Pinkerton (detective agency) Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia as well as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. The company now operates as "Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations, Inc. d.b.a. Pinkerton Corporate Risk Management", a division of the Swedish security company Securitas AB. The former Government Services division, PGS, now operates as Securitas Critical Infrastructure Services, Inc. In the 1850s, Allan Pinkerton, Scottish detective and spy, met Chicago attorney Edward Rucker in a local Masonic Hall and formed the North-Western Police Agency, later known as the Pinkerton Agency. Historian Frank Morn writes: "By the mid-1850s
Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency but it is known that the company provided guards for railway and mine payrolls and accompanied coal trains into the coalfields. The company investigated train wrecks, robberies, and thefts. By the early 1900s, the agency had also undertaken detective work for both federal and state government agencies. The agency became known for crime-busting after it successfully tracked down members of the Allen family wanted in a shootout in 1912 at the Carroll County Courthouse in Hillsville, Virginia, which left the judge, the sheriff, the prosecutor, a juror, and a witness dead or dying. Though two of the Allens fled the