Jesse James
Is Photo of Jesse James with Killer Real?
Jesse James had lived through shootouts and two gun blasts to the chest, but ultimately he couldn’t survive a little housekeeping. As the infamous Wild West outlaw straightened and dusted a picture hanging on the living room wall of his rented home in St. Joseph, Missouri, on ...read more
7 Things You May Not Know About Jesse James
1. Jesse James was a preacher’s son. Jesse Woodson James, born in Clay County, Missouri, on September 5, 1847, was the son of Kentucky native Zerelda Cole James and her husband, Robert James, a Baptist minister and slave-owning hemp farmer who assisted in founding William Jewell ...read more
8 Famous Brothers in History
1. Wilbur and Orville Wright On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers—a pair of self-taught engineers from Dayton, Ohio—ushered in the era of flight when they made the world’s first heavier-than-air, powered-controlled flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Even though they ...read more
Pinkertons maim Frank and Jesse James’ mother
Mistakenly believing Frank and Jesse James are hiding out at their family home, a gang of men—likely led by Pinkerton detectives—mount a raid that leaves the outlaws’ mother permanently maimed and their nine-year-old half-brother dead. The Chicago-based Pinkerton Detective ...read more
Outlaw Jesse James is born in Missouri
Seen by some as a vicious murderer and by others as a gallant Robin Hood, the famous outlaw Jesse Woodson James is born on September 5, 1847, in Clay County, Missouri. Jesse and his older brother Franklin lost their father in 1849, when the Reverend Robert James abandoned his ...read more
Outlaw Frank James born in Missouri
Franklin James, the lesser-known older brother of Jesse, is born in Clay County, Missouri. Frank and Jesse James were both legends in their own time, though Jesse is better remembered today because of his more dramatically violent death. The two Missouri brothers drifted into a ...read more
Minnesotans attack the James-Younger criminal gang
Attempting a bold daytime robbery of the Northfield Minnesota bank, the James-Younger gang suddenly finds itself surrounded by angry townspeople and is nearly wiped out on September 7, 1876. The bandits began with a diversion: five of the men galloped through the center of town, ...read more
Jesse James is murdered
One of America’s most famous criminals, Jesse James, is shot to death by fellow gang member Bob Ford, who betrayed James for reward money. For 16 years, Jesse and his brother, Frank, committed robberies and murders throughout the Midwest. Detective magazines and pulp novels ...read more