Prince Albert Tales By Morley Harrison of the Historical Society

               THE BAREFACED STAGE COACH ROBBERY

Images of Billy the Kid riding out guns blazing somewhere in Montana of Wyoming flash through our minds, when we think of The Wild West and Stage Coach Robberies.

Surely, places such as Saskatchewan’s small town of St. Louis, or the city of Humboldt,  do not

fit that Wild West image. But, in the early hours of July 18, 1886, a bellow of “Stop – Hands up – Get down quick” startled the passengers and crew of ‘The Scott and Larsen Stage Coach Line’ as they passed through a tree sheltered bluff just south of present day Humboldt.

            Having paid their $50.00 to travel from Fort Qu’Appelle to Edmonton – a price that included bed rolls for sleeping on the hard prairie ground, and cooking utensils to prepare the meals of game shot

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by the passengers themselves, the Coach riders were shocked as they stared into a double barreled shotgun of a lone robber. Their shock was compounded as the robber was no ‘masked man.’ He stood barefaced – a face that the victims recognized. It was George L. Garnett, operator of a River Ferry located near present day St. Louis. He was known in that area, ‘as a person of shameless reputation.”

            Garnett may have been bold to confront those on the Stage Coach alone and unmasked, but his boldness was also to prove his undoing. Surprisingly, he showed up on the streets of nearby Prince Albert shortly thereafter, where he was recognized, quickly arrested, and sentenced to

serve fourteen years in prison.

            Perhaps his wife, if he had one, may well have said, “You fool! Why did you not wear a mask? You made a laughing stock of yourself.” Or perhaps Garnett fooled them all. The money was never officially recovered and Garnett, released in 1895, may have recovered the loot -worth about $30 000 in today’s money – and had the last laugh as well as the notoriety of being Saskatchewan’s Great Stage Coach Robber!