John Sontag

John Sontag (May 27, 1861 – July 3, 1893) was an outlaw of the American West known for train robberies.

Background John Sontag was the oldest son of Maria (Bohn) and Jacob Contant of Mankato, Minnesota. After the death of his father in 1867, his mother remarried to Matthias Sontag, a Union Army veteran of the Civil War; John then adopted the last name of Sontag. John Sontag had one sibling, George (born 1864), who kept his last name, but did occasionally use the last name of Sontag. John and George were frequently partners in crime and were known as The Sontag Brothers.

John Sontag came to California to work for the Southern Pacific Transportation Company. While coupling rail cars in the company yard in Fresno his leg was crushed; he accused Southern Pacific of failure to care for his on-the-job wounds and their refusal to rehire him after he had healed. Later Sontag and Evans went on to lease a livery stable in Modesto, but after a year the structure burned and the horses were lost in the fire. At some point Sontag became engaged to Eva, daughter of Evans.

After the failure of the livery yard Sontag and Evans began robbing trains in such locations as Ceres, Goshen, Pixley, and Alila, later Earlimart. After each robbery, they would hide in remote places in the foothills of the Eshom Valley, such as Fort Defiance, or Roop's Fort near Susanville, California.

Contant was at Folsom State Prison where he was serving his sentence after being found guilty of train robbery in October 1892; he served fifteen years. After release from prison he wrote an autobiography, A Pardoned Lifer, with Opie Warner as his ghostwriter. He lectured in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and at the Mankato Opera House on the folly of living outside the law. About 1915, he produced a film, The Folly of a Life of Crime; there are no surviving copies.