The infamous Jesse James was born on September 5, 1847. At seventeen, James (shown above in 1864) left his native Missouri to fight as a Confederate guerilla in the Civil War. After the war, he returned to his home state and lead one of history's most notorious outlaw gangs. With his younger brother Frank and several other ex-Confederates, including Cole Younger and his brothers, the James gang robbed their way across the Western frontier targeting banks, trains, stagecoaches, and stores from Iowa to Texas. Eluding even the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, the gang escaped with thousands of dollars. Despite their criminal and often violent acts, James and his partners were much adored. Journalists, eager to entertain Easterners with tales of a wild West, exaggerated and romanticized the gang's heists, often casting James as a contemporary Robin Hood. While James did harass railroad executives who unjustly seized private land for the railways, modern biographers note that he did so for personal gain—his humanitarian acts were more fiction than fact.
Jesse James's outlaw days ended abruptly in 1882 when fellow gang member Robert Ford fired a bullet into the back of his head. Ford hoped to claim the $10,000 offered for James's capture but received only a fraction of the reward. He did, however, secure himself a place in Western outlaw lore which lives on in literature, song, and film.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF MY BELOVED SON, MURDERED BY A TRAITOR AND COWARD WHOSE NAME IS NOT WORTHY TO APPEAR HERE
Jesse James's epitaph, selected by his mother, Zerelda James
Part of Briggs Avenue, Park River, Dakota Territory, circa 1880.
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