HYSTERICAL JOURNEY TO HISTORIC PLACES

---

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

Rats. I almost made it in to Robbers Roost this afternoon. It is about 35 miles or so down a clay road east of Goblin Valley, UT. The skies were darkly overcast and threatening and beginning to close in on me so I turned around about 20 miles in and got out of there before getting stuck behind 35 miles of bad road on blinded tires. Back up on I-70 there were periodic heavy downpours all of the way to I-15. I have settled in for the evening at the Best Western in Beaver, UT and was getting set to bitch on the blog about having to drive through heavy rain all afternoon. I had a hard time finding anyone at work in these Beaver motels. The Best Western was the fourth place I stopped at and the first place where there was an actual desk clerk at work. This particular room has three queen sized beds. I have never seen a room like this. I guess it must be handy for the Mormon families to stop at on their way between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. When I turned on the evening news I found out what happened to all of the desk clerks. They were busily sharpening their gouges because of heavy weather further south. Riverside, Las Vegas, and Phoenix have all suffered serious flooding due to these rains. The Weather Channel reports that cars were actually FLOATING DOWN THE INTERSTATE near Moapa, NV. I think it is quite possible that I-15 will be closed through the Virgin River Gorge below St George tomorrow. I am likely to go down Highway 89 to Flagstaff tomorrow if need be the case. Those bacon cheeseburgers on the pretzel buns down at Wendy’s? They aren’t very good.

THE DELTA BANK ROBBERY



Tom McCarty and his brother Bill started out to be ranchers, but both of them were just too lazy to make it pay. In 1889 Tom robbed the First National Bank in Denver. He found that for the effort it took the payout was not bad. He went on to further misdeeds with his pal Matt Warner. They knocked over a gambling hall in Butte and then hid out on Bill’s six cow ranch near Baker, OR. Bill and his teenaged son Fred decided that robbing was better than working so they too joined up with Tom. The four of them next robbed a little mining camp called Sparta and made off with some currency and nuggets. In Moscow, ID they robbed a circus. They pulled some other penny ante jobs and then tried robbing the bank in Roslyn, WA. It went bad when a man was shot in the stomach. An irate posse chased the robbers to the Columbia River and caught Matt as he nearly drowned while swimming across with the loot. Matt did a stretch in prison and then went straight after he got released. On September 7, 1893 Tom, Bill, and Fred, 17 years old by then, found themselves in Delta, CO thinking that the Farmers and Merchants Bank would be easy pickings. At 10:15 in the morning Bill and Fred walked into the bank to rob it while Tom waited in an alley out back with the horses. Inside the bank Bill and Fred pulled their guns on the teller, a man named A. T. Blachley. Blachley started in yelling for help and Fred, who had hopped up on the counter, shot him through the top of the head. The two gathered in what loot they could grab and fled out the back. The gunshots, Fred fired twice and missed with his second shot, had aroused a hardware merchant, Ray Simpson, across the street. Ray had a loaded rifle handy and rushed outside in time to blast Bill out of the saddle as he was crossing Third Street from the alley. Bill fell mortally wounded into the street and Fred stopped in the alley to see if his dad was okay. It gave Simpson time enough to fire on Fred too. Fred toppled out of his saddle and died on Second Street. Both Bill and Fred were shot through the head. All of the booty was recovered and Tom fled like a scalded cat. He never robbed another bank, and faded into obscurity.

---

Photos

DELTA COUNTY BANK
Dang it. I didn't realize that there were two banks in Delta, This is a picture of the wrong one. The Famers and Merchants Bank was across the street and half a block down.

BILL McCARTY
Bill had already gone up the flume by the time he dropped onto Third Street near the gray garage. His horse had somehow gotten shot too. The horse had made it back to Main Street and was waiting patiently beside a hitching post until he finally bled out.

FRED McCARTY
Fred had also been shot in the head but made it as far as Second Street before he dropped from the saddle. The horse was probably making a left turn there. An old lady finally stopped that runaway horse.

POOR ESCAPE ROUTE
View up the fatal alley from where Fred dropped to where his dad dropped.

DELTA BANK ROBBERY
Google Earth Image showing the location of the bank and the where the McCarty's died. Dunno where Bill's horse died.