Entry · catalog no. 1192
Railroad Bill
/ /ˈreɪlroʊd bɪl/ /RAYL-rohd BIL
proper noun · southern Alabama and the Florida panhandle; the ballad spread across the South and into the Appalachians · 1890s
✓ Verified
1.
A Black folk outlaw of the Louisville and Nashville line in southern Alabama and the Florida panhandle in 1895 and 1896, and the ballad built on him. In the songs he is a bad man in the line of Stagolee and John Hardy — admired for nerve and for slipperiness rather than for virtue, able to turn himself into a dog, a rabbit, a hound, and untouchable by ordinary lead.
“Every guitar player in that part of Alabama could pick Railroad Bill before he could read.”
2.
By extension, a man nobody can lay hands on — one who keeps slipping the trap.
“Been serving him papers for eight months. He's Railroad Bill out here.”
Origin & Attribution
Black Alabama and the Florida panhandle, winter 1895 forward. Railroad detectives claimed he was Morris Slater, a convict-lease turpentine worker who fled a camp at Bluff Springs, Florida in 1893 and was nicknamed Railroad Time for the pace he worked. Many Brewton residents instead identified the body as a local man named Bill McCoy. The identity was never settled, and the entry does not settle it.
1895
Shootings along the L&N line beginning 6 March; two lawmen killed by July; the reward reaches $1,250 and the manhunt turns on the surrounding Black population
1896
Killed 7 March at Atmore, Alabama; the body is displayed for paid admission in Montgomery and Pensacola
1939
Alan Lomax records Vera Ward Hall of Payneville, Alabama singing Railroad Bill for the Library of Congress
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
southern Alabama and the Florida panhandle; the ballad spread across the South and into the Appalachians · 1890s
Spoken by
Black Southerners in Alabama and Florida; carried on by songsters, guitarists, and later folk revivalists
$RAILROThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Historical131 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
38/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1895
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@nolakid
New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Encyclopedia of Alabama, Railroad Bill, Auburn University, 2007, revised October 2023
reference · online
■
Vera Ward Hall, Railroad Bill, recorded by Alan Lomax, 1939, Library of Congress
field recording
■
Will Bennett, Railroad Bill, Vocalion 1464, 1929 — the first recording by a Black artist
song · recorded
■
Burgin Mathews, Looking for Railroad Bill: On the Trail of an Alabama Badman, Southern Cultures 9:3, 2003, pp. 66–88
journal · printed
■
+ Cite a sourceJohn W. Roberts, Railroad Bill and the American Outlaw Tradition, Western Folklore 40:4, 1981, pp. 315–28
journal · printed
See also