Dalton Gang

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This article is about the group of outlaws. For the film based on them, see The Dalton Gang (film).
For the fictional characters, see The Daltons (Lucky Luke).

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Dalton Gang

Dalton gang following the 1892 Coffeyville, Kansas raid. Left to right:

Bill Power; Bob Dalton; Grat Dalton, Dick Broadwell

Founded March 21, 1890

Founding location Pawhuska, Indian Territory

Years active March 21, 1890 - October 5, 1892

Ethnicity White

Membership 8

Criminal activities Bank and train robberies

The Dalton Gang was a group of outlaws in the American Old West during 1890–1892. It was also
known as The Dalton Brothersbecause three of its members were brothers. The gang specialized
in bank and train robberies. During an attempted bank robbery in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1892, two of
the brothers and two other gang members were killed; Emmett survived and was captured, tried, and
convicted. He was paroled after serving 14 years in prison.
 The oldest brother Frank had been a Deputy U.S. Marshal, but was killed in 1887. In 1890, Gratton
"Grat", Bob, and Emmett turned to crime after not being paid as lawmen. Their middle
brother William M. "Bill" Dalton also had a career as an outlaw, but he rode with the Wild Bunch. The
gangs were related through their mother to the Younger brothers, who rode with Jesse James. The
Daltons were active later and independently of the James-Younger Gang.

Contents

 1Beginnings
 2Lawmen
 3Outlaws
 4Coffeyville bank robbery
 5Gallery
 6In popular culture
 7See also
 8References
 9Further reading
 10External links

Beginnings[edit]
Their father was Lewis Dalton from Jackson County, Missouri. He was a saloon keeper in Kansas
City, Missouri, when he married Adeline Younger. She became an aunt of Cole and Jim Younger.
The Dalton boys were born in quick succession: Frank (1859), Gratton "Grat" (1861), William M.
"Bill" (1866), Bob (1869), and Emmett (1871).
By 1882, the family was living in the Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma. A few years later,
they had settled in Coffeyville in southeastern Kansas. Lewis and Adeline Dalton had a total of 15
children, two of whom died in infancy.

Lawmen[edit]

Frank Dalton
Frank Dalton was the oldest of the brothers and kept the others on their good behavior for some time
as they followed his model into the law. He became a Deputy US Marshal, and his brothers rode
with him in posses. Frank Dalton was killed when he was tracking a horse thief in the Oklahoma
Territory. Dalton and another deputy marshal had located the fugitive with his companions on
November 27, 1888, and tried to arrest him. The outlaws resisted, and shot Dalton dead. Two of the
outlaws were killed, and Dalton's companion was wounded. The wanted horse thief escaped
capture. On December 3, the remaining outlaws were located and a second gunfight took place.
Deputy U.S. Marshal Ed Stokley[1] shot and killed the horse thief, but was fatally wounded. [2]
Brothers Grat, Bob, and Emmett Dalton also became lawmen. Frontier conditions for towns were
often strained, and in 1890, after not being paid money owed them, the brothers became outlaws.
Bob Dalton had killed his first man at age 19. Deputy Marshal Dalton stated that the killing was in the
line of duty. However, some noted that the dead man had been Dalton's rival for a woman.
In March 1890, Bob Dalton was charged with bringing forbidden liquor into the Indian Territory. He
jumped bail and did not appear for his trial. In September 1890, Grat was arrested for stealing
horses, a capital offense; but either the charges were dropped or he was released. Discredited as
lawmen, the Daltons soon formed their first gang.

