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The Notorious Men of the Wild West

Khalid Elhassan December 4, 2019 32 min

13. The James-Younger Gang

In 1868, Jesse and Frank James teamed up with Cole Younger to rob a bank in Kentucky, and formed with him the James-Younger Gang. In 1869, Jesse murdered a cashier during a robbery, after mistaking him for the man who had killed his former guerrilla commander, “Bloody Bill’ Anderson. The gang then went on a spree, robbing stagecoaches, trains, banks, and county fairs, from Texas to Iowa, and from Kansas to West Virginia.

During that period, Jesse allied with the editor and founder of the Kansas City Time, which opposed Missouri’s Republican governor, and portrayed Jesse as a Robin Hood figure driven by ideals and not just greed and bloodthirstiness. There is no evidence that the gang ever shared its loot with any outside their immediate personal circle, but the portrayal fell on receptive ears, particularly in the pro-Southern parts of Missouri.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.