William L. Carlisle

William L. "Wild Bill" Carlisle (May 4, 1890 – June 19, 1964) was one of the last train robbers of the American West known as the "Robin Hood of the Rails" and "The White-Masked Bandit".

Early years Bill Carlisle born in Chester County in Pennsylvania in 1890, the youngest of five children born to David Cottrell, a 60-year-old Civil War veteran and his 37-year-old wife Salome Lentz Cottrell. Some sources claim he was born as Walter Lawrence Cottrell. His mother died when he was nine months old and because of his father's ill-health he and his siblings were taken to an orphanage. In 1893 aged 3 he was claimed by his family but was passed from relative to relative. As a teenager he began to ride the freight trains and by 1905 he was a hobo. In 1907 aged 17 he rode the train to Montana to work as a ranch hand.

Train robber By early 1916 he was destitute, with only a nickel in his pocket; he decided the quickest way to obtain cash was to hold up a train. Carlisle robbed his first train in Wyoming on 9 February 1916 wearing a white bandana over his face and armed with a toy pistol and a .32-caliber pistol. During the robbery he gave coins to a guard to make up for his lost tips, gave a dollar to a man to pay for his breakfast and bowed to a woman who tried to take his gun from him. However, Carlisle decided he could not wait that long to be released, and on 15 November 1919 he escaped from Wyoming State Penitentiary by being carried outside the walls in a packing crate with a shipment of shirts. He again robbed a train on November 18 but found most of the passengers were soldiers and sailors returning from service in France during World War I; Carlisle did not take money from these. When a young man pointed a revolver at him Carlisle knocked it away, but it went off and injured his left hand. He was arrested again on 2 December 1919 in a cabin near Glendo, Wyoming having been hunted by a posse who shot him through the lung while capturing him, necessitating his being carried down from the cabin strapped to the back of a pack horse. Following surgery to remove the bullets in his lung and hand and a 33-day stay in hospital he returned to Wyoming State Penitentiary on 18 December 1919. and received a full pardon from the Governor of Wyoming in 1947.