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CONDON BANK
The First national Bank in Coffeyville is no longer standing but it was behind the Condon Bank in this picture. It is former outline is clearly marked in a parking lot along with a charming mural depicting the robbery attempt and killings. At the end of the business day the Condon Bank recorded an overage to their receipts of $1.98, and the First National showed a shortage of $20, The missing twenty bucks was probably an inside job. COMMUNITY PRIDE Winnemuccca is a bustling five brothel railroad town in north central Nevada. When you next visit there and perhaps might grow weary of drinking and carousing make your way the northwest corner of Bridge Street and 4
th Avenue and gaze at the commemorative plaque outside of the First National Bank. That bank has been the source of community pride in Winnemucca since September 19, 1900 when it was robbed of $32,640 in gold by three sassy bandits who made a clean getaway with their booty. The bandits were later thought to be Harvey Logan, Will Carver, and the Sundance Kid. Butch Cassidy led the gang but was never identified as one of the robbers. Loot from Winnemucca and from the Tipton Train Robbery in Wyoming provided the funds needed for Butch and Sundance and Etta Place to frolic in Fort Worth and New York City before making a break for South America. The Pinkerton’s got tired of chasing them all over creation and declared them killed by soldiers in Bolivia. Clearly the soldiers killed two American bandits down there, but neither one of them was Butch Cassidy. Butch returned to America and went straight as a fellow named
DEATH ALLEY
The horses were tied about halfway down this alley. William Phillips who was a magnate in the typewriter business up in Spokane. He made visits to his family in Utah. If either of those bandits killed in Bolivia were members of the Wild Bunch it is not certain who they were. DNA testing done on the remains a few years back was inconclusive on their identities. One of them might have been Harvey Logan. The Pinkerton’s have claimed that Harvey was killed near Parachute, Colorado after a bungled train robbery. They went so far as to dig up the body and photograph it for identification but their report made no mention of the shattered wrist that Harvey was known to have suffered in a gunfight in Tennessee. Photos of the corpse were identified by family members as being those of a fellow named Tipton, from Texas, who was far more adept at bungling a train robbery than Harvey Logan ever was.
Another community that takes a great deal of pride in having their bank robbed is Northfield, Minnesota. The sassy bandits up there were the James/Younger Gang and they did not fare as well in their robbery attempt of September 7, 1876 as the Wild Bunch did in
BOB DALTON DIED HERE
Bob was gunned down in Death Alley, but Grat never made it across the street. His tape marker did not hold up to the traffic. Emmett was also gunned down in the street and has no marker. Winnemucca. . The whole gang was badly shot up by enraged citizenry. Gang members Clell Miller and Bill Chadwell were killed outright in the gunplay, and Cole, Bob, and Jim Younger suffered major wounds. Frank James had a less serious wound. Jesse and Charlie Pitts managed to scamper off without injury and Jesse made off with booty amounting to $27 in stolen nickels. Jesse and Frank left the others and set their course to Nashville. A huge clumsy manhunt went forth though Blue Earth County in pursuit of the Youngers and Pitts. They were finally located and surrounded by a posse on the Watonwan River south of LaSalle, and Pitts was killed resisting arrest. The Youngers were shot up again and taken into custody and convicted of murder and bank robbery and sentenced to life in prison. Bob got tuberculosis and died in prison, Cole and Jim were eventually paroled, but Jim committed suicide a year later. Cole soldiered on until the age of 72 as an attraction along with Frank James in a Wild West show. Jesse James instigated a good many more misdeeds and was finally murdered in his own house by Robert Ford who quickly collected the
BILL POWER DIED HERE
Bill also made it into the alley, but Broadwell managed to make it out of town on a stolen horse. His blood trail was followed to where he died. substantial reward out on Jesse. Ford attempted to cash in his notoriety as a bad man too, but was dismayed to learn that he was regarded as a coward for killing Jesse from behind. He was eventually gunned down over some minor squabble in Colorado.
The Northfield Raid was the brainwork of Jesse James, who somehow carried an imagined slight against the Union General Adelbert Ames, who had recently been appointed reconstruction Governor of Mississippi and championed Freedmen’s Rights. Adelbert was the son-in-law of Benjamin Butler who was another despised Union General. Adelbert’s dad owned the Ames Mill in Northfield and was invested in the ownership of the First National Bank that Jesse wanted to rob. It was a pretty ordinary rural bank, but Jesse thought Adelbert had about $50000 on deposit there. Jesse could get away with his shenanigans in Missouri because there was still a good bit of sympathy for the glorious Southern Cause down there, but there was none whatever in Minnesota, and many of those rural farmers in Northfield were seasoned combat veterans who could handle firearms and lay down an effective field of fire. Adelbert Ames, it might be recalled, was once the commanding
DEAD OUTLAWS PUT ON DISPLAY HERE
All four of the dead outlaws were put on public display in front of the marshal's office and jail. officer of the 20
th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment in which our cousin Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain also served.
Far as I know there are no brothels in Coffeyville, Kansas but that little place absolutely takes the most garish community pride in its history of bank robbery. Partly, I suppose, it is because the bandits were a group of local boys who were well known around those parts for their foolishness. They were the Dalton Gang and they tried to rob two banks at the same time in a neighboring community. The Daltons were first cousins on their maternal side to the Youngers. Lewis Dalton and his wife, Adeline Younger raised a passel of kids. Not all of them turned out to be outlaws. Lewis figured himself to be a horse breeder and trainer out in California for a while. He lost everything betting on his own plugs and died in penury before his sons went bad. Bill Dalton tried his hand at ranching on a little spread near San Miguel in California. Most of his brothers also found work at various times in California. Grat was a saloon fighter of some distinction over in Visalia and Tulare. The problem was
ANOTHER CASUALTY
This guy may have been a deputy marshal. He was killed in the alley too. that none of them much cared for working. Frank Dalton left California in 1880 and became a U S Deputy Marshal out of Judge Isaac Parker’ court in Fort Smith. Frank lived in Coffeyville and worked down in the Indian Territory. He got killed in a fight with some bootleggers in 1887 and Bob and Grat replaced him as federal marshals. They liked to fight, but were too lazy for the rest of it and hired Emmett to guard the prisoners they beat up. They did not last long as marshals because the court was too slow to pay. They returned to California and soon became train robbers over in Earlimart. When the law got on to them they returned to Oklahoma and started in robbing banks. On October 5, 1892 they decided to rob both the First National Bank and the Condon Bank in Coffeyville. They rode into town from their camp on Onion Creek west of town and were immediately recognized by townsmen who knew they about get robbed. There was some road construction going on in front of those banks so the Dalton’s left their horses in an alley next to the city marshal’s office. When they
DALTON CASUALTIES
These guys were killed in the street by Grat and Emmett. emerged from the bank the townsmen had time to arm themselves and opened fire. When the smoke cleared four of the townsmen had been killed and among the robbers only Emmett survived, and he had suffered 23 gunshot wounds. Emmett served a 14 year stretch for his misdeeds but was paroled out and moved to Hollywood where he became a real estate executive, author and actor. He died in 1937. Bill eventually lost his ranch near San Miguel and returned to Oklahoma where he started up his own gang of outlaws. They were the Doolin-Dalton Gang. They got into a shooting scrape with a posse in Ingalls in 1893. Bill was gunned down by a posse of marshals near Ardmore on June 8, 1894. Nine of those marshals were indicted in the killing of Dalton, but none were ever tried.
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