Train Robbery - September 10, 1904 — Mission, BC
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Dunbar Loop
N 49° 09.398 W 122° 24.077
10U E 543653 N 5445040
On September 10, 1904 the first train robbery in British Columbia with approximately $87,000 in valuables were stolen. Today this would be roughly $1,800,000. It has long been suspected that Billy Miner and his gang conducted the robbery.
Waymark Code: WMQB33
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 01/26/2016
Views: 8
Billy Miner was a notorious stage coach and train robbery who worked throughout the United States. He frequently escaped from prisons and returned to his calling of holding up trains.
After his third prison term Miner moved into the Fraser Valley region of British Columbia. Many witnesses noted a man going by George Edwards, a pseudonym Miner used, was camping with two other men in the Mount Lehman district in the weeks prior to the train holdup. Also Peter Grauer noted in his comprehensive book Interred With Their Bones: Bill Miner in Canada 1903-1907 a George Edwards was registering at various hotels in the Fraser Valley during the summer of 1904.
On September 10, 1904 it is suspected that Billy Miner and two accomplices left their horses on at their camp on the south bank of the Fraser River, then walked to Mission City on the north bank. Here they boarded the Canadian Pacific Railway's passenger train No. 1. After a few minutes travelling towards Vancouver it was held up approximately at the site below this waymark. The passenger cars were uncoupled and the locomotive, tender, and mail car were moved about a mile west on the line. At this point the three robbers got approximately $87,000 gold dust, cash, and money bond. Today this would be approximately $1,800,000.
They then proceeded to the riverbank where they had stash a small boat and crossed the Fraser River to their camp at Mount Lehman. At which point even with a massive manhunt that took place over the next month the three men disappeared.
To this day there has been no conclusive proof that Billy Miner and his gang actually did hold up the train at Silverdale. All evidence is mainly circumstantial. However Billy Miner and his gang were found to have held up another CPR at Ducks, today called Monte Creek, about 250 kilometers away on May 8, 1906.
There are also extensive primary evidence of George Edwards registering at hotels in British Columbia and eyewitness accounts of people describing a man going by the name George Edwards with the description of Billy Miner throughout the Fraser Valley, the Similkameen and Thompson/Nicola districts between 1904 and 1906.
Ultimately Billy Miner and two other men were found to be guilty of the train robbery at Ducks and charged and convicted of that crime. They were then housed in the BC Penitentiary in New Westminster. A facility that they escaped from on August 8, 1907. Miner successfully fled back to the United States where he continued his profession but was finally arrested and convicted for robbery in Georgia.
This waymark is as close you can get to the robbery location without trespassing. Based on information in Interred With Their Bones: Bill Miner in Canada 1903-1907 the robbery took place approximately 100 metres east of this point on the Canadian Pacific Railway right-of-way.