Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1902 — FAST TRAIN HELD UP. [ARTICLE]

FAST TRAIN HELD UP.

Mock Island Passenger Seized by Ban* dits Near Joliet. 111. Near Joliet, 111., Thursday night four bold and desperate highwaymen held up train No. 5, one of the fastest on the Kock Island road. The train was moving at the rate of forty miles an hour, when two masked men climbed over the tender, and, leveling revolvers at the engineer and fireman, ordered them to stop. -The engineer at first supposed it was a Fourth of July joke. He was ordered to obey or lose his life, and he put on the air brakes. The men then ordered him to dismount and made him walk to the express car as a decoy. He was ordered to ask the messenger to open the door. 1 When the messenger appeared the burglars began shooting and threatened to blow up the car with dynamite unless he gave up the valuables in his possession. Assistant Messenger Kane drew a pistol and was shot through the right groin. One of the highwaymen then ordered the engineer to put out the headlight and uncouple the engine. This Inst effort was unsuccessful. The messenger at the point of a pistol was made to carry a bag containing jewelry over to a fence, where it was leisurely examined. Oliver M. Olson, the news agent, and Charles C. Wentzler, a reporter for a Salt Lake paper, went forward to see what the trouble was, and both were ordered to go back. By this time passengers began piling out of coaches to learn the cause of the shooting. This frightened the highwaymen, who fled. It is believed the highwaymen got on at Englewood and waited until the train reached Dupont, a lonesome spot twentythree miles out of Chicago.