Outlaws[edit]
Bob recruited George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb, Charley Pierce and "Blackfaced" Charlie Bryant to
ride with him and his brother Emmett. Bryant received his nickname because of a gunpowder burn
on one cheek. Grat was visiting his brother Bill in California when the gang was formed, but he
joined it later, as did Bill Doolin, Dick Broadwell, and Bill Power. Their first robbery target was
a gambling house in Silver City, New Mexico.
On February 6, 1891, after Grat Dalton had joined his brothers in California, a Southern Pacific
Railroad passenger train was held up in the town of Alila (Since renamed: Earlimart). The Daltons
were accused of the robbery, based on little evidence. Grat escaped and Bill was acquitted, but Grat
was arrested, convicted, and given a 20-year prison sentence. According to one account, Grat was
handcuffed to one deputy and accompanied by another while being transferred by train. After the
train had gone some distance, one deputy fell asleep and the other was talking to other passengers.
It was a hot day, and all the windows were open. Suddenly, Grat jumped up and dived head first out
of the train window. He landed in the San Joaquin River, disappeared under water, and was carried
downstream by the current. The deputies were astounded. Grat must have taken the key to the
handcuffs from the first deputy's pocket as he slept and timed his escape for when the train would be
on a bridge. If he had landed on the ground, he would likely have been killed. Grat found his
brothers, and they made their way back to Oklahoma Territory.
Between May 1891 and July 1892, the Dalton brothers robbed four trains in the Indian Territory. On
May 9, 1891, the men held up a Santa Fe train at Wharton (now Perry). They only gained several
hundred dollars, but they had worked well as a team. As they passed Orlando, they stole eight or
nine horses. A posse chased them, but the gang escaped.
Four months later the Dalton gang robbed a train of $10,000 at Lillietta, Indian Territory. In June
1892, they stopped another Santa Fe train, this time at Red Rock. "Blackfaced" Charley Bryant and
Dick Broadwell held the engineer and fireman in the locomotive. Bob and Emmett Dalton and Bill
Power walked through the passenger cars, robbing the passengers as they went. Bill Doolin and
Grat Dalton took on the express car. They threw the safe out of the train. They gained little for their
efforts—a few hundred dollars and some watches and jewelry from the passengers. The gang
scattered after the Red Rock robbery, but soon "Blackfaced" Charley Bryant was captured by
Deputy US Marshal Ed Short.[3]While en route to jail in Wichita, Kansas, Bryant grabbed a gun from
a railroad worker assisting Deputy Marshal Short, and in the ensuing gunfight Bryant and Short killed
each other.
The gang struck again on July 14 at Adair, Oklahoma, near the Arkansas border. They went to the
train station and took what they could find in the express and baggage rooms. They sat to wait for
the next train on a bench on the platform, talking and smoking, with their Winchester rifles across
their knees. When the train came in at 9:45 p.m., they backed a wagon up to the express car and
unloaded all the contents. The eight armed guards on the train all happened to be at the back of the
train when it pulled in. They fired at the bandits through the car windows and from behind the train.
In the gun fight, 200 shots were fired. None of the Dalton gang was hit. Doctors W. L. Goff and
Youngblood were sitting on the porch of the drug store near the depot. Both men were hit several
times by stray shots; Dr Goff was fatally wounded. Also wounded were captains Kinney and LaFlore,
but they recovered.[4] The robbers fled and disappeared, likely hiding out in one of several caves
near Tulsa.

Coffeyville bank robbery[edit]

Grave of Dalton gang in Coffeyville, Kansas

Coffeyville Bank Robbery

Date October 5, 1892

Location Coffeyville, Kansas
Result Dalton Gang suppressed

Belligerents

Dalton Gang Coffeyville citizenry

Commanders and leaders

Robert Dalton (k) U.S. Marshal Charles Connelly (k)

Strength

5-6 outlaws armed citizenry

Casualties and losses

 4 killed 1 confirmed killed

1 wounded and captured 3 shot

Bob Dalton had ambitions. He would, he claimed, "beat anything Jesse James ever did—rob two
banks at once, in broad daylight." On October 5, 1892, the Dalton gang attempted this feat when
they set out to rob the C.M. Condon & Company's Bank and the First National Bank on opposite
sides of the street in Coffeyville, Kansas. They wore fake beards but one of the townspeople
recognized them.
An employee of one of the banks delayed them by convincing them (falsely) that the safe was on a
time lock, and could not be opened for another 45 minutes. With the delay, word got out that the
bank was being robbed. Residents armed themselves and prepared for a gun battle. When the gang
exited the banks, a shootout began. Three townspeople were shot. Town Marshal Charles
Connelly[5] ran into the street after hearing gunfire. He returned fire and died while killing one of the
gang members.
Grat and Bob Dalton, Dick Broadwell and Bill Power were all killed. Emmett Dalton received 23
gunshot wounds and survived (he was shot through the right arm, below the shoulder, through the
left – right, in some accounts – hip and groin, and received 18-23 buckshot in his back). [6] He was
given a life sentence in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas, of which he served 14
years before being pardoned. He moved to California and became a real estate agent, author and
actor, and died in 1937 at age 66. Speculation arose that a "sixth man" had been holding the gang's
horses in an alleyway and had escaped; he was believed to be Bill Doolin. That has never been
confirmed. Bill Doolin, "Bitter Creek" Newcomb, and Charlie Pierce, none of whom were at
Coffeyville, were the only members left of the Dalton Gang.
Years after the robberies and his release from prison, Emmett Dalton said that Deputy US
Marshal Heck Thomas was a key factor in his gang's decision to commit the robberies. He said
Thomas kept relentless pressure on them. They hoped to make a big score from the banks and
leave the territory for a while, to escape Thomas' heat.
Bill Dalton reportedly joined the Doolin gang after the Coffeyville raid. He was reportedly one of the
participants in a gun battle on September 1, 1893 at Ingalls, Oklahoma Territory. Three deputy U. S.
marshals were killed in the shootout. He may have been one of a four-man gang who robbed the
First National Bank of Longview, Texas, on May 21, 1894. He was shot and killed by a posse
near Ardmore on June 8, 1894. Nine of the deputy U.S. marshals who killed Bill Dalton were indicted
for his murder in the federal court at Ardmore in June 1896. Apparently, none were ever tried. Why
they were indicted remains a mystery.[7]

Gallery[edit]


Bill Dalton
 
 

Emmett Dalton
 

Grat Dalton
 

Bill Doolin
 

George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb

 
 

Charley Pierce

In popular culture[edit]
 A largely fictional film version of the Daltons' lives was made as When the Daltons Rode (1940)
starring Randolph Scott, Broderick Crawford and Brian Donlevy.
 The Daltons were featured in Randolph Scott's western, Badman's Territory (1946).
 The Daltons were also featured in yet another Randolph Scott western, Return of the Bad
Men (1948), loosely based on Doolin's leadership of an outlaw gang in Oklahoma Territory
combining the remnants of the original Dalton gang with new members to become the Wild
Bunch.
 Randolph Scott himself plays Bill Doolin in the film The Doolins of Oklahoma (1949), in which he
is depicted as a reluctant outlaw forced into a leadership role by circumstances after the
Coffeyville raid.
 The motion picture The Cimarron Kid (1952), about the Dalton Gang, starred Audie Murphy as
Bill Doolin.
 "The Dalton Gang" is a half-hour, 1954 episode of the American TV series Stories of the
Century with Myron Healey as Bob Dalton, Fess Parker as Grat, Robert Bray as Emmett and
John Mooney as Bill Dalton.
 The 1954 Franco-Belgian graphic novel Hors-la-loi embroiders the Coffeyville events, with the
gang made up only of Dalton brothers, all four of whom are killed in the end.Morris's comical
depiction of the outlaws — as mustachioed and identically-dressed quadruplets differing only in
their height — having proved popular, a second fictional gang of Dalton
brothers indistinguishable from the originals and presented as their (bungling) cousins became
recurring villains in the Lucky Luke series, later written by René Goscinny. These were also
depicted in several films including La Ballade des Dalton (animated feature, 1978), Lucky
Luke (1991) and Les Dalton (2004).
 The Dalton Girls (1957) is a fictional B-grade western in which Dalton sisters continue in the
ways of their brothers.
 In 1957 the CBS documentary anthology series episode called You Are There offered the
episode "The End of the Dalton Gang (October 5, 1892)", with Tyler MacDuff in the role of
Emmett Dalton.
 Three Minutes to Eternity is a half-hour, 1963 episode (season 12, episode 9, narrated
by Stanley Andrews, known as "The Old Ranger") of the TV series Death Valley Daysabout their
last robbery in Coffeyville, with Forrest Tucker as Bob Dalton, Jim Davis as Grat, and Tom
Skerritt as Emmett.[8]
 In Charles Portis's novel True Grit (1968), the young heroine Mattie Ross refers to Bob and Grat
Dalton as "upright men gone bad" and to Bill Doolin as "a cowboy gone wrong."
 The 1973 song "Doolin-Dalton", by the Eagles, is a song about the Dalton Gang. The album
from which the song came, Desperado, has a photograph on its back cover that shows the
Eagles band members and songwriters re-enacting the image of the capture and death of the
Dalton Gang.[9]
 Robert Conrad starred as Bob Dalton in The Last Day (1975), depicting the events leading up to
the gang's attempted robbery of two banks in Coffeyville. The film has a documentary-style
voice-over by Harry Morgan.
 Randy Quaid starred in The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang (1979), a portrayal of the gang's
attempted robbery of two banks simultaneously in Coffeyville, Kansas. (The following year, the
actor would co-star in The Long Riders, about Jesse James's bank robbery attempt
in Northfield, Minnesota, which similarly led to destruction of his gang.)
 The Ron Hansen novel Desperadoes (1979) is a fictional memoir purportedly written by 65-year-
old Emmett Dalton in 1937.
 The Dalton Brothers is the name of a parody country and western band briefly impersonated
by U2 during their 1987 Joshua Tree U.S. tour.
 The Max McCoy novel The Sixth Rider (1991) tells of the group's exploits from the vantage point
of the possible sixth member involved in the Coffeyville bank holdups.
 In the movie Reign of Fire (2002), Matthew McConaughey's character is from Coffeyville,
Kansas, and refers to the historical shoot-out.
 The videogame Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (2013) contains an episode based on the Coffeyville
shootout.
 The Dalton Gang is referenced in the Morgan Kane book Killer Kane about the fictional
gunslinger.
 The Dalton Gang appears in the Italian comic book Tex, No. 8 and 9.
 Joe Dassin wrote a song called "Les Dalton", inspired by the Lucky Luke characters.
 Hanna-Barbera created various versions of the Dalton Gang in animate productions, most
notably with Huckleberry Hound.
 In the video game Red Dead Redemption, there is a gang called "Walton's gang," loosely based
on the Dalton gang.

See also