Stage 7 – Rifle Range
JESSE JAMES – Minister’s son turned outlaw
Jesse Woodson James born September 5, 1847, in Kearney,
Missouri. Jesse and his brother Frank James were educated
and hailed from a prestigious family of farmers. Their father,
the Reverend Robert James, was a Baptist minister who
married Zerelda Cole James and moved from Kentucky to
Missouri in 1842. In the summer of 1863, the James farm was
brutally attacked by Union soldiers.
Jesse was 16 when he and Frank became Confederate guerrilla
soldiers, riding alongside William Quantrill and “Bloody Bill”
Anderson. They rebelled against harsh postwar civil legislation
and took the law into their own hands by robbing trains,
stagecoaches and banks that were owned or operated by a Northern institution.
From 1863 to 1882, the James Gang was the most feared band of outlaws in American
history, responsible for more than 20 bank and train robberies and the murders of
countless individuals who stood in their way. They were legends in their own time,
popular in Missouri for actively trying to further the Confederate cause.
The James–Younger Gang origins are circa 1868, when authorities first named Cole
Younger and both James brothers as suspects in the robbery of the Nimrod Long bank in
Russellville, Kentucky.
On December 7, 1869, the gang robbed the Gallatin, Missouri, bank. Jesse asked to
change a $100 bill, and thinking that the banker was responsible for the death of Bloody
Bill, shot the man in the heart. From that robbery to the end of their careers, members of
the James Gang had a price on their heads, dead or alive.
Jesse married his longtime sweetheart and first cousin, Zerelda, and had two children.
Both James brothers were known as good family men, but continued their life of crime.
On January 31, 1874, the gang robbed a southbound train on the Iron Mountain
Railway at Gads Hill, Missouri. The safe held an unusually small amount of money. The
gang next robbed a train on the Kansas Pacific Railroad near Muncie, Kansas, on
December 8, 1874. It was one of the outlaws' most successful robberies, gaining them
$30,000.
The Adams Express Company, owners of the safe robbed at Gads Hill, hired the
Pinkerton National Detective Agency to capture the outlaws. On March 11, 1874, John
W. Whicher, the agent sent to investigate the James brothers, was found shot to death
alongside a rural road in Jackson County, Missouri. Two other agents, John Boyle and
Louis J. Lull, accompanied by Deputy Sheriff Edwin B. Daniels, posed as cattle buyers as
they tracked the Youngers. On March 17, 1874, the trio was stopped by John and Jim
Younger on a rural stretch of road near Monegaw Springs, Missouri. Boyle escaped, Lull
and Daniels were shot, and John Younger was killed by Lull. Daniels died on the spot,
but Lull lived long enough to testify before a coroner's inquest before succumbing to his
wounds.
The night of January 25, 1875, the Pinkertons surrounded the James farm in Missouri
not knowing Frank and Jesse James had already left. The Pinkertons threw an iron
incendiary device into the house. The blast nearly severed the right arm of Zerelda
Samuel and killed their 9-year-old half-brother, Archie Samuel. On April 12, 1875, an
unknown gunman shot dead Daniel Askew, a neighbor who had provided the Pinkertons
with a base for their raid. Allan Pinkerton now abandoned the chase after the James–
Younger Gang.
Though protected by their community, they were always on the move. Even after other
members of the gang had been killed, and their friends the Youngers had been sent to
prison for 25 years, in 1879, the James brothers planned one more robbery with Charlie
and Bob Ford. Little did they know that Governor Crittenden of Missouri had put
together a reward fund so large that the Fords had turned traitor to earn it.
After breakfast on April 3, 1882, Jesse turned to straighten a picture on a wall of his
home, and Bob shot Jesse in the back of the head. Jesse died instantly at age 34.
Stage #7 - JAMES GANG STRIKES AGAIN
START: Standing over the safe at the back of the train. Both hands on the safe door.
When ready say “Let’s go boys“
BUZZER: Place the bundle of cash on your person and pick up the rifle staged in the rear
corner. Engage the five lawmen in a James Gang sweep. Make the rifle safe and pick up
the shotgun from the front corner of car. Knock down the four lawmen in any order.
Make the shotgun safe. Move to the train engine and with your pistols engage the five
lawmen in a James Gang sweep.
NOTE: James Gang Sweet 3-1-3-2-3-3-4-3-5-3 second shot may be on either side.
Rifle and pