Wednesday marked the 100th anniversary of America’s “last great train robbery.” The U.S. Postal Service is offering a special postmark to commemorate the holdup gone wrong near the Oregon-California border.
Bruce Shoemaker, a founder of the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture, hands over the wreath to a railroad worker to be hung over Tunnel 13. Hanging a wreath has become a common tradition every year.
Roman Battaglia / JPR
On Wednesday, railroad workers hung a wreath over Tunnel 13, off of I-5 in the Siskiyou Mountains to honor the victims of the tragedy. In 1923, three brothers attempted to rob a Southern Pacific train.
The brothers were trying to access the mail car, where they thought there was cash and other valuables. Their plan quite literally blew up when the stolen dynamite they used to blast open the door set fire to the mail car, creating thick smoke that made it hard to find what they were looking for.
When their plan failed, the brothers shot and killed three railroad workers in an attempt to leave no witnesses. A postal clerk was also killed in the explosion. The brothers ended up fleeing the scene empty-handed.
Railroad Conductor Brian Lewis was at the wreath ceremony, and said he’s seen a lot during his 45 years on the job.
“Think of all the dangers there are in railroads, when I went to work everyday I had to worry about what was happening,” Lewis said. “You could fall off an icy boxcar, you could get in a terrible head-on collision, you could — especially in those old days — have a boiler explosion. You went to work expecting that, but nobody ever went to work expecting to be shot to death.”
As part of the 100th anniversary of the tragedy, the U.S. Postal Service is offering a special postmark cancellation stamp. Stamp cancellation marks are used on letters to indicate the stamp has been used.
“The cancellation is an image of a train coming out of a tunnel,” said Kim Frum with the Postal Service. “And it is being offered in Ashland at the Ashland Post Office. It’s a hand-canceled postmark.”
The postmark was designed by retired Postal Inspector Dan Mihalko.
Postal Clerk Elvyn Dougherty was one of the victims a century ago. Dougherty was caught in an explosion as the robbers attempted to break into the mail car in search of cash or other valuables. The tragedy sparked an international manhunt that involved U.S. Postal Inspectors.
The investigation following the holdup has often been cited as validating the use of forensic science in the United States. Prior to the 1920s, crime labs only existed in Europe.
Law enforcement sent some of the evidence from the crime scene to Edward Heinrich, a chemistry professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Heinrich used scientific processes to examine the evidence to help figure out who committed the crime.
The commemorative postmark is available at the Ashland Post Office through Friday.