LakeCumberlandBoaters.com

By Lee Roberts
Nashville District Public Affairs

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (March 11, 2011) – If direct deposit existed 130 years ago today, history could have been changed. That’s when famed outlaw Jesse James robbed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers payroll being delivered by horseback just two-miles shy of reaching employees at Blue Water Camp in Alabama.

It was a rainy and windy Friday on March 11, 1881 when Alexander G. Smith, receiver of materials, returned from Florence, Ala., with $5,240.18. He never made good on the cash delivery bound for laborers working on the Muscle Shoals Canal Project on the Tennessee River.

When Smith stopped between Shoal Creek and the camp to open a gate, James, a man believed to be Wood Hite, and William “Whiskey Head” Ryan brandished their weapons and quickly unarmed Smith. They took the payroll out of the inner pocket of his coat, along with gold and silver coinage in a bag hanging from the pommel of his horse.

The Jesse James gang forced Smith to ride nearly 20 miles in a rainstorm before releasing him and generously allowing him to keep his horse, own money, and gold watch.