San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Zoo train ‘robbed’ again — for a good cause.
50 years after the last rail heist in Texas, event helps raise funds for two new units
On July 18, 1970, Greg Hargis celebrated his 11th birthday with his family on board the Brackenridge Eagle outside of the San Antonio Zoo.
During the ride, he received a birthday memory he’ll never forget: Two armed, masked men robbed the miniature train also known as Old No. 99.
On Saturday, the zoo commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Great (Little) Train Robbery with re-enactments of the heist that many have called the last train robbery in Texas.
The re-enactments were part of a fundraiser to buy two new miniature trains for what’s now called the San Antonio Zoo Eagle.
On each trip, costumed zoo actor/educators held up the train with toy guns that spewed bubbles as they asked for donations. An audio recording that detailed the event from 50 years ago played from overhead speakers during the rides.
Recently, Hargis and his brother Jeff recalled the incident in a video filmed by zoo personnel.
It was a Saturday, when the Eagle emerged from a dark tunnel into the afternoon sun in 1970, and the masked men rushed up and shouted for the engineer to stop the train.
Many of the 75 passengers laughed and thought it was a stunt. Within seconds, the young men, wielding handguns, convinced the riders their demands weren’t a joke.
Greg Hargis put his watch in his sock. His father, who kept his cash in a pants pocket, showed the men an empty wallet.
“It was the first time I had ever seen a handgun,” Jeff Hargis said.
Several people jumped from the open air cars and tossed purses and cameras in nearby brush. Greg Hargis recalled that the robbers yelled for the passengers to get back on the train.
As the robbers walked to the back of the train, the engineer radioed ahead to zoo headquarters on his walkie-talkie.
According to columnist Paula Allen, the robbers fled with a white laundry bag stuffed with $500 worth of cameras, purses, credit cards and checkbooks.
Days later, acting on a tip, San Antonio police arrested two soldiers who were stationed at Fort Sam Houston. Each was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.
Tim Morrow, president and CEO of the zoo, said he had been looking forward to the event since putting the anniversary on his calendar two years ago. He said the zoo gave the Hargis family members gift baskets with souvenirs and annual passes for the birthday that was robbed from
them 50 years ago.
“This is probably one of the strangest crimes that’s ever happened in our city,” Morrow
said. “The fact it was a train robbery in Brackenridge Park and probably the last train robbery in the United States makes it really unique. And to have riders reconnecting with the zoo was really something special.”
Morrow said the zoo looks forward to making the re-creation an annual event and hopefully reconnecting with more passengers from that Saturday 50 years ago.
Jeff Hargis said Saturday was the first time he had rode the
small train since 1970.
“It’s always been part of our family lore that we were on the last train robbery” in Texas, Greg Hargis said. “What are the odds?”