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Oct. 22, 2024

California's Wild West: train robberies, posses and prison breaks

The late 1800s in California's San Joaquin Valley were marked by violent conflicts between the monopolistic Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) and local farmers, leading to infamous train robberies and prison escapes involving figures like Christopher Evans and John Sontag.

John S. Caragozian

Email: caragozian@gmail.com

John is a Los Angeles-based lawyer and sits on the Board of the California Supreme Court Historical Society. He welcomes ideas for future monthly columns on California's legal history at caragozian@gmail.com.

Shutterstock

In the late 1800s, California's San Joaquin Valley was a scene of violent conflict. On one side was the Southern Pacific Railroad ("SP"), which monopolized rail transportation and was granted thousands of acres of prime land. The other side included farmers feeling victimized by the SP's high freight rates and locked out of SP's vast lands.

On May 11, 1880, SP was poised to evict dozens of farmers from SP land, known as Mussel Slough, near present-day Ha...

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