For over 150 years, the image of Western badmen has thrilled readers and filled movie screens. Who hasn’t heard of Jesse James, the Dalton Brothers, Black Bart, or Belle Starr? They are as much a part of American folklore as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.
There’s something about the west that has brought out the best, and the worst, in mankind. The funny thing is, a cult following has developed around many of these bandits, making them out to be something they never were.
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| Joaquin Murrieta |
The legend that grew up around Joaquin Murrieta was that he was just a normal guy who moved from Mexico to California and tried to strike it rich during the Gold Rush. What he discovered instead was a big sign that read, “No Mexicans Allowed.”
His supporters say the Foreign Claim Tax forced Murrieta off his land and into a life of outlawry. And then, to support that claim, a whole legend has been built up around how he stole from the rich and shared with poor Mexican families. The only problem is that the facts don’t support that interpretation.
Murrieta and his gang specialized in robbing poor Chinese immigrants. The only people they shared with were themselves.
The same stories developed around Jesse James.
Legend has it, Jesse only stole from rich bankers and railroad men, and the reason he could disappear into thin air after pulling a bank job or train robbery was because he shared the booty with poor Missouri families. As with Murrieta that probably never happened.
Jesse James was a thief. He stole money wherever he could get his hands on it. He robbed stagecoaches, banks, trains, and you-name-it. And, as far as just robbing the rich, not so. During most of their train and stage robberies, the James-Younger Gang collected money and jewelry from passengers, as well as the booty from the express car.
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| Bob Ford was just a kid when he killed Jesse James |
Bob Ford is another interesting character. He was a gunfighter, a robber wannabe, who along with his brother Charlie, got into Jesse James’s good graces, then shot him in the back. Ironically, several years later, he met the same fate in a Colorado dancehall.
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| Black Bart robbing a Wells Fargo stagecoach |
My favorite is Black Bart, the gentleman robber of the West.
Bart only robbed Wells Fargo stagecoaches, and he always asked the drivers to “Please throw down the box.” Of course, he backed his request up with a double-barreled shotgun. Bart single-handedly pulled twenty-eight stagecoach robberies over an eight-year period without ever firing a shot. When he was caught, he served his time, then disappeared.
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| Sam Bass |
Sam Bass had a short-lived career robbing stagecoaches and trains. His gang scored $60,000 in freshly minted gold coins in the Big Springs, Nebraska, train robbery in 1877. Within weeks, most of the gang was caught or killed. Bass ran through his $10,000 take in less than a year.
He formed a new gang in early 1878, and pulled a string of penny-ante jobs. In early June, they were looking for that big score that could put them on Easy Street for life.
Bass’s luck ran out not much later during a bank robbery gone wrong at Round Rock. When Texas Rangers found him by a tree outside of town, he said: “I am Sam Bass. I am shot all to Hell, and it’s no use to dent it.”
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| The bodies of Bob and Grat Dalton on display after the Coffeyville Bank robbery |
The Dalton Gang enjoyed a short-lived crime spree for about 18 months, beginning in early 1890. The funny thing is, before turning outlaw, the three Dalton brothers, Grat, Bob, and Emmett served as lawmen.
The Adair robbery in 1892 was a classic Dalton holdup.
The fireman was dragged to the express car wielding his pickax. When expressman George Williams refused to open the door, the gang fired shots through the windows and threatened to dynamite the car. Williams gave in and opened the door. They soon had all the valuables from the safe. As much as $70,000 to $80,000.
Things were going well, and then Bob got this crazy idea: to rob two banks in a town where everyone knew them. A few days later, the Dalton Gang was no more. Emmett Dalton was the only survivor
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| Tom "Black Jack" Ketchum on the gallows |
Tom “Black Jack” Ketchum was the second Black Jack to terrorize the Arizona Territory. He formed his first outlaw band with Billy Carver, Tom Sanders, Bronco Bill, and Ezra Lay. They robbed their first train at Stein’s Pass in northern Arizona. That one went sour from the start. The gang intended to rob the Wells Fargo Express car but cut off the mail car instead. The take was nowhere near what they expected.
They
robbed another train in Stein’s Pass in 1895. Not long after this, they formed
the Black Jack Gang, adding Sam Ketchum (Tom’s brother), Harry Longbow, Gus
Cassidy, Ben Kilpatrick, Jimmy Low, and Harvey Logan. In 1897, they robbed an
express train headed to Helena, Montana, and netted a cool $100,000 in
banknotes. The only problem was that the notes weren’t signed, so the boys had
to turn into forgers before they could spend their booty.
Bad
luck seemed to dog Black Jack.
In
1899, he rushed off on a fool’s errand. He got it into his head to rob a train
all on his own, in Roswell, New Mexico. He flagged the train down and forced
the engineer to bring it to a complete stop. Then he had the engineer and
fireman uncouple the Express car and move it away from the train. Things went
downhill fast.
Conductor
Harrington grabbed a sawed-off shotgun and snuck up behind Black Jack and let
loose, firing a charge of buckshot into Black Jack’s arm and side. When he saw
the bandit go down, he signaled the engineer to get a move on.
Black Jack spent the night in the rocks by the side of the tracks. The next day he signaled a passing train and hitched a ride into Trinidad, New Mexico. After the doctor amputated his arm, the sheriff hauled him off to the hoosegow.
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| Dynamite Dick rushing out of cabin to his death |
Dan “Dynamite Dick” Clifton was the most killed outlaw in the American West. Just about every newspaper published between 1895 and 1897 carried the gory details of Dynamite Dick biting the big one—going out with his guns blazing, Winchester balls tearing through his body, leaving nothing but a blood drenched carcass laying in the desert.
