I’ve seen all the John Wayne movies so I know how Hollywierd pictures it. But if a mine produces a fair amount of gold and wants to get it to market, I had assumed it would go in a Wells Fargo baggage car/mail car/ shipping car.
But in this case, assuming say 100 lbs of gold. Would the Wells Fargo car be pulled by a freighter or a passenger like normal?
Chip–usually the gold was shipped out in heavy 50-100 lb. bars on a baggage or combine car on a normal passenger train. Actually, the John Wayne movies got it right, it was usually locked into a Wells Fargo Express safe on board the car, then transported with one or two armed guards from the mine to the destination (in the West, it was either the Denver, Carson City or San Francisco Mint buildings). Though there were several gold train robberies in the old West, the shipments usually made it through without incident, since gold bars were much more trouble to carry by bandits than bills or coin. For instance, the Nevada County Narrow Gauge carried over 4 million dollars worth of gold from Nevada City to Colfax during its lifetime, and wasn’t robbed even once. Mining companies worried more about the ‘high-grading’ of gold ore from the mines themselves than the robbing of bullion bars from express cars.
Tom [:D]
Except for placer gold, which tended to yield flakes and nuggets, most gold was not actually shipped directly from the mines. Instead, gold-bearing ore would be shipped from the mine to a smelter. In Colorado, most gold occurred in ore that also included silver and other metals. Thus, it had to be refined from the ore and then cast into bars.
Some ore was valuable enough that it actually required guards. Most was not, although it was often valuable enough to be shipped in boxcars, rather than in gons or other open cars, to prevent pilferage.
But yes, once the gold was refined, the bars would be transported in the safe in express cars on passenger trains. The messengers on the express cars, like those employed by the Post Office on RPO cars to handle the mail, were armed.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Lucius Beebe in one of his books described the “security” measures the Virginia & Truckee used to safegaurd silver shipments before being loaded. They just left it lying on the shipping dock! It sems the ingots were of such a size and wieght that it required a crew and special equipment to move them.
Jim,
Yes, silver was a different issue. It’s value was generally an order of magnitude less than gold. I seem to remember a photo, I think on the Denver, South Park & Pacific, that showed bars of silver stacked on a loading dock, in the open. And they were definitely big enough that stealing a bar would be a lot of work!
Gold was a different security issue for another reason. Since it is relatively soft, a bar could be easily “shaved” of a considerable sum if not properly secured. This was not so much a problem with silver, which is much harder.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I don’t think Wells Fargo owned railroad cars–such a shipment would go in the baggage car of a passenger train, or if it was shipped via the US mail, in the RPO car. (Railway post office cars were frequent targets of train robbers–which is why generally everyone on the RPO was armed at all times!)
The Railway Express Agency had cars for carrying special package freight, and of course the railroad shipping the gold could always provide whatever car they deemed appropriate to carry a gold shipment–a baggage car makes the most sense, since I assume you’d want armed guards in the car with the gold, but some lines might just try to “hide it in plain sight” in a boxcar.
sounds like a cool diorama or scene on an old west mining layout…a small stack of silver bars on a pallet at the depot, guarded by two or three deputies…