also See:
See Sources.