But no sooner would you read about his death that
he was robbing another bank, another train, or getting all shot up again. If he
were alive today, Dynamite Dick would be Kenny on South Park or a popular
victim in dozens of video games.
But in the Old West, he was a killer, one of the
deadliest.
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| Photo of Bill Doolin taken after he was shot to death |
The Doolin-Dalton Gang formed out of the remnants of the Dalton Gang after their failed raid on the Coffeyville, Kansas Bank in October 1892.
The gang comprised Bill Dalton, Bill Doolin, George “Bitter Creek” Newcomb, William “Tulsa Jack” Blake, Charley Pierce, and a negro named Israel Carr. Bill Doolin, was the acknowledged leader, but “the negro Carr was said to have killed more men than all the rest of the gang put together.” He was one mean son-of-a-bitch. Over time, the gang grew to include Dan “Dynamite Dick” Clifton, “Arkansas Tom” Jones, and several others.
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| Pearl Hart in her jail cell |
Cosmopolitan Magazine, more or less created the legend that was Pearl Hart.
According to the story, the lady bandit directed
the affair herself. She held a revolver, pointing it at one man, then another.
She was dressed in men’s clothes, and in the moonlight, her slender figure and
long hair gave her away.
It was a good story, one too good to ignore, and
pretty soon it was plastered on front pages across the country.
Pearl Hart became the famous lady bandit for
robbing one stagecoach of a measly $500. That’s how things went in the Old West.
A good story could put you in the headlines and ensure you a spot in the Dime
Novels.
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| Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker) |
The Wild Bunch, or Hole-In-The-Wall Gang was one of the last great outlaw gangs to terrorize the Old West. Butch Cassidy organized the gang, and membership changed as often as the wind, depending upon the specialties needed to perform the job at hand.
They
made their hideout in the Hole-in-the-Wall, a secret lair that lawmen dared not
enter. One paper told its readers that it was a spot where one man could defy a
thousand, and could elude a hundred for months.
The
gang would sneak out, hit a bank or train, and dash back into hiding before a
posse could form.
In
the early days, the Hole-in-the-Wall meant safety, but by the end of 1900 the Old
West was fading away. Changing technology made the West less isolated and more
connected. Telephone telegraphs made it easier to spread the alarm after a
robbery.
Butch,
Sundance, and Etta Place decided it was time for a change of scenery if they
wanted to stay alive. They traveled to Texas, and then to New York, before
hopping a steamer to Argentina on February 21, 1901.
On
June 9, 1902, Harry Tracy and David Merrill made their break. They were working
in the prison foundry when Tracy grabbed a rifle and dropped guard, Frank
Farrell. Out in the yard, the place turned into a shooting gallery. They gunned
down the fence guard, Thurston Jones Sr. Guard Bailey Tiffany was next. He was
shot dead while standing watch. Duncan Ross hit the dirt and played dead.
The
escapees climbed a ladder, dragged Tiffany with them, and used his corpse as a
shield. As they hit the treeline, Tracy put a bullet into Tiffany’s head. Three
guards lay dead in three minutes.
Tracy
killed his partner, David Merrill, less than a week later. “I shot him in the
back,” he said. “The papers said he had more guts than me. That made me hot.”
No sense sharing the spotlight, right?
He
killed several more men over the next few weeks before killing himself as a
posse closed in.
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| Belle Starr |
And, last but not least, there’s Belle Starr, one of the most badass female robbers on record. Belle called her pistols her “babies” and ruled an outlaw kingdom based out of her home in Indian Territory. She lived and died by the gun.
As I look back on my childhood days reading through the books of Max Brand and Zane Grey, and paging through a bazillion and one western magazines—Real West, True West, Frontier Times, Westerner, and more, and watching God knows how many westerns—Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and the Wild, Wild West—the outlaw life was almost always portrayed as a glamorous life, filled with loose women, blazing guns, and saddlebags overflowing with gold, silver, and greenbacks.
What a life!
The only thing is that all the movies, books, and TV shows painted a distorted portrait of life in the Old West. James Dodsworth lived the outlaw life for six weeks while riding as a spy with the Doolin-Dalton Gang. He said the gang was constantly on the move. They rarely spent more than one night in any one place. Dalton and Doolin, both worried they’d end up like Jesse James—shot in the back.
At night, the gang always posted at least one man on watch duty. The rest of the gang slept with Winchesters by their sides, and pistols under their heads. Every one of them was ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.
And, as for those saddlebags overflowing with riches, more often than not, they were like a Charlie Brown Halloween special—filled with rocks rather than gold.
Sometimes the gang would cut off the wrong car during a train robbery and end up riding away empty-handed. Sometimes a posse would chase them off a little too soon, before they could grab their booty. Other times, it was slim pickings, and there was nothing to take.
The first train job the Dalton Gang pulled went totally awry. The expressman got away before they could convince him to open the safe. In their haste to rob the Atlantic Express, the boys forgot to bring dynamite to blow the safe. Black Jack Ketchum made off with $100,000 in unsigned bank notes. Pearl Hart’s fame rests upon a single stagecoach robbery that netted her under $500, and several years in the caboose after she was captured.
The sad truth is most outlaws led a short lives that ended either at the end of a rope or with a bullet in the brain. Only a lucky few survived into the new century—Frank James, Cole Younger, and Emmett Dalton, to name a few.
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