New York Times bestselling author and award-winning historian John
Boessenecker separates fact from fiction in the first new biography in
decades of Black Bart, the Wild West's most mysterious gentleman
bandit.
Black Bart is widely regarded today as not only the most notorious stage
robber of the Old West but also the best behaved. Over his lifetime,
Black Bart held up at least twenty-nine stagecoaches in California and
Oregon with mild, polite commands, stealing from Wells Fargo and the US
mail but never robbing a passenger. Such behavior earned him the title
of a true "gentleman bandit."
His real name was Charles E. Boles, and in the public eye, Charles lived
quietly as a boulevardier in San Francisco, the wealthiest and most
exciting city in the American West. Boles was an educated man who
traveled among respectable crowds. Because he did not drink, fight or
consort with prostitutes, his true calling as America's greatest stage
robber was never suspected until his final capture in 1883. Sheriffs
searched and struggled for years to find him, and newspaper editors had
a field day reporting his exploits. Legends and rumors trailed his name
until his mysterious death, and his ultimate fate remains one of the
greatest mysteries of the Old West.
Now historian John Boessenecker sheds new light on Black Bart's
beginnings, reputation and exploits, bringing to life the glittering
story of the mysterious stage robber who doubled as a rich, genteel
socialite in the golden era of the Wild West.
