The Western outlaw gang has been part of American history and culture since the American Civil War ended. The Dalton Gang was one of the most notorious and among the last of the Old West outlaw gangs. “The Last Outlaws: The Desperate Last Days of the Dalton Gang,” by Tom Clavin, tells their story. It puts the gang in the context of their times, showing how the end of the horse-riding Western outlaw paralleled the closing of American Frontier in the 1890s.
The Dalton Gang emerged from a 19th-century Missouri family. James Lewis Dalton and his wife Adeline Lee Dalton (nee Younger) had 15 children: 10 sons and 5 daughters. Only four of the sons turned to crime. One, Frank Dalton, became a famous lawman. As deputy marshal, he died heroically enforcing the law before his other brothers, Bob, Grat, Emmett, and Bill turned to crime. (Ironically, Bob, Grat, and Emmett also did stints as lawmen.)
