Engineer Colonel Harper: Witness to the Pantano and Stein’s Pass Train Robberies

In early 1888, Harper was the engineer on a Southern Pacific train that left Stein’s Pass station in southern Arizona. ^[4] The train was in charge of Conductor McClellan. ^[1][3] As the train left the station, at least two men boarded the forward platform of the mail car, crawled over the tender, and ordered Harper to go ahead for two miles. ^[4] Once the train stopped, one robber and Harper uncoupled the express and mail car from the rest of the train and ran ahead some distance. ^[4] The robbers fired three shots and made Harper cut the mail and express cars off and pull ahead about two miles. ^[3] They then told Harper that they did not desire to harm anyone, and for him to inform the messenger of that fact, adding there would be no trouble. ^[3] The messenger concluded this was the proper thing to do, opened up, gave them his gun, and handed over the money packages, which the robbers placed in sacks before disappearing in a southerly direction without molesting the mail. ^[3] It is said that about $1,000 was taken; the messenger remarked that he could not afford to fight robbers for $75 per month. ^[4]

After the robbery, Harper backed the engine up to the train and ran back to the station to notify Superintendent Noble. ^[2][1][4] That night, a special train with officers and Papago trailers was sent out from Tucson. ^[1][3] The pursuers were joined by two tramps who had been on the train when the robbery occurred, and by brakeman J. Cerremo. ^[3] Cerremo later gave an account: he saw two men he supposed were tramps get on the forward end of the mail car; after a run he reached them but found two rifles thrown down on him, coupled with an order to get back lively. ^[3] He did not know they were robbers until the train stopped about a mile from there. ^[3] The company offered $20,000 for conviction of the robbers. ^[4]

Harper had been through a similar ordeal the previous year: the “big robbery near Pantano” that occurred “last April” before the March 1888 incident. ^[1][4][3] That earlier robbery is not described in the surviving account, but the newspaper noted that Harper’s experience in the Pantano case closely paralleled the Stein’s Pass affair. ^[1] The fact that the same engineer twice faced armed train robbers in a span of less than a year underscores the persistent threat to railroad crews on the Southern Pacific’s southern route through Arizona Territory. ^[4]

The Silver City Enterprise, serving Grant County, New Mexico, covered the Stein’s Pass story in detail, reflecting local interest in crimes that disrupted the transportation and mail corridor linking the region to the rest of the territory. ^[3] Harper’s name appears only in this context; no further records in the available sources trace his later career or life. ^[1][4] Nevertheless, the accounts of Engineer Colonel Harper, as recorded by Conductor McClellan and brakeman Cerremo, offer a grounded, first-hand glimpse into the dangers faced by railroad workers during the peak years of train robbery in the Southwest. ^[1][3]