By Ron Brown
October 16, 2009
SISKIYOU SUMMIT, Ore. -October 11th, 1923 became a day when nothing seemed to go right for three brothers trying to make their mark on the rapidly changing postwar world.
19-year old Hugh and 23-year old twins Ray and Roy D'Autremont decided they could become rich and famous at the same time by holding up the Southern Pacific Mail and Passenger Train Number 13, the so-called 'Gold Special'.
"The previous summer they thought they might rob a bank. And while they were casing the bank a car pulled up. That kind of made them a bit upset. Why was this car blocking their view!? Turned out the people in the car went in, robbed the bank, and came running back while the boys were still standing their casing their bank! So they really were not the most experienced criminals," said Margaret LaPlante, author of 'DeAutremont Brothers, America's Last Great Train Robbery'.
However, rumors of half-a-million in gold on the 'Gold Special' led them to stop train 13 in the middle of tunnel 13. Planting a charge of dynamite at one end of the mail car the explosion destroyed much of the car, started a fire, filled the tunnel with smoke and killed the mail clerk. They also gunned down three other train workers who ran to see what happened. The D'Autremont brothers ran for their hideout cabin with blood on their hands and not a dime from the attempted holdup. A massive manhunt was soon underway.
"It was called, at the time, 'The World's Greatest Manhunt'. It took the law enforcement almost four-years and-half-a-million-dollars to locate the brothers. They knew within nine days who they were looking for, based on the evidence left behind at the crime scene," LaPlante said.
Newspaper accounts indicate it was chaos for several days, with police rounding up suspects all up and down the Pacific Coast. It was also the first time airplanes were used in a search effort.
"If you were a young male, especially if you were with a friend. There were two of you, or worse yet, three, you were hauled in, and you better have a good alibi," LaPlante said.
Some nine million wanted posters plastered world-wide finally led to the capture of Hugh D'Autremont. He was found, four years later, serving in the U.S. Army in the Philippines. He was returned to Oregon to stand trial.
"Four years had passed and some of the emotions were not running quite as high. So Hugh was found guilty, sentenced to life in prison. By the time the sentence was pronounced, the twins had been found and brought back. They decided they would confess for fear that they might be hung. So they confessed and all three were sentenced to life in prison," LaPlante said.
The trial was the talk of the country. Reporters flocked to Jacksonville from all up and down the Pacific Coast and even New York.
Hugh died of stomach cancer shortly after he was paroled in 1958. Roy was pronounced schizophrenic and remained in prison the rest of his life after brain surgery. Ray was paroled and spent the last 23 years of his life quietly near Eugene.
Today wreaths hang at the mouth of the tunnel in memory of the train workers who died so long ago.
You have to wonder if things might have been a little bit different if the D'Autremont brothers would've waited just a couple more days, until October 13th, to come to Tunnel 13, to hold up train Number 13.
Almost 80 years later, on November 17, 2003, the tunnel caught fire, either from an arsonist or someone who lit a warming fire too close to the big redwood timbers inside. It took a couple weeks to put the smoldering fire out. Much of the tunnel had collapsed. It wasn't until April 2005, almost a year-and-a-half and some $15 to $18 million later, that the tunnel reopened. It's still open now, but no trains are using it. Shippers and the Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad are in a standoff over shipping rates, and the future of the historic Siskiyou Line is still up in the air.
