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The True Story Of The Dalton Gang Is The Quintessential Wild West Tale
The Wild West has some fascinating true stories despite the muddling fiction
There is an old rusty piece of metal next to a headstone in Coffeyville, Kansas. At first glance, it strikes as an odd sight. It looks out of place. The metal looks like something found after a period of road construction or an item you would pull out of the ruins of an old home. In fact, it is a hitching post that is over a century old. The hitching post is one of the last remaining pieces of physical evidence connecting the present day to the Dalton Gang.
The Dalton Gang was a band of outlaws that terrorized the western United States for over two years. They were not the most well-known outlaws, and they did not pull off the biggest scores, but their story is gripping because it is true. It reads like the western dime novels that they inspired.
The Dalton Gang was related to another famous outlaw gang, the James-Younger Gang. They were cousins. They robbed banks and trains, were chased from California to Kansas, fought and murdered anyone who got in their way, and eventually went down in a blaze of glory.
It is the quintessential Old West tale that reminds us that the exploits of the Wild West were true. There is no reason to wade into fiction when the truth is just as interesting, if not more so.
Humble Beginnings
Like all good western tales the Dalton Gang’s origin story begins on a homestead with a deadbeat father.
The Daltons that would eventually form the Dalton gang were four brothers, Bill, Bob, Gratton, and Emmett. They were twelve Dalton children altogether. Their father, James Lewis Dalton, was an unsuccessful man living in Missouri. He would raise horse stock and then spend months driving them to California, where they would race. During the racing season, James Lewis Dalton would take the money he had made on selling the horses and gamble it away on those very same horses as they raced. The scheme was never lucrative.
Over the years, the father started bringing his children along on his adventures which put down roots for them in California. As the children grew older, they…
