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Special thanks to Roy's biographer Tom Ryan
and Top-Notch historian James Birch Roy Gardner was the "Smiling Bandit", the "Mail Train Bandit", the "King of the Escape Artists", the last of the great Western train robbers, a bloodless, daring bandit, bold hold up man, and the most celebrated outlaw and escape artist of his day, his manner, ready smile, and most of all his good looks had eluded Federal officers, time and time again. Twice during his criminal career he escaped the shrewdest men the government could set to guard him. Twice during his criminal career he joked with the G - men or Federal Marshals whom he turned the tables, and made the prisoners in his place. Twice during his criminal career, he laughed as he was recaptured by lawmen. Gardner stole tens, and hundreds of thousands of dollars from his robberies, and had a $5, 000 reward on his head three times in less than a year. Roy Gardner was a notorious train robber, an infamous escapee, said to be the most hunted man in Pacific Coast history, the most closely watched convict in the most closely guarded prison in the country, perhaps the first man to escape the "Impregnable" McNeil Island during a prison baseball game, the "Most Wanted" gangster of 1921, described by the warden as the most dangerous inmate in the history of Atlanta Prison, he was one of the most notorious inmates at Alcatraz Island, and became one of the first men to make a re - enactment on film with the man who captured him. Roy Gardner was one of the most notorious offenders of the Bureau of Prisons, and after his forgotten, yet legendary escape from McNeil Island, that led the U. S. Government to build another "escape - proof" federal prison, this time on the choppy waters of San Francisco Bay on Alcatraz Island, where Roy Gardner would find himself later on. He was said to be one of the most ruthless criminals of all time who described himself as the last of the daring Robin Hood type of outlaw, a bloodless desperado. Roy Gardner was a dangerous man who would shoot on sight, he was quick with a gun, controversial, and no prison could hold him.
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Roy Gardner's mugshot taken at San Quentin for robbing a jewelry store. Roy was born on a farm in Missouri, worked in a mine in Colorado until the Wabash Railway ran through, and claimed he had been the professional boxer, "Young Fitzsimmons" which sounds sketchy, but it does fit pretty well into his past. He must have given up boxing, and headed south for Mexico around the time of the Revolution where he made his living as a miner, but turned to crime as a gunrunner until he was captured, sentenced to death, but escaped from a dungeon, and made his way to the Southwest earning a living as a prizefighter. He was good enough that he ended up at Reno, Nevada where he was a sparring partner for Heavyweight Champion J. J. Jeffries, and Roy ended up in San Francisco, gambled all of his boxing money away, the jewerly store beckoned, and San Quentin opened its gates. |
Roy Gardner's mugshot taken at Sacramento after this notorious train robber stole almost $200, 000, buried his loot, headed north to Roseville, California with a $5, 000 for the first time, but two more would come after that, and Sheriff Al Locke and his posse slipped up behind the desperado during a game of cards in the pool hall, and stuck a 45. Colt into the outlaw's back and announced, "Stand up Roy, and don't do anything you'll regret". The outlaw laughed, and this mugshot was taken. |
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I would gues this was Roy Gardner after he was captured at Centralia, Washington in June of 1921. Gardner was captured by Louis Sonney, who had a burly reputation in the Tono coal mine and gave half of the $5, 000 to Roy's wife, and $5 cigarette money for Convict Gardner. After this household name's capture, the people of Centralia swarmed the police station, men had there photo taken with him, and women baked him pies. Louis Sonney commented that it was enough pie and other delacacies to feed a dozen men in a whole week, by the way Mr. Gardner was pretty popular back then, even when he was heavily ironed and FINALLY brought to McNeil Island as the townspeople waved goodbye to him at the depot, and his legend would grow. |
Roy Gardner's mugshot taken at Leavenworth Annex Prison in the 1930s. Gardner had been kind of bad at Atlanta after getting a hold of two loaded revolvers along with four other inmates, holding the Captain and two guards hostage, getting past two levels of security, making a ladder that was too short to go over the wall, and then shooting at the armed guards, and then spending some time in solitary confinement for about twenty months going on a hunger strike and threating suicide, and it seems even though he was in prison for about 16 years of his more than once added 25 year sentence, no prison could really hold him. I would't say he spent more than four years at any prison.
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Roy Gardner's mugshot taken at Alcatraz Island. He was one of the most notorious inmates there, known as the last of the "Old West" train robbers. He worked and supervised at the Mat Shop and described Ralph Roe as a fine boy, and Roy even claimed he would have taken the same escape route, but he luckily got an appeal for clemency, and would die in San Francisco in 1940 at age 56 from poisonous gas, a suicide. |
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