George “Balldy” Green was one of the most popular stagecoach drivers in the Sierra Mountain Range, driving for the Pioneer Stage Company between Placerville, California, and Virginia City, Nevada, in the 1860s.

George was said to have been a handsome man about six feet tall with a large, lustrous mustache. However, the hair on the top of his head was sparse, earning the nickname “Baldy.” During his days as a stagecoach driver, he drove many famous people, including Ben Holladay, Horace Greeley, and Vice-President Schuyler Colfax.

On May 22, 1865, near Silver City, Nevada, three men robbed his stage of $10,000 in gold and greenbacks. More robberies followed, and not only would the highwaymen not leave him alone but neither would the newspapers. The Territorial Enterprise noted he narrowly escaped scalping, and someone placed a sign near the spot saying, “Wells-Fargo Distributing Office, Baldy Green, Mgr.”

Two years later, his stage was robbed twice on successive days. After a robbery on June 10, 1868, Virginia City’s Territorial Enterprise said: “Baldy Green is exceedingly unlucky, as the road agents appear to have singled him out as their special man to halt and plunder, and they always come at him with shotguns.” Two more robberies occurred the same month, and whether the stage company saw him as unlucky or thought he might have been somehow involved in the robberies, he was discharged. He then hauled freight in Pioche, Nevada, and was later said to have served as Justice of the Peace in Humboldt County, Nevada.

© Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2022.

Also See:

Adventures in the American West

Cowboys, Trail Blazers & Stagecoach Drivers 

Stagecoaches of the American West

Tales & Trails of the American West