Billy Minor

His principal biography is The Grey Fox: The True Story of Bill Miner, Last of the Old Time Bandits, by Mark Dugan and John Boessenecker (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992).

Miner was the subject of the 1982 Canadian film The Grey Fox, in which he was played by Richard Farnsworth.

Mount Miner near Princeton, formerly Bald Mountain or Baldy, was renamed in Bill Miner's honor in response to a motion by the Princeton Board of Trade in 1952. Miner had lived on the ranch owned by Jack Budd, which was on the other side of this mountain from Princeton, while planning the robbery at Duck's.

Ezra Allen Miner (c.1847 – September 2, 1913), more popularly known as Bill Miner, was a noted American bandito, originally from Bowling Green, Kentucky, who served several prison terms for stagecoach robbery. Known for his unusual politeness while committing robberies, he was widely nicknamed the Grey Fox, Gentleman Robber or the Gentleman Bandit. He is reputed to have been the originator of the phrase "Hands up!" An original song titled "The Ballad of Bill Miner" was written by singer/songwriter Phillip Mills (Eugene Quinn) and recorded by the San Francisco bay area band "The Blackout Cowboys". Legend has it that Bill Miner admonished his cohorts to fire their guns when in danger of capture but "do not kill a man".

While serving time in the B.C. Penitentiary, Miner escaped in 1907 and was never recaptured in Canada. He moved back to the United States, becoming once again involved in robberies in the South at Gainesville in 1909. There, he served more prison time, and escaped twice.

After his third prison term, Miner moved to the province of British Columbia in Canada, where he adopted the pseudonym George Edwards and is believed to have staged British Columbia's first-ever train robbery on September 10, 1904 at Silverdale about 35 km east of Vancouver, just west of Mission City. It is often claimed that Miner was the robber, but neither he nor his accomplices were ever tied conclusively to the Silverdale heist. It is also widely reported that Silverdale's train robbery was the first in Canada, but Peter Grauer's definitive study ("Interred With Their Bones", 2005) cites a train robbery in Port Credit, Ontario 30 years prior as the first.

Maple Ridge, British Columbia features the Billy Miner Pub which is located in historic Port Haney on the bank of the Fraser River. The pub is located in the original Bank Of Montreal building built in the early 1900s.

Miner was born Ezra Allen Miner in Vevay Township, near Onondaga, Ingham County, Michigan on December 27, 1846. He never legally changed his first name (which he evidently didn't like), but regarded William Allen Miner as his true name throughout most of his life. He was arrested for the first time in 1866 in San Joaquin County, California and served time there. He was shortly released but served more time at Placer County, California and later at Calaveras County, California. He was discharged in 1880. He then formed a partnership with Bill Leroy (as W. A. Morgan) to rob a stagecoach. Leroy was caught and lynched, but Miner escaped. He was later caught for another robbery in Tuolumne County, California and was released from San Quentin in 1901.