The Newton Gang carried out dozens of bank robberies across the United States between 1919 and 1924, yet for years they operated with remarkably little police attention. Willis Newton, the leader and mastermind, once boasted that he and his brothers took in more money than Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, the Dalton Gang, and the James-Younger Gang combined. That would all change on June 12, 1924, when the gang pulled off the largest train robbery in American history—a heist that finally put them in the crosshairs of the law. Born in Uvalde County, Texas, the four Newton brothers grew up as sharecroppers on the Great Plains, the sons of a large cotton-farming family.
Willis was raised on outlaw tales told by his mother and followed the exploits of notorious criminals in the press as a newsboy. At age 20, he claimed he was wrongfully imprisoned for a crime committed by his brother Doc—stealing loose cotton from a processing gin’s loading dock. Police arrested Willis after failing to locate Doc, and a jury convicted him on tenuous evidence. He reportedly received a year in the harsh Texas state prison system, where he was forced to continue picking cotton.
The experience left him deeply jaded. Doc soon entered the criminal justice system as well, likely for theft of less than fifty dollars. The two brothers cycled in and out of the Texas penal system from 1909 until around 1918 or 1920, with escape attempts leading to additional sentences. After his eventual release, Willis began with small-time theft, frequently stealing clothing from stores at night.
In 1914, he and a companion robbed a Southern Pacific Railroad passenger train in Klein, Texas, demanding $4,700 from passengers. In 1916, Willis and a gang he had joined in Durant, Oklahoma, robbed a bank in Boswell, taking just over $10,000 before fleeing on horseback. He was sent back to jail for burglary in 1917 but eventually secured a pardon using forged letters. After his release, Willis worked as an apprentice to a group of bank robbers, though the lineup frequently changed due to deaths and reckless behavior.
In 1920, operating out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Willis joined forces with Brent Glasscock, a safecracker and expert in high explosives, to found what became known as the Newton Boys. Willis persuaded his cowboy brothers Joe and later Jess to join the crew. After Doc escaped from a Texas prison in 1920, he quickly reunited with his brothers. The gang robbed banks across Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, North Dakota, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Canada.
Most heists took place at night, when the crew could crack bank safes without interacting with anyone. Willis obtained a list of banks with older, vulnerable safes by paying off a corrupt insurance official connected to the Texas Association of Bankers. The method involved forcing nitroglycerin into cracks in the safe doors and detonating it with dynamite caps. The explosions were messy and loud, but the gang preferred working in the dead of winter in small farm towns where two men could hold off residents while money was loaded into waiting cars.
Rarely, the gang attempted daytime jobs, including a straightforward bank robbery in New Braunfels, Texas, on March 9, 1922, and a more ambitious attack on bank messengers in Toronto, Ontario, on July 24, 1923. During the Toronto job, the Newtons’ reluctance to shoot people collided with messengers who refused to hand over their bags. Two messengers were wounded by Willis during the struggle, and shots were exchanged as the gang escaped with about $84,000 Canadian. The gang’s reputation for non-violence was damaged.
Most bank jobs yielded small profits, frequently less than $10,000 in cash and negotiable bonds. Much of the loot consisted of Liberty and Victory bonds taken from safe deposit boxes, which Willis and Glasscock fenced through connections in Chicago’s criminal underworld. Willis insisted on carrying even the coins from banks, remaining methodical to the end. “We are never satisfied.
I want to get everything when I go in to get anything,” he enjoyed boasting. He invested heavily in oil wells in Smackover, Arkansas, and Mineral Wells, Texas, hoping to strike it rich. Between jobs, Doc and Jess lived the high life, attending the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500, dining at the best restaurants, and staying in the fanciest hotels in cities like Chicago and Kansas City. The gang’s low profile ended on June 12, 1924, when they robbed Milwaukee Road’s fast mail train in Rondout, Illinois, with the help of four associates and a corrupt postal inspector named William Fahey.
Using inside knowledge, the gang targeted a Chicago-bound postal train traveling north and west that was carrying large sums of money ordered by the Federal Reserve for banks along the route. Willis and Jess sneaked onto the train in Chicago, entered the engine, and stopped it at a remote railroad crossing. The take exceeded $3 million—the largest train robbery in history. But the heist went wrong in a critical moment.
The engineer, nervous under duress, backed the train up after overshooting the crossing, forcing some robbers to move out of position. In the darkness, Brent Glasscock mistook Doc Newton for an armed postal worker and shot him five times. The gang took the cash, put Doc in a car, and drove away. A witness claimed to have overheard one of the robbers say the name “Willie” as they got into the car—testimony later used at trial.
Police received a tip about an underworld doctor treating an injured man. Doc and Joe were the first to be detained. Willis was arrested when he returned to the room the next day. He came close to escaping by offering the arresting officers $20,000 in cash.
The officers initially wanted to accept, but a supervising officer intervened after the money had been exchanged. Glasscock concealed the majority of the money after Joe, Willis, and Doc were apprehended. Jess escaped to Texas with $35,000 in his possession. When everyone involved in the robbery was eventually apprehended, the media reported that all but $100,000 of the stolen money had been recovered.
Facing the possibility of harsh punishment, the gang members agreed to testify against Fahey and his racketeering associates. Prosecutors portrayed the case as a major victory for law enforcement, using the dishonest postal inspector as an example. Because only one of their own members was hurt and most of the money was returned, the gang received relatively light sentences after entering guilty pleas and providing crucial evidence that helped convict others. Jess was brought to Chicago wearing rodeo attire after being tricked into entering Texas from Mexico as part of a bet involving a bronc ride at an Independence Day rodeo.
Chicago newspapers painted the Newton Boys as colorful cowboys. The arresting officer was Texas Ranger Harrison Hamer, brother of Frank Hamer, the man credited with taking down Bonnie and Clyde. The $100,000 acknowledged as missing was never found. Some of it had been buried by Jess Newton northwest of San Antonio, but he could never recall exactly where because he had been intoxicated at the time.
Due to their clean criminal records, Jess and Joe received the lightest sentences and returned to Uvalde, Texas, where they largely led respectable lives. Willis and Doc spent years in Leavenworth prison. Years later, in April 1934, Joe and Willis Newton allowed members of the Barrow Gang to hide out in a house they owned in Tulsa following the murder of constable Cal Campbell by Clyde Barrow and Henry Methvin in Commerce, Oklahoma. On April 10, 1934, the infamous letter purportedly from Clyde Barrow and addressed to Henry Ford was sent from Tulsa.
It may have been written at the Newton residence. Bonnie and Clyde did not impress Willis Newton. “They were silly kids,” he said, “who only killed people randomly and robbed gas stations.
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