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Hugh D'Autremont Train robberies, long a staple of western movies and pulp novels, were a very real danger to Railway Post Office clerks. Thieves sought registered mail, which often held cash, and money being transported in mail car safes. Typically considered a 19th century crime, (28 mail trains were stopped by thieves between 1897-1899 alone), train robberies continued into the first two decades of the 20th century. A few miles to the west of the open, sunny summit of Siskiyou Pass, occurred a most notorious train holdup. At 12:40pm on October 11, 1923, the three D'Autremont brothers, Hugh, 19, years of age, and Roy and Ray, 23-year-old twins, swung onto the tender of the southbound Shasta Limited No. 13 just outside of the small station of Siskiyou and ordered the engineer to stop the train, which he did at the southern end of Tunnel 13. |
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They believed that $40,000 was being held in the mail car. Under the leadership of Hugh the amateurs at crime shot and killed the engineer, the fireman, and a brakeman. When the mail clerk opened the mail car door in answer to the order to come out, they shot at him, but he managed to close the door in time. Unable to enter the car the bandits dynamited it, but the gases and flames from the explosion made robbery impossible and they fled into the rough Siskiyou wilderness. Much of the mail was burned or charred, leaving nothing for the bandits. In their haste, they left some supplies and other articles behind them. The most important to detectives was a pair of overalls, in a pocket of which was the receipt for a registered letter signed by Hugh. The US Post Office Department threw out the largest net it had ever cast for fugitives. The manhunt for the trio utilized bloodhounds, airplanes and teams of armed postal inspectors. Law enforcement officers combed the Oregon mountains for weeks, but could not find the brothers, who had fled the area. The Southern Pacific and the American Railway joined the state of Oregon and the federal government in offering dead-or-alive rewards that totaled $15,900, or $5,300 for each culprit. Over two million bulletins and posters bearing pictures of the brothers appeared conspicuously in every railway station and post office in the country. Canada and Mexico also posted “wanted” notices. The search spread to all parts of the world and descriptions of the men were issued in seven languages. Many fake clues were followed before a barracks buddy in February 1927, landing in San Francisco after serving in the Philippines, noticed the resemblance between the picture of Hugh D'Autremont on a post office circular and a soldier know as James Price in the 31st Infantry in the Islands.
All three brothers received life sentences. Hugh D'Autremont received a parole in 1959 and died roughly two months later in San Francisco. The portrait of him above is from after his release from prison. Roy was given a frontal lobotomy while in prison and was paroled in March, 1983. He died three months later in a nursing home. Ray was paroled in 1961 and died on December 22, 1984 in Eugene after working for years as a custodian at the University of Oregon. |
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