Southern Indiana during the second half of the 1860s might not have been considered the Wild West, but it is doubtful that a California gold field or Kansas cow town could be found that was as woolly as Seymour, in Jackson County, Indiana, after the close of the Civil War. In this area arose a band of outlaws, the Reno Gang, that terrorized the Midwest and was believed to have committed the world's first peacetime train robbery. The robbery occurred on October 6, 1866, nearly seven years before the James-Younger Gang held up its first train at Adair, Iowa. The story of the Hoosier train-robbing brothers features brazen acts and international intrigue and has a grisly ending.
Renos had been in Indiana since 1813. That year, James Reno moved his family, including son Wilkinson, from the Salt River area of Kentucky to Jackson County. They settled on a farm near Rockford, just north of present-day Seymour. In 1835 Wilkinson took a wife, Julia Ann, and began raising a family on the 1,200-acre property. In 1837 his first son, Frank, was born, followed by John in 1838, Simeon (‘Sim') in 1843, Clinton in 1847, William in 1848 and finally a daughter, Laura, in 1851.
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