Century of Butte Stories

1903 Train Robbery at Homestake

By John Astle

(A column featuring stories from Butte's newspapers during the past 100 years).

It was the first week of February, 1903, when a young man named George Howard (alias Joe Kirby), unemployed and down on his luck, approached George Cole, 24, in a downtown Butte tavern, and asked if he wanted to help him rob someone.

Cole said he would be interested. He told Howard that, "I might as well be hung for a goose as a feather," and suggested they rob the bank in Twin Bridges. Howard disagreed and said he wanted to hold up the North Coast Limited train at Homestake.

The two of them made their plans. They bought a couple of guns, stole some dynamite, and rented a horse and buggy. On the evening of February 11, they went to a spot just west of Homestake, tied up the horse and wagon, and waited. Their plan was to light a blanket on fire and use it to wave down the train, unhook the express car, take it away from the rest of the train, blow the safe, then head back to town.

It was cold and the ground on the East Ridge was covered with snow. While they waited, they drank a bottle of whiskey. That is, Howard, who was extremely nervous, drank most of it, and he got drunk.

Burlington train No. 6 left Butte at 12 midnight, with two engines, one a helper to get them over the Divide. There were nine cars: five passenger cars (two coaches, two sleepers, and a diner), mail car, baggage car, express car, and private railroad car.The engineers were Francis Clow and Angus McArthur, the conductor was George Hotrum, and the firemen were Joseph Sevalis and Henry Jondrow. Division Superintendent Daniel Boyle was asleep in the company railroad car.

About six miles out of Butte the crew saw someone signalling with something burning. As the train slowed, Cole hollered at the crew and Howard fired his pistol into the cab. The bullet went through Engineer McArthur's coat, narrowly missing his arm. They jumped into the cab of the engine and told the crew to put up their hands. After the train stopped, Cole told Jondrow to uncouple one of the engines and the express car, thenmove them back away from the rest of the train.

Three sticks of dynamite were placed in the express car, one under the safe. While they prepared the explosives, Howard, now completely drunk, accidently pulled the trigger on his pistol, shooting into the ground between Jondrow' legs. Cole told Jondrow to get behind him because, "the little fellow was drunk and might hurt someone."

During this operation some of the crew members escaped and went to town to get help.

As the men were standing outside the car waiting for the charge to go off, Superintendent Boyle, who had been informed of the situation, started shooting at them with his rifle from his railroad car, which was back about 100 yards with the rest of the train. Bullets were flying everywhere and both the robbers and crew members ran for
cover. During the excitement, Jondrow escaped and started running to Butte.

After the express car safe was blown, the safe was still intact. Cole and Howard took what they thought was a bag of money (it contained about $7.75), told the crew to take the two train cars back to the rest of the train, and ran to their horse and buggy. As they ran, Howard tripped and fell, rolling down the hill like a snowball. They finally jumped into the buggy and started towards Butte. Boyle pursued them on foot and was still shooting at them.

"He was a good shot," Cole said, "he came pretty close and I whipped up until the horse was in a gallop."

As they headed towards Butte they saw Jondrow in the distance. Cole said to Howard, "There's the fireman who got away."

Howard told Cole, who had slowed the horse so as not to tire him, "whip the horse and get moving." He stuck his gun in Cole's side and said, "If you don't whip that horse I'll pull the trigger."

"So I whipped up again," Cole said.

When Jondrow got to the Butte racetrack area, he met Sheriff John Quinn and his deputies, who were headed up to the train. He thought the officers were the holdup men and started running away from them. The officers thought he was one of the robbers and started shooting at him. Jondrow quickly realized they were police and threw up his
hands calling to them that he was the fireman from the train.

After they got to town, Cole tied the horse up at the corner of Colorado and Silver and told a youngster to take him to the stable. Then they separated. Cole went to the Casino and had a couple of drinks, then to Dan O'Donnell's house and slept on the couch. Howard went to a local tavern and continued drinking.

The Sheriff and his posse of heavily armed men combed the tracks from Butte to Homestake. Railroad officials in Butte telegraphed the Deer Lodge prison for the use of the state bloodhounds to track the fugitives. The search was unsuccessful, at least for the first 24 hours.

Word of the train holdup spread through Butte quickly. Because Cole and Howard had not been too secretive about their plans, it wasn't long before Detective Jere Murphy, of the Butte police force, was hot on their trail. He arrested them a day later, on February 13.

A complete confession and interview with George Cole, including his picture, appeared in the February 15th edition of the Butte Miner. Cole said in the interview that, "the hold up would have been successful if Howard hadn't got drunk and messed up everything. Besides that, I think he's crazy."

The railroad company had offered a $5,000 reward and Cole thought if he said his father, also George Cole (Sr.), had persuaded him to make the confession that his father would get some of the reward money. [No such luck. Police Detective Jere Murphy got the entire reward.]

Cole had a grudge against the Anaconda Standard and the Inter Mountain newspapers so he told Chief of Police Reynolds that he would only talk to a Butte Miner reporter and he asked Chief of Police Reynolds to only give the confession to the Miner. Cole also said that he was going to ask the Miner for $50 for this exclusive. According to Cole, Chief Reynolds promised to go along with him, and only after the Miner had printed the confession would he give it to the other newspapers.

The reporter for the Miner was told of this arrangement and agreed to pay the $50 for exclusive use of the confession and interview. The Miner soon encountered another expense. Vincent Doody, the private secretary to Chief Reynolds, demanded $10 for the transcript of the confession, which was four type-written pages.

The next day, after the confession also appeared in its entirety in the Anaconda Standard, Doody told the Miner reporter that a copy had been stolen from Chief Reynolds desk. Reynolds had assured both Cole and the Miner that no copy of the confession could get out of his possession.

The Miner declared that since the confession was not an exclusive to its newspaper as promised, the agreement with Cole for $50, and through him with Chief Reynolds, was voided, as the Miner did not get what it bargained for. Reynolds had told them that his word was as good as his bond.'

In an editorial the Miner wrote, "It appears that if the Chief is innocent of getting the story into the hand of the Standard there is criminal negligence and laxity in the care of his office. If it be possible for a newspaper reporter to enter the office of the Chief of Police and break open his desk an steal' official documents without his knowledge, a new and frightful danger is opened up for the police department.

"If the document was not stolen' then Chief Reynolds' statement that he doesn't know a newspaper man from a train robber' is probably true."

The Anaconda Standard ran a short editorial the following day which said they knew nothing of this agreement with the Miner. They had received a copy of the confession through the office of the Chief of Police.

The Miner had beaten the Standard by a day with the original story of the train robbery, now the Standard had gotten even.

George Cole was incensed. No reward money for his father and now no money for his confession. He said all the stories in the Standard and Inter Mountain were faked.' He blamed Chief Reynolds for everything, saying, "The dirtiest piece of business was the way Chief Reynolds played me for a sucker. He told me I could make money out of my confession, and when I told him I would make it if the Miner got it, he gave me his word of honor that no other paper got any part of it."

Through all of this George Howard kept silent, even though Cole was blaming him for just about everything that happened. Howard had just been released from the Deer Lodge Prison on January 27, and it was rumored he was a morphine addict. He continued to plead not guilty.

Both Cole and Howard were found guilty and were sent to the state prison.

The police suspected another man had been involved in the train robbery, but despite having at least three suspects, no one was arrested.