The members of the Dalton Gang stage an unsuccessful train robbery near Alila, California--an inauspicious beginning to their careers as serious criminals.

Bob, Emmett, and Grat Dalton were only three of Lewis and Adeleine Dalton's 10 sons. The brothers grew up on a succession of Oklahoma and Kansas homesteads during the post-Civil War period, when the region was awash in violence lingering from the war and notorious outlaw bands like the James-Younger Gang. Still, the majority of the Dalton boys became law-abiding citizens, and one of the older brothers, Frank, served as a deputy U.S. marshal.

Ironically, Frank's position in law enforcement brought his younger brothers into lives of crime. When Oklahoma whiskey runners murdered Frank in 1887, Grat took Frank's place as a deputy marshal and recruited Emmett and Bob as assistants. Disillusioned by the fate of their older law-abiding brother, the three Dalton boys showed little respect for the law and began rustling cattle and horses to supplement their income. The brothers soon began to use their official law enforcement powers for their own ends, and in 1888, they killed a man for pursuing Bob's girlfriend.

Such gross abuses of authority did not escape attention for long. By 1890, all three men were discredited as lawmen, though they managed to escape imprisonment. Taking up with some of the same hardcore criminals they had previously sworn to bring to justice, the Daltons decided to expand their criminal operations. Bob and Grat headed to California, leaving Emmett behind in Oklahoma because they felt he was still too young for a life of serious crime. In California, they planned to link up with their brother Bill and become bank and train robbers.

The Dalton Gang's first attempt at train robbery was a fiasco. On February 6, 1891, Bob, Grat, and Bill tried to rob a Southern Pacific train near Alila, California. While Bill kept any passengers from interfering by shooting over their heads, Bob and Grat forced the engineer to show them the location of the cash-carrying express car. When the engineer tried to slip away, one of the brothers shot him in the stomach. Finding the express car on their own, Bob and Grat demanded that the guard inside open the heavy door. The guard refused and began firing down on them from a small spy hole. Thwarted, the brothers finally gave up and rode away.

The Daltons would have done well to heed the ominous signs of that first failed robbery and seek safer pursuits. Instead, they returned to Oklahoma, reunited with young Emmett, and began robbing in earnest. A year later, the gang botched another robbery, boldly attempting to hit two Coffeyville, Kansas, banks at the same time. Townspeople caught them in the act and killed Bob, Grat, and two of their gang members. Emmett was seriously wounded and served 14 years in prison.

Of all the criminal Dalton brothers, only Emmett lived into old age. Freed from prison in 1907, he married and settled in Los Angeles, where he built a successful career in real estate and contracting. 

  Return to February 6

On this day in 1892, the famous Dalton Gang attempts the daring daylight robbery of two Coffeyville, Kansas, banks at the same time. But if the gang members believed the sheer audacity of their plan would bring them success, they were sadly mistaken. Instead, they were nearly all killed by quick-acting townspeople.

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 later escaped from 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.

After riding quietly into town, the men tied their horses to a fence in an alley near the two banks and split up. Two of the Dalton brothers-Bob and Emmett-headed for the First National, while Grat Dalton led Dick Broadwell and Bill Powers in to the Condon Bank. Unfortunately for the Daltons, someone recognized one of the gang members and began quietly spreading the word that the town banks were being robbed. Thus, while Bob and Emmett were stuffing money into a grain sack, the townspeople ran for their guns and quickly surrounded the two banks. When the Dalton brothers walked out of the bank, a hail of bullets forced them back into the building. Regrouping, they tried to flee out the back door of the bank, but the townspeople were waiting for them there as well.

Meanwhile, in the Condon Bank a brave cashier had managed to delay Grat Dalton, Powers, and Broadwell with the classic claim that the vault was on a time lock and couldn't be opened. That gave the townspeople enough time to gather force, and suddenly a bullet smashed through the bank window and hit Broadwell in the arm. Quickly scooping up $1,500 in loose cash, the three men bolted out the door and fled down a back alley. But like their friends next door, they were immediately shot and killed, this time by a local livery stable owner and a barber.

When the gun battle was over, the people of Coffeyville had destroyed the Dalton Gang, killing every member except for Emmett Dalton. But their victory was not without a price: the Dalton's took four townspeople to their graves with them. After recovering from serious wounds, Emmett was tried and sentenced to life in prison. After 14 years he won parole, and he eventually leveraged his cachet as a former Wild West bandit into a position as a screenwriter in Hollywood. He lived a peaceful and law-abiding life until his death in 1937. Law enforcement officials later shot his younger brother Bill, who was not at the fateful Coffeyville robbery, in the back as he played with his daughter on their front porch.

Emmett 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."

Return to October 5

March 8, 1893 Emmet Dalton goes to prison

Emmet Dalton, the only survivor of the Dalton Gang's disastrous attempt to rob two Kansas banks, begins serving a life sentence in the Kansas State Penitentiary.

Born in 1871, Emmet was the youngest of the three Dalton brothers, who banded together to pursue a life of crime. Initially, his brothers Bob and Grat were reluctant to include Emmet in their crimes because of his youth--when the two elder brothers traveled to California to rob trains in 1889, they refused to take along the 18-year-old Emmet. After returning to Oklahoma several years later, though, Bob and Grat judged Emmet sufficiently mature to assist them in a string of train robberies that made the three brothers and their gang famous throughout Oklahoma and Kansas. By then, Emmet had a sweetheart named Julia Johnson, but he gave up his dreams of a normal family life to remain with his brothers. "What had I to offer Julia?" Emmet later mused. "I rode away. An outlaw has no business having a girl, no business thinking of marriage."

Emmet's wild days riding with his two older brothers were short-lived. On October 5, 1892, the brothers attempted a daring dual robbery of two Coffeyville, Kansas, banks in broad daylight. The plan might have worked had the citizens of Coffeyville not been alerted to the arrival of the bandits. While Emmet and Bob were stuffing $21,000 in grain sacks in one bank, the townspeople quietly surrounded the building. When the boys tried to leave, a barrage of gunfire forced them back inside. They fled through a rear door and managed to reunite with Grat and the other team of robbers, who were also under attack. In a back street-later named "Death Alley" by the proud citizens of Coffeyville-the gang was blasted by heavily armed townspeople. Bob and Grat were hit first. Emmet tried to pick up Bob, but as he reached down from his horse a bullet slammed through his hip and a load of buckshot hit him in the back.

Bob, Grat, and two other gang members died, and the people of Coffeyville propped them up for a famous series of grisly photographs. Townspeople carried the wounded Emmet to a nearby hotel and he lived to stand trial. Sentenced to life in prison, he began serving his time in the Kansas State Penitentiary on this day in 1893.

After 14 years in prison, Emmet won parole and returned to society a reformed man. He finally married Julia Johnson and began a successful career as a real estate agent. When the couple later moved to the booming Los Angeles area, Emmet even found work in Hollywood as an authenticity consultant for western movies. He died in 1937.

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