Pinkerton

The Pinkerton National Detective Agency was founded in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton after consultations with six midwestern railroads, and opened the first office in Chicago. It's first few years were rather uneventful, until Pinkerton and his agency supposedly 'foiled' a plot to kill Abe Lincoln, which led to them being hired as the first Presidential Bodyguards. The first big case was when they were hired to infiltrate the 'Molly MacGuires,' a labor organization of mostly Irish Coal Miners, which led to it's downfall years later.

Things were great for the Pinkertons. By the 1890's, there were so many armed Pinkerton Detectives, that they outnumbered the US Army at the time (which led the Agency to be banned from Ohio). Pinkertons had a generally good name, having chased outlaws such as the James Gang, the Reno Gang, and Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch. In 1892, their name was slandered when they were hired to break the Homestead Strike, which resulted in gunfire, killing several steelworkers and Pinkerton Agents. Their were then several other bad cases of Pinkertons opening fire on strikers.