Born in Ohio, Cyrus and George Skinner traveled south when they grew up. They got into trouble during their travels and were arrested in El Dorado County in 1851 on charges of burglary and grand larceny. For the next few years, the brothers were in and out of various prisons after continuing to commit theft.
When they were both out at the same time, they met Richard “Rattlesnake Dick” Barter and his gang, which stole gold from miners in the Sierra foothills. The brothers’ history of crime made them easy additions to the gang. In 1856, Barter overheard a drunken miner talking about a large shipment of gold that was going to be delivered down the Trinity Mountain, and he hatched a plan to steal it.
George Skinner, along with Bill Carter, Big Dolph Newton, Romero, and an unidentified Mexican man, were to ambush the mule train, tie up the guards, and shift the gold onto fresh mules that wouldn’t be easily recognized. Barter and Cyrus Skinner, meanwhile, were to steal mules from a nearby corral and take them to a designated rendezvous point to meet the men with the gold for the mule swap. From there, they could load up the gold and make their escape.
George and his crew successfully stopped the mule train outside of Nevada City and took about $80,000 worth of gold bullion at gunpoint. They transferred it to a temporary hideout while they waited for Barter and Cyrus to meet them with the mules.
After three days of waiting, George decided to walk down the mountain to see why things were held up. But there was so much gold that the men couldn’t carry it all down the mountain without fresh mules. They decided to split the gold in half. George buried one half in the mountain for safekeeping and the other half was carried down by the men. On their way down, the men were intercepted by a Wells Fargo posse and a gunfight broke out in which George was killed. The other men were arrested, and the lawmen recovered the gold they were carrying. But though they searched, they could not find the buried half of the loot. And they couldn’t ask George about its location since he was dead.
Meanwhile, Barter and Cyrus hadn’t been able to make it to the rendezvous point because they were caught and arrested for stealing mules. It wasn’t until they were released that they learned of George’s fate. The two men spent weeks trying to find the gold that George had buried, but they eventually gave up and resumed robbing stagecoaches.
In 1859, their luck ran out when they were trapped in a mountain pass. The outlaws were shot by Sheriff Boggs. Barter was killed, while Cyrus was wounded…and then arrested. In prison, Cyrus befriended Henry Plummer, who was serving time for murder. Plummer was later released and Cyrus managed to escape after some time. The two men met up in 1862 in Idaho, where they formed a gang that robbed travelers and freight companies.
It didn’t take long for local residents to become suspicious of the men, and so they left for Bannack, Montana where Cyrus opened a couple of saloons. He settled down for a while and married, but he grew nervous and fled to Hellgate, Montana with his wife and opened another saloon. In 1864, the Montana Vigilantes found Cyrus, held a mock trial for him, and hanged him.
And so both Skinner brothers met their fate. Some believe that George’s cache of $40,000 worth of gold is still hidden somewhere on the Trinity Mountain, where it’s believed to have been since the summer of 1856. Only George knew where it was buried and, to this day, no one has been able to recover it.
Sounds to me like the original Wells Fargo posse that intercepted the gold thieves probably retired soon after killing George and the thieves! 😉
Ha! Quite possibly answers the question.