Home |  PublicationsEncyclopedia |  James Gang

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Ervin Lavers and Jesse James
(20288.70.96.7.29, Chickasaw Council House Museum Collection, OHS).

JAMES GANG.

Outlaws Jesse and Frank James, farm boys and sons of a rural Missouri preacher, served with William Quantrill and other southern guerrilla leaders during the Civil War. Frank participated in the massacre of Union supporters in Lawrence, Kansas, and both brothers were present at the murder of captured Union soldiers at Centralia, Missouri. When most surviving guerrillas turned to peaceful postwar pursuits, the James boys pursued outlawry. With various followers, including the Younger brothers, they robbed banks and trains from Missouri to Kentucky, killing citizens who resisted. At Gallatin, Missouri, they shot a banker, who supposedly killed a guerrilla leader during the war.

In 1876 the James brothers, with three Younger brothers and three other outlaws, targeted a bank in Northfield, Minnesota. One outlaw, probably Frank James, murdered the unarmed cashier; the gang also shot down another unarmed resident. Angry citizens fought back with rifles, pistols, shotguns, and even rocks, killing two outlaws and wounding most of them. In the subsequent pursuit, one outlaw was killed and the Youngers wounded and captured. Only the James boys escaped. Both brothers returned to outlawry but were not the threats they had once been. In 1882 Jesse was murdered by fellow outlaw Bob Ford, and Frank surrendered. Acquitted in a series of trials, Frank held several obscure jobs, teamed with Cole Younger in a Wild West show, and died in Kearney, Missouri, in 1915.

Robert Barr Smith

Browse By Topic

Government and Politics

Explore

People
Outlaws

Learn More

Marley Brant, The Outlaw Youngers: A Confederate Brotherhood: A Biography (Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1992).

George Huntington, Robber and Hero: The Story of the Northfield Bank Raid (Northfield, Minn.: Northfield Historical Society Press, 1994).

William A. Settle, Jesse James Was His Name: Or, Fact and Fiction Concerning the Careers of the Notorious James Brothers of Missouri (1966; Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987).

Robert Barr Smith, The Last Hurrah of the James-Younger Gang (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001).

Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Robert Barr Smith, “James Gang,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=JA004.

Published January 15, 2010

Copyright and Terms of Use

No part of this site may be construed as in the public domain.

Copyright to all articles and other content in the online and print versions of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History is held by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS). This includes individual articles (copyright to OHS by author assignment) and corporately (as a complete body of work), including web design, graphics, searching functions, and listing/browsing methods. Copyright to all of these materials is protected under United States and International law.

Users agree not to download, copy, modify, sell, lease, rent, reprint, or otherwise distribute these materials, or to link to these materials on another web site, without authorization of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Individual users must determine if their use of the Materials falls under United States copyright law's "Fair Use" guidelines and does not infringe on the proprietary rights of the Oklahoma Historical Society as the legal copyright holder of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and part or in whole.