Volume 17 , Issue 33

Walking With Sadie

Woof! Woof! Who were the Dalton gang of the late nineteenth century? How did the career of the gang get started?

Found on Newspapers.com

According to "The Pittsburg Daily Headlight," out of Pittsburgh Kansas, Thursday, 6 October 1892, front page we learn a little more of the Dalton gang of outlaws. The Dalton boys went to the Indian territory from western Kansas, where they had been mixed up in several county seat fights and numerous little difficulties of their own. They were natives of Cass county, Missouri.

Bob Dalton, the eldest brother, was for a time deputy sheriff in one of the western border counties, and was the only one of the brothers who had any reputation as a bad man before the family removed to Oklahoma.

Before the opening of Oklahoma Bob Dalton went to the territory and obtained a position as United States deputy marshal. He served in that capacity during the first big rush into Oklahoma. Many of the settlers of Oklahoma would remember Bob as he appeared the day before the opening. He rode into the big camp of the boomers at Turkey creek, having come across the country from the south. There were held a dozen deputy marshals in camp before he got here, but they were not making any parade of their authority. As soon as Dalton arrived, however, he began to make himself very prominent, loudly asserting that if there was any liquor sold in the camp he would arrest somebody or somebody would get killed. He attracted a crowd about him on this occasion, and finally got into a quarrel and started to draw a gun, but dropped it back into his holster, when he recognized four men with whom he had quarreled all armed with Winchesters.

When Oklahoma opened Bob's mother and two younger brothers, Grant and Emmet, went to the country and secured a claim near Hennessy, where his mother still lived in 1892.

Even while Bob still had a commission stories about the dalton boys began to be circulated, and not long after the opening of the territory they branched out as full fledged train robbers, and had since then, by close attention to business, built up a reputation second only to that of Frank and Jesse James. The mother seemed to have been a second Mrs. Samuels and although "the boys" were known to often visit her on the claim no one was ever able to get any information from her that would lead to their capture or to ever find out when they were on the farm.

The boys drew other rough riders about them, and it soon became the Dalton gang. The men were all well acquainted with the country they operated in, and had many friends among both whites and Indians, and although the country had been scoured for them time and again, no one was ever able to find the bold robbers. Every train robbery, bank robbery or almost any kind of robbery that had happened in the southwest during the last two or three years had been attributed to the Dalton gang. The gang had not been responsible for them all, however, but had a long series of successful exploits to its discredit.

The Dalton boys had been robbing trains for a couple of years, or at least it was not supposed that train robberies which occurred two years ago (1890) were committed by them. Of late they had become bolder than ever. It was a paying business for them, as altogether they secured about $390,000.

They had been much wanted by officials since they began their thieving operations. The express companies had offered $5,000 each for the arrest and conviction of the members of the gang. There were rewards for the Daltons in California aggregating $11,000.

Good Night! Good Luck! Woof! Woof!
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