This is the place to find out what's what in Seymour and Jackson County. It's located inside the…read moreformer Southern Indiana Railroad Freight House so as you might guess, there is a certain amount of railroad theme to the location. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and inside you'll find exhibits that tell interesting stories from the history of Jackson County, some gifty souvenirs and books about Jackson County. (If you have time, venture into town to the corner of 2nd and Indianapolis Streets to see the mural of John Mellencamp.)
One of the interesting stories from county history is the Reno Gang. It's a long story, but the thumbnail sketch is that the Reno Brothers were life-time criminals.
After the Civil War, the Reno brothers returned home to Rockford, Indiana with counterfeiters, thieves, bounty jumpers, questionable characters and general ne'er do wells. The gang was soon pulling off numerous crimes but they reached their pinnacle October 6, 1866 when John and Simeon Reno, with gang members, boarded a train and stole somewhere between $12-18,000 from the safe. It was the first moving train robbery in the United States and it wasn't the last train robbery committed by the Reno Gang, either. Witnesses would mysteriously assume room temperature and no one was every convicted of the train robberies.
In July 1868, when citizens were fed up, vigilantes stopped a train just west of town. The train was taking three gang members to the county lock-up. The vigilantes overpowered the guards and pulled the three Reno gangsters from the train. The gang members were hanged from one branch of a nearby beech tree. Five nights later, the vigilantes did the same thing to three more gang members, at the same location, from the same branch of the same beech tree. A third and final vigilante lynching happened at New Albany, Indiana after members of the Reno gang were removed from their cells and hanged in the jailhouse. One of those cells is on display outside the Visitor Center. The site of the first two lynchings became known as Hangman Crossing. The beech tree blew down in a windstorm and there is no marker at the spot, but the story of the Reno Gang lives on in Seymour.
There may not be a historical marker at Hangman Crossing but when you go to the Visitor Center, you'll meet the center's watch cat. His name is Reno. Stop in and scratch him behind the ears, if he'll let you.
