In the early 1850s, Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton stumbled upon a counterfeiting operation while gathering wood for his barrel-making business. After helping the authorities arrest the criminals, he was inspired to form a detective agency, to chase bank robbers and train bandits. His business grew quickly and in 1861 he was enlisted to prevent an attempted assassination of President Lincoln.
The Pinkerton Detective Agency soon established itself as America’s most innovative and aggressive private police force, spying for the Union during the Civil War, and sending agents out to hunt the nation’s most notorious Wild West outlaws.
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