His name remains infamous, and immediately evocative. Perhaps no figure is so instantly identified with a West that was wild, and dangerous, and still looms large—dream-like, full of big character and even huger stories—in our collective imagination. Yes, there are others: Bonnie and Clyde, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, and Buffalo Bill Cody.
But Jesse James stands in a category by himself. Outlaw, train robber, leader of the James Gang—and a 19th century Robin Hood? The scholars are doubtful on the last one. I travelled to Western Missouri to walk in his footsteps—his boot steps, rather—to learn more about the man, the myth, and the legend.
And I found myself standing just steps from a pretty little small-town square, in the very first bank that James had a hand in robbing. “Come with me, step back to 1866,” said a guide, leading our small group into the main room and up to the old-school wooden wickets. Various elements inside are original, she explained, including the pressed-tin ceiling. It certainly felt like we had traveled back more than a century.
The heist was about money, absolutely. But the guide noted that James had a beef, too. “Jesse had a score to settle with the military,” she explained. He was a strong Southerner with ardent Confederate sympathies, and this was just a year after the Civil War ended. And while Jesse wasn’t actually there—the robbery was led by his brother, Frank—he helped organize it.
It was payday for the military, and the vault and the cash box were flush. At some point, a bystander was shot and killed. After they handed over the loot, the bankers were forced into the vault, but not locked in. “The robbers walked out here with cash, bonds, gold, and silver, with $60,000—or about $2.5 million in today’s dollars.” It was the first daylight robbery in peace time.
To learn more, I visited the family farm where James grew up in rural Clay County. Today it is peaceful and pastoral, a simple house painted white and tucked into rolling hills. A little creek curls across the property. Arriving at the house, a bearded man sitting in a rocking chair on the porch—a guide with the private museum that now maintains the place—related some of the history. “Jesse James was born in that room right next to you, sir,” he said.
He added that James experienced hard times here. His father, Robert, farmed, but was also a Baptist pastor and followed a calling West to preach to California prospectors seeking their fortune in the gold rush. He died out there when Jesse was just 3 years old. His mother, Zerelda, remarried twice, and they farmed tobacco. Money was never plentiful.
This corner of Missouri was largely populated with settlers originally from Tennessee and Kentucky, and was commonly known as Little Dixie. While Missouri never seceded from the Union, internecine warfare gripped the state. “Frank and Jessie joined the Bushwackers,” he said, a guerrilla group loyal to the South.
Throughout the war, groups on both sides raided and pillaged and massacred. In 1863, a Union militia visited the James farm, harming his stepfather Rueben Samuel and, some say, lashing Jesse (although that part probably isn’t true). Eventually, the family was forced to leave Missouri. Jesse continued to fight, targeting and killing Union soldiers, and was shot in the chest and severely wounded when he was just 17 years old.
After the war, Jesse and Frank robbed banks with the James Gang. They were romanticized as folk heroes who were resisting the authoritarian hand of Republican Reconstruction. And according to some, robbing from the rich to give to the poor—although there’s little evidence that he was any sort of Robin Hood.
The James brothers joined forces with another famous outlaw, Cole Younger and his three brothers, and other former Confederates. Called the James-Younger Gang, they robbed their way across the West, holding up stagecoaches and trains, plus banks and even a fair. Their crimes were often carried out in front of crowds and performed with a theatrical touch—which only added to the legend.
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency doggedly pursued James. The guide told me they raided the family farm here in 1875, throwing an incendiary device inside that killed his half-brother, Archie, and seriously harmed Zerelda. “That actually created more national sympathy for James,” he said.
It all ended in St. Joseph. In the second half of the 19th century, this small city in the northwestern corner of Missouri was a major center, the starting point for the famous Pony Express. At one point it was largest city in Missouri and a wealthy place, with local merchants selling to the flood of migrants heading west in search of a better life.
Arriving in St. Joseph, I visited the truly remarkable Patee House Museum. A former grand hotel, it’s now packed with fascinating exhibits linked to local history, including an 1860 Hannibal and St. Joseph locomotive, a carousel with whimsical creatures, and a re-creation of the Pony Express stables.
And out back rests the final home of Jesse James. A humble little structure, he lived there only 100 days before fellow gang member Robert Ford shot him in the back on April 3, 1882. Live by the sword, die by the sword—but it was a rather ignominious death for a famous outlaw. Having laid down his arms, James climbed a ladder to adjust a small sign that read “God Bless our Home.” Today, the sign remains askew. “People never really found his money,” a guide told me. The killer was quickly pardoned and given a $10,000 reward.
