Saturday, October 14, 2006

Ex-Chief of Union Pacific's Mounted Rangers Dies at 86

CHICAGO, Feb. 16----(UP)---- Tim Keliher who was bad medicine for train robbers and card sharps of the old west, died quietly in his home here last night. He was 86.

Keliher was formerly chief of the Union Pacific mounted rangers and his exploits were as thrilling as those pictured in present day movies and glorified in paperbacked novels.

Keliher, who was born in Williamsport, Pa., had built up a reputation as a Lincoln county, Neb., sheriff when the Union Pacific hired him to organize the Rangers.

At that time a notorious gang known as "the Wild Bunch" was terrorizing the railroad and it's territory with periodic train robberies, bank dynamitings and stage holdups. Passengers were afraid to ride the trains.

Attempts to capture the "Wild Bunch" proved fruitless. Butch Cassidy, It's leader, had a hard-to-get-at headquarters in Hole in the Wall valley, Wyo.

Keliher stopped all that with an ingenious plan. He outfitted a special coach with the Rangers horses quarter in one end and the Rangers in the other.

When word came of another robbery by the "Wild Bunch" Keliher and his crew would highball to the scene. In a matter of three years they cleaned out Cassidy and the "Wild Bunch."

In 1910, Keliher, a big, rawboned Irishman, came to Chicago where he became a special agent for the Illinois central.

He traveled the entire line of the IC for nearly 30 years preying on card sharps, con men, drifters and other undesirables who frequented the line.

At Keliher's bedside when he died were his widow, Ellen, a son and daughter.

Thanks to Kid Charter for passing that along. Anyone know what year this was from?

**Tim Keliher died in 1954. Thanks to Dan Buck for passing that information along.**

Tags: Tim Keliher, Union Pacific Railroad, m/a/z/e

posted by m/a/z/e  [3:10 AM]   0 comments