By Rachel Kovaciny
They say bad company corrupts good morals; perhaps having outlaws for parents means you have little chance of acquiring any good morals at all! That seems to have been the cause for Laura Bullion, better known as the “Rose of the Wild Bunch.”
Laura Bullion’s father, Henry Bullion, was a Native American outlaw. He had a reputation as a bank robber, but also worked as a cowboy from time to time. Her mother, Freda Byler, associated with criminals of every sort, most of whom she met while working at houses of ill repute. It is uncertain when and where Laura was born; her death certificate states October 4, 1876, in Knickerbocker, Texas. Birth certificates were not a regulated requirement in those days. Other records show Laura may have been born as early as 1873 or as late as 1887, in Kentucky or Arkansas. Laura changed facts to suit her situation, so historians may never know her true age or birthplace.
When Laura was five years old, her mother left Henry Bullion and took her children to live with her parents, German immigrants Elliot and Serena Byler. Freda had a series of boyfriends and left her children to be raised by their grandparents for months at a time. The Bylers tried their best to raise their grandchildren right, but the allure of her father’s criminal friends proved too strong for Laura.
At fifteen, Laura began a romantic relationship with one of his outlaw friends, William Carver. They were involved on and off for years until Carver broke things off. Laura moved back to Knickerbocker and briefly tried to become a respectable citizen, but Carver had introduced her to many exciting men and women on the wrong side of the law, and Laura soon took up with another outlaw named Ben Kilpatrick, also known as the Tall Texan. He had also been a friend of her father, now deceased.
Kilpatrick introduced Laura to Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, a gang of outlaws led by the notorious Butch Cassidy. It was not a criminal organization, but a lot of gangs and single outlaws who hid from law enforcement at the Hole-in-the-Wall from time to time. (A cabin in a secluded pass in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains.) The disorganized group of outlaws called themselves the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, but later changed it to the Wild Bunch.
Kilpatrick joined the Wild Bunch and brought Laura with him to Hole-in-the-Wall. Soon, Laura was helping the entire gang. She sold and fenced their stolen items, planned escape routes, and helped plan and execute bank and train robberies. She learned how to forge banknotes and signatures. She became so useful they dubbed her the “Rose of the Wild Bunch.”
Laura disguised herself as a young man, which helped her slip past guards and evade lawmen. Although she had feminine charm aplenty, she had a masculine face that she used to her advantage.
On July 3, 1901, Laura Bullion took part in one of the most daring and most famous train robberies in Old West history: the Great Northern Train Robbery. The Wild Bunch stopped the Montana train, blew open the express car, and made off with more than $82,000. This was their last big train robbery, and the gang split up afterward. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid left for Argentina, and other gang members went their separate ways.
Laura and Kilpatrick traveled together as husband and wife. In November, the Pinkerton Detective Agency tracked them to St. Louis. They arrested Ben Kilpatrick, but found none of the stolen money with him. He refused to give up Laura, but the Pinkertons found her checking out of a hotel. Laura was carrying a suitcase full of unsigned banknotes that were traced to the train robbery.
Because Laura had not taken part in the robbery “with violence,” she received five years in the state penitentiary. She served three and a half before being released. Laura and Kilpatrick kept in touch via letters while in prison and, once released, Laura campaigned for his sentence to be reduced. But they never saw each other again. When Kilpatrick left prison in 1911, he was promptly arrested for a murder committed in Texas in 1897 and taken there for trial. He was killed in 1912 while robbing another train.
Laura moved on with her life. She left the West for Tennessee and settled in Memphis in 1918, where she made a living through such respectable jobs as seamstress, dressmaker, and interior decorator. She posed as a widow and used the name Freda Bullion Lincoln, claiming her husband had died during World War One. She never returned to a life of crime and never married. Perhaps leaving behind the outlaws let her regain a moral balance.
When she died in 1961, almost no one who knew her had any idea she had once been the Rose of the Wild Bunch. But someone in Memphis knew, for her gravestone gives both her assumed name and her true name of Laura Bullion, and also the words “The Thorny Rose.” ♦
