Bandit Bill Carlisle #319 – Clarice Whittenburg Papers and Bill Carlisle Oral History

Published October 3, 2023 at 11:39 AM MDT

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Portrait of Bill Carlisle from the Laramie Daily Boomerang, March 22, 1959. Box 17, Clarice Whittenburg papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

American Heritage Center

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Photo of Bill Carlisle’s gas station and souvenir shop from the American Magazine, August 1953. Box 17, Clarice Whittenburg papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

American Heritage Center

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Photo of the state penitentiary in Rawlins where Bill Carlisle spent 19 years in prison. Photo was part of an article in the Laramie Sunday Boomerang, December 31, 1961. Box 17, Clarice Whittenburg papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. / American Heritage Center

Bill Carlisle robbed his first train in 1916. He was broke and unemployed when he hopped aboard the Union Pacific to Green River. Working alone and wearing a bandana, he demanded money from the startled passengers. Carlisle noted that men and women reacted differently as he approached them at gunpoint:

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I’ve always maintained that women on a train showed more nerve, see, than men did. There was never any screaming or crying or anything like that you know, like you read about, by the women.

Wanted posters went up across southern Wyoming but Carlisle escaped. His second holdup netted more than five hundred dollars. He was captured and sentenced to life in prison after a third robbery. Undeterred, he escaped by hiding in a packing crate. Short on funds, he robbed one last train.

A posse gave chase and Carlisle was apprehended for a final time.

You can listen to the Bill Carlisle oral history at UW’s American Heritage Center to learn more.