The Great Train Robbery

ID # 1,044

The Great Train Robbery

Among the many oldtime plays that catered to the public's interest in railroads was "The Great Train Robbery" by A. H. Woods. This picture is reproduced from a giant poster measuring 12x20'. This melodrama was so popular that in 1903 Thomas A. Edison made the world's first story-telling movie from it. The movie created a sensation when shown in the nickelodeons of the early 1900's and is now a classic. Much has been written about the Western outlaws who held up trains in the latter half of the 19th century, sometimes dynamiting mail and express cars, often robbing passengers, and galloping off with the loot. The list of desperadoes includes such men as the Renos, the Hole in the Wall gang and lone-wolf bandit Oliver C. Perry. But most notorious was the gang headed by Jesse James whose exploits have been breathlessly studied by generations of children in dime thrillers, comic books, movies and television.

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