Dick Nelson was a railroad man who knew many of the characters who made the Wild West famous. He had arrived in Northern Wyoming in 1888 and became a freight brakeman with his headquarters in Sheridan.
As a representative of the railroads, Nelson was assigned to ride the special trains carrying Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft, William Jennings Bryan, Calvin Coolidge, and Queen Marie of Romania.
He was acquainted with Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, famed Indian scout Frank Grouard, and others who made history.
“But I'm always most pleased to tell people that Calamity Jane took her last ride through Montana and Wyoming on my train,” Nelson said.
In 1974, when he was 92 years old and a retired railroader, Nelson shared his story of Calamity Jane’s last train ride with the magazine Western Frontier: Railroads and the Old West.
“It is more than thirty years since I retired, and I saw a lot and traveled a lot of miles,” Nelson said. “But I'll never forget that 102 miles across Montana's Crow Indian Reservation and that one woman passenger.”
Calamity Jane on horseback in 1901. (Getty Images) 
Cowgirl Calamity Jane at Wild Bill Hickock's grave, a man she claimed was a lover at one point. She would be buried next to him in 1903. (Library of Congress/Corbis, VCG via Getty Images) 
Calamity Jane was known for her grit and toughness. 
Marth Jane Burke, aka Calamity Jane, General Crook's scout, famed Western markswoman in these undated photgraphs. (Getty Images)
Destitute Wild West Hero
Calamity Jane was described as “pathetic in the extreme” by the Cody Enterprise and other newspapers in 1901. She was impoverished and seeking asylum in the poorhouse in Montana when friends came to her aid.
“Though only 50 years of age, 'Calamity Jane' bears the scars of a dozen bullets, and the hardships of her life have broken her down,” the Bill Barlow’s Budget of Riverton, Wyoming, reported in 1901. “For several years past she gained a livelihood by selling a book of her adventures.”
Calamity Jane’s life had been dramatized in dime novels, elevating her to fame during her lifetime.
She was described by the Bill Barlow’s Budget as a child of the frontier who had disguised herself as a man so she could serve as an army scout, a dispatch bearer, an Indian fighter, and a free rover among the rough characters of the Wild West.
By 1903, Calamity Jane was convinced she was dying and friends paid for her to board a train so she could return home to Deadwood in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Nelson was the conductor on Train No. 42, which pulled out of the station at 8 a.m. with standard and tourist sleepers, chair cars, smoker, baggage, and mail.
“It was a bright spring morning in 1903 when I left Billings, Montana, on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy's Railroad No. 42,” Nelson said. “The train was loaded, and checking through, I came to the smoker of a chair car. It was full of men and full of smoke and the famous lady known to all as Calamity Jane.”
Nelson said that she was poorly dressed, dirty and unkempt, and down in the dumps. Having lived in Wyoming and Montana, Nelson knew about her escapades, both good and bad.
“She told plenty of stories about herself,” Nelson said. “About her Indian fighting days, her carrying the mail, driving stagecoaches, scouting for the Army and her friendship with Wild Bill Hickok.”
Nelson said that if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought Calamity was a woman in her seventies rather than someone who had just reached 50.
“She was born back in 1852 in Missouri, I'd heard,” Nelson said. “Then her folks came West and died and Calamity, her real name was Martha Jane Canary, had to fend for herself.
"Guess there wasn't any part of the West, good or bad, she didn't know.”
Lost On The Train
When Nelson asked Calamity to produce her ticket, he said that she looked at him vaguely before fumbling through the pockets of the old dirty skirt she was wearing.
“I had a ticket,” Calamity said, her words mumbled. “Friends of mine in Billings bought it for me.”
She pawed through a worn-out sachet but could not find a ticket. She did produce a baggage check, though, reading Deadwood.
Nelson encouraged her to keep looking but to no avail.
“It is hard these days to understand the conditions at that time,” Nelson said. “There were only three stations on that hundred and two miles across the Crow Indian Reservation. No towns like there are today. No roads. Just open Indian country.”
There was a hard and fast rule the Chicago, Burlington &Quincy Railroad had, Nelson said, which was never put a woman or child off your train unless at a place where they can have proper care, food and full protection of the law.
Finally, Nelson told Calamity that he would telegraph ahead about her situation and that she would most likely be asked to leave the train at Sheridan, Wyoming.
Dick Nelson had been working on the railroad since 1888 and had met many famous passengers during his many decades as a brakesman and conductor. His favorite passenger was Calamity Jane when she boarded his train in 1903. She was destitute and Nelson helped make sure she arrived to her destination safely — and well fed. (Courtesy Photo) 
By 1901, Calamity Jane was destitute and Wyoming newspapers, such as Riverton’s Bill Barlow’s Budget, left, carried the story of the Wild West character’s poverty. At right, in the spring of 1903, Calamity Jane boarded a train in Billings, Montana, where conductor Dick Nelson and others made sure she got to her final destination of Deadwood safely. By fall, she had passed away and was buried next to Wild Bill Hickok, her last request. Newspapers across Wyoming carried the story of her death.
Sympathetic Fans
Word soon spread through the train that Calamity Jane was aboard, and nearly every passenger came to see her and to talk to her.
Soon after Nelson told Calamity she'd have to leave the train at Sheridan three men came up to him and asked what the fare was to Deadwood.
He answered that the fare would be $14.16, which is about $520 in today’s currency.
“I told them the distance from Billings to Edgemont, South Dakota, where she'd have to stay overnight to get the one train to Deadwood, was 365 miles,” Nelson said. “It was 107 miles from Edgemont to Deadwood.”
After talking among themselves, the three men made a decision.
“With your permission, conductor, we'll take up a collection and pay her fare," one of the men said.
Nelson allowed them to do so, and they were able to raise enough money to pay her way, plus a few dollars extra for traveling money for the destitute Calamity Jane.
“During that run from Sheridan to Edgemont, the dining car conductor and I had the crew take food to Calamity twice,” Nelson said. “And I, with others, saw to it at Edgemont that she had a place to sleep and be fed supper and breakfast without cost.”
Nelson said that often on the long train ride to Edgemont, Calamity would have crying spells and sob that she was going to die.
“I want to get to Deadwood," Calamity said, wiping her eyes and nose on her old skirt. “I want to be there so when I die, I can be buried by my old pal, Bill Hickok!”
Nelson saw her off the train at Edgemont, making sure she'd be taken care of until she got the train to Deadwood.
“You know, she was right about dying,” Nelson said. “After she'd been in Deadwood a while, she went to Terry, South Dakota, and died there August 1st in some miner's shack or rooming house.”
She made front pages across Wyoming one last time as news spread that the famous Wild West character had died. Nelson was glad that she had gotten her final wish and was buried next to Wild Bill in Deadwood.
Over the years, Nelson visited Calamity Jane’s grave and would share the story of her last train ride under his care.
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
