Dalton Gang’s Raid on Coffeyville

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They rode in from the west through a crisp, brilliant October morning in 1892, a little group of dusty young men. They laughed and joked and ‘baa’ed at the sheep and goats along the way. In a few minutes they would kill some citizens who had never harmed them. And in just a few minutes more, four of these carefree riders were going to die.

For they planned to rob two banks at once, something nobody else had ever done, not even the James boys. They had chosen the First National and the Condon in pleasant, busy Coffeyville, Kan. Three of the young men were brothers named Dalton, and they knew the town, or thought they did, for they had lived nearby for several years. Coffeyville was a prosperous town, with enough loot to take them far away from pursuing lawmen.

Now, 110 years after the raid, much of what happened is lost in the swirling mists of time. Today it’s hard to sort out fact from invention, and one of the remaining questions is this: How many bandits actually rode up out of the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) to steal the savings of hard — working Kansas citizens? Most historians say there were five raiders … but some say there was a sixth rider, one who fled, leaving the others to die under the citizens’ flaming Winchesters.

Coffeyville was unprepared, a peaceful little town, where nobody, not even the marshal, carried a gun. The gang might have gotten away with stealing the citizens’ savings that October 5 morning except for Coffeyville’s penchant for civic improvement. For the town was paving some of its downtown streets, and in the course of the job the city fathers had moved the very hitching racks to which the gang had planned to tether their allimportant horses. So the outlaws tied their mounts to a fence in a narrow passage, called Death Alley today. They walked together down the alley, crossed an open plaza, and walked into the two unsuspecting banks. Tall, handsome Bob Dalton was the leader, an intelligent man with a fearsome reputation as a marksman. Grat, the eldest, was a slow — witted thug whose avocations were thumping other people, gambling, and sopping up prodigious amounts of liquor. He was described as having the heft of a bull calf and the disposition of a baby rattlesnake. Emmett, or Em, was the baby of the lot, only 21 on the day of the raid, but already an experienced robber. The boys came from a family of 15 children, the offspring of Adeline Youngeraunt to the outlaw Younger boys — and shiftless Lewis Dalton, sometime farmer, saloonkeeper and horse fancier.

Backing the Dalton boys were two experienced charter members of the gang, Dick Broadwell and Bill Power (often spelled Powers). Power was a Texas boy who had punched cows down on the Cimarron before he decided robbing people was easier than working. Broadwell, scion of a good Kansas family, went wrong after a young lady stole his heart and his bankroll and left him flat in Fort Worth.

Grat Dalton led Power and Broadwell into the Condon. Em and Bob went on to the First National. Once inside, they threw down on customers and employees and began to collect the banks’ money. However, somebody recognized one of the Daltons, and citizens were already preparing to take them on.

Next door to the First National was Isham’s Hardware, which looked out on the Condon and the plaza and down Death Alley to where the gang had left their horses, at least 300 feet away. Isham’s and another hardware store handed out weapons to anybody who wanted them, and more than a dozen citizens were set to ventilate the gang members as they left the banks. The first shots were fired at Emmett and Bob, who dove back into the First National and then out the back door, killing a young store clerk in the process.

Grat was bamboozled by a courageous Condon employee who blandly announced that the time lock (which had opened long before) would not unlock for several minutes. Grat, instead of trying the door, stood and waited, while outside the townsmen loaded Winchesters and found cover. When bullets began to punch through the bank windows, Grat, Broadwell and Power charged out into the leadswept plaza, running hard for the alley and snapping shots at the nest of rifles in Isham’s Hardware. All three were hit before they reached their horses — dust puffed from their clothing as rifle bullets tore into them.

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Tags: Historical Figures, The Wild West, Wild West