Picture from The Barker Texas History Center

Sam Bass was a down on his luck gambler and businessman who turned to robbing stage coaches, trains and banks. The train roberry that thrust him toward legend status was the 1877 robery of a Union Pacific train in Nebreaska where he and his gang netted $60,000. This is still the single largest train robbery in history. This gang disolved, either by death or abandonment and Bass went to Texas. In Allen Texas Sam Bass' gang purpertrained the first train robbery in Texas.

One of Bass' gang, Jim Murphy, betrayed him and helped to set up an ambush in Round Rock. Murphy told the The Texas Rangers, who had been searching for the Sam Bass gang along with the Pinkerton and US Marshalls, that they were planning a robbery of the Williamson County Bank. The Texas Rangers waited in old downtown Round Rock for Sam Bass and his gang. Prior to the heist the gang came into town to purchase some tabacco and scout out the area.  A Williamson county sheriff by the name of A.W. Grimes approached them. He was shot and killed. The gun fight began between the outlaws and the local lawmen. Sam Bass was mortally wounded in the gunfight and died on his 27th birthday, July 21st, 1878. From then he began his assent into Sam Bass the Legend.

Community Discourse