California Gold
Country historian George Hoeper
reveals what
promises to be the final piece to the 100-year-old puzzle of the
infamous stagecoach robber Black Bart. For over eight years the
mysterious and very polite
Charles Boles (alias Black Bart) plagued Wells Fargo & Co. with a string of at least 28 stagecoach robberies. During theis time, Bart, who operated on foot with an unloaded shotgun and never robbed stagecoach passengers or drivers, soon became something of a folk legend. Between robberies Bart would live the life of a boulevardier in San Francisco, hobnobbing with the city's best. In 1888 he disappeared from the Palace Hotel in Visalia, CA, never to be heard from again. Speculation has placed Bart in many places, including the Eastern Seaboard, Mexico and Japan, but according to information Hoeper has uncovered, it is more likely the legendary Black Bart met his demise in the dry Nevada wasteland and today rests in a sandy, unmarked grave.
