Southwest Train Robberies: Hijacking the Tracks Along the Southern Corridor by Doug Hocking (review)

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• Southwest Train Robberies: Hijacking the Tracks Along the Southern Corridor by Doug Hocking
• Jason Pierce

Southwest Train Robberies: Hijacking the Tracks Along the Southern Corridor. By Doug Hocking. ( Essex, CT: Two Dot, 2023. Pp. 247. Illustrations, Bibliography, Index.)

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Some books are a labor of love, and clearly that is the case with Doug Hocking's Southwest Train Robberies. Hocking is not interested in 'big picture' theories about railroads, criminals, or anything else that detracts from recounting fascinating yarns about the early days of railroading in a wilder West. To be sure, he employs a good deal of research in the creation of these stories (relying especially on newspaper accounts from the time), but it is really just in the service of his interest in telling tales of derring-do and occasionally tragi-comic foolishness.

Hocking begins with a general discussion of the arrival of railroads in southeastern Arizona and western New Mexico, with the geographic center of his discussion being Cochise County, Arizona. From there, he briefly discusses the motivations of would-be bank robbers, and concludes by defining the general characteristics of train crews. All of this, though, is merely setting the stage for the eleven chapters that follow.

The chapters can be a bit heavy with details, but they are unfailingly entertaining and sprinkled with interesting tidbits about life in the era. There are cowboys turned outlaws, outlaws turned lawmen, and dutiful reporters with a penchant for flowery prose recounting it all. There is the tale of Kit Carson Joy and his gang, who stole $800 but in their amateurish haste missed the more valuable registered mail pouch. All but Joy eventually paid with their lives. Or there is the story of Sheriff John Slaughter and his deputy relentlessly tracking a gang through the dry torturous desert country. And then comes the sad story of hapless rancher-turned-robber Tom Dugat, who hoped a successful robbery would help revive his and his daughter's finances after the failure of his goat ranching operation.

Hocking estimates that between the laying of the tracks in the 1880s and the end of the train-robbing era in the 1920s, there were at least sixteen robberies between Benson, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas. Some were more successful than others, but each added to the romance and mystique of the period. The era came to an end, of course, for which the author provides several explanations for the decline in robberies: better communication, faster train engines that did not need constant refueling, the ability to wire money rather than sending cash, and the rise of the automobile and the American highway system all contributed to the end of train robberies.

While Hocking does not offer many great insights or thought-provoking lessons (beyond that crime does not generally pay), the book is nevertheless a delight to read. Southwest Train Robberies probably will not be found on the shelves of many university libraries, but it will find an eager audience in bookstores in some of the places that he discusses: Tombstone, Bisbee, and Tucson, or anywhere where the readers want a captivating read on the real but still wild West.

Jason Pierce Angelo State University Copyright © 2024 The Texas State Historical Association ...