On this date in 1892, the Dalton gang attempts to rob two
banks simultaneously in Coffeyville, Kansas.
They met stiff resistance from townspeople, who kill four
of the five bandits. Grat, Bob, and Emmett Dalton turned to a life of crime
when they became bored with their other career possibilities on the Western
frontier. They started with cattle rustling and moved on to armed robbery in
1890. Their younger brother, Bill, soon joined their endeavors. On February 6,
1891, Bob, Grat, and Bill tried to rob a Southern Pacific train heading to Los
Angeles, California. Despite shooting and wounding a guard, the brothers didn't
score any money, and Bill and Grat were captured.
Although Bill managed to escape the charges, Grat
received a 20-year sentence. However, he escaped from the train that was taking
him to prison, and all the brothers headed back to the Midwest together, where
they recruited the best gunmen they could find and began an impressive crime
spree. They got $14,000 from a train robbery in Oklahoma and then $19,000 from
a bank. Eugenia Moore, who was engaged to Bob, was in charge of scouting out
the best robbery targets for the gang. She was adept at chatting with bankers
and railroad workers in order to find out when large sums of money were to be
transported. For over a year, the Dalton gang completed a streak of successful
robberies that were designed to bring them enough money to retire. However,
Eugenia died of cancer, and the gang soon made a huge blunder. Emmett, Grat,
Bob, Dick Broadwell, and Bill Power rode into Coffeyville, Kansas, wearing
false beards and carrying rifles. As Grat, Broadwell, and Power walked into the
Condon Bank and Bob and Emmett entered the First National Bank, one of town's
citizens recognized the Daltons and quickly called the town's men to action.
(Some sources report that Moore was still alive when the gang went to
Coffeyville; others report that there were in fact six robbers that day, not
five, and that Moore was the sixth.)
As the gang was about to make their getaway, a throng of
armed townsfolk surprised them. The five thieves shot their way to the alley
where their horses were waiting and tried to defend themselves, but they were
greatly outnumbered. In the epic gunfight that ensued, all five men were shot,
but not before killing a number of the makeshift vigilantes, many of whom had been
armed for the fight by a local hardware store. Dick Broadwell made it out of
the alley on his horse but died a few miles outside of town. Emmett Dalton, who
had been shot more than 20 times, was the only one that managed to survive. He
received a life sentence for the murder of the men who tried to stop him but
was released a mere 15 years later. He lived a peaceful and law-abiding life
until his death in 1937. In 1894, law enforcement officials shot his younger
brother Bill, who was not at the fateful Coffeyville robbery, as he tried to
escape deputy marshals who were trying to arrest him. Emmett Dalton, returned
to the site of the crime nearly 40 years later and offered a caution to
would-be thieves: "The biggest fool on earth is the one who thinks he can
beat the law, that crime can be made to pay. It never paid and it never will
and that was the one big lesson of the Coffeyville raid."
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