Leavenworth Train: A Fugitive's Search for Justice in the Vanishing West

by Joe Jackson

For twenty-four years Frank Grigware ran from the law. Convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sentenced in 1909 to life in Leavenworth, America’s first federal penitentiary, Grigware joined five other inmates in a daring escape. The six men hijacked a supply train and rammed it through the prison’s west gate. Investigative journalist Joe Jackson, four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and 2002 Edgar Award nominee for Best Fact Crime book, follows a young, guileless Grigware in a journey not to fabulous adventure in America’s legendary West but rather to an ill-fated association with train robbers—and to his arrest and soon, imprisonment. Five months later, Grigware would be journeying again, this time in desperate flight across the Canadian border to a new life as a husband, father, and mayor. Grigware’s story is also the story of the Pinkerton detective agency and of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, which sought Grigware through the 1920s and ’30s. It culminates in a meticulously documented, revealing examination of criminal justice in two nations, when Grigware is apprehended by Canadian Mounties and the Canadian government refuses to extradite to the United States “the sort of man we want settling our land”—with results more surprising than fiction. Eight pages of photographs complete this tale of America's most elusive fugitive. “A journalistic meditation on frustrated fantasies, crime, punishment, justice and absolution.... Absorbing.... Meticulously documented.”—Washington Post “Gripping.”—The Economist

Genres: History, True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Joe Jackson is the author of seven works of nonfiction and a novel. His nonfiction includes: Leavenworth Train, a finalist for the 2002 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime; Dead Run: The Shocking Story of Dennis Stockton and Life on Death Row in America, with co-author William F. Burke and an introduction by William Styron; A Furnace Afloat: The Wreck of the Hornet and the Harrowing 4,300-mile of its Survivors; A World on Fire: A Heretic, an Aristocrat, and the Race to Discover Oxygen; The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire, one of Time magazine's Top Ten Books of 2008; and Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and the Race to Cross the Atlantic, released by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in May 2012. A first novel, How I Left the Great State of Tennessee and Went on to Better Things, was released in March 2004.

His seventh work of nonfiction - Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary - was released by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in October 2016; it chronicles the life of Oglala Lakota holy man Black Elk, best known for his 1932 Black Elk Speaks, written in collaboration with the Nebraska poet-laureate John Neihardt. Jackson's biography received the following honors and awards in 2017: Winner of the PEN/​Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography; Best Biography of 2016, True West magazine; Winner of the Western Writers of America 2017 Spur Award, Best Western Biography; Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography; and One of the Best Books of 2016, The Boston Globe.

Reviews

[Bill Tyroler · Rating 3 out of 5]

What are the most notorious Wisconsin prison breaks? Bembenek, to be sure, ranks up there, but all she did really was take advantage of lax security (she went through a laundry room window), not to say the pitiably gullible Dominic Gugliatto (who threw away his life for, one at least hopes, a few nights of conjugal bliss). Thomas Deering managed an unauthorized leave from Waupun via the back of a Coca-Cola truck in 2002 but was caught 3 months later. Jimmy Baldwin and Eddie Evans were more imaginative: they used "fraudulent paperwork" to get Stanley Correctional to release them; they enjoyed the fruits of the fraud a mere 8 days. John Henry Brent may have been more creative still: he attended a 1980 Waupun Christmas dinner in correctional drabs, and walked out and into the crisp night air dressed as a woman. Brent wasn't captured till 1987, when he was arrested on an armed robbery. Thaddeus Cydzik's 1978 break-out was brazen rather than creative -- 7 years into a life sentence, he stole a truck on the prison grounds of Kettle Moraine Correctional and broke through the gate. Nonetheless, he was cunning and intelligent and remained at large for 33 years; he committed suicide in Florida when his real identity became known. The most impressive escape might be Melvatean Lampkins. Not that any derring-do was required -- in 1979 she simply left the Taycheedah grounds on school-release and never bothered to return -- but because she has eluded capture all these years.

Which brings us to "Leavenworth Train," the tale of Frank Grigware's bust-out of Leavenworth Pen in 1909. It's not so much the fact of the escape that makes for a compelling story, but the way it was accomplished: as the title all but screams out, he left by rail. You don't need no ticket, you just need a gun. Or at least in this instance, wood fashioned to look like a gun. (Years later, Dillinger used the same trick to escape from an Indiana jail; some think he got the idea from the Leavenworth escapade.) At that time, a train ran into the prison yard, disgorging both prisoners and supplies, and what goes in also goes out. A lot of planning, leavened by even more desperation, went into the deed. Grigware was hardly the ringleader. He seems to have been more of a follower, but though his 5 compatriots were rounded up very quickly, Grigware relied on his wits and skills as a builder to work his way north, into Canada where he lived under an assumed for nearly 25 years. Eventually found out, he had earned enough goodwill among his new countrymen that extradition was successfully resisted.

In truth, the book sags in places, but kudos to Joe Jackson for unearthing an absorbing story that had lapsed into undeserved obscurity. Biggest criticism: Jackson spends an inordinate amount of time trying to convince the reader that Grigware was innocent of the train robbery that landed him at Leavenworth. (Yes, yes the irony is transparent.) Granted the evidence against him may have been thin, it was (without getting into the details) hardly non-existent. In the final analysis it just doesn't matter: by all accounts, Grigware led an upstanding and well-respected existence from the moment he vanished into the Kansas prairie. Isn't that the important thing?

[Jordan McPeek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much more than the true story of a spectacular prison breakout, it's a wonderful portrayal of life in the American West in the early years of the 20th century. The breakout itself takes place well into the book and doesn't last long. The story of Frank Grigware's travels leading up to the train robbery provides fascinating glimpses into the hard work and harsh times people endured in those days. The rise and role of the Pinkertons in law enforcement and their investigative techniques is interwoven with the hunt for the gang. The theory and development of prisons provides background for Frank's stay at Leavenworth. The holes in the case against Frank are glaring and invite comparison to today's justice system. The development of various criminal identification schemes including fingerprinting is also a crucial part of the story. Yet all of this is relayed in a character-driven format that drives the story forward like a thriller. The story of how Frank managed to stay out of prison for so many years after the breakout and the multi-decade search for him is also compelling. The differences between Canadian and American views on Frank and justice and general approach to the world was a highlight. As Jackson points out, Canadians like to point out how little Americans know about us, so I imagine his mistaken reference to the head of government for Canada as a Premier instead of Prime Minister was intentionally tossed out to us so we'd enjoy his book that much more. Frank's story of migration from Minnesota through Winnipeg and on to the western provinces reminded me of my grandparents similar migration. Overall, a fascinating read that touched on a variety of subjects in a very compelling way. Fine, fine book.

[Thee_ron_clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably would not have picked this novel up if I did not find a stack of new copies on sale for 99 cents. Well, after reading it I must say I would not have been disappointed had I paid more. The novel is the true story of a man jailed for a crime he did not commit under flimsy evidence at the turn of the century. The man is part of a daring escape from Leavenworth Prison and spends years on the lam before being found again. This novel demonstrate how injust our justice system was and can still be. The story spans several decades and not only shares the trials and tribulations of Frank Grigware, but brings a number of facts about the FBI, the American correctional system, the old west, and crime in America to light. Although this is a bit dry in a few areas, it is a fact-filled and fascinating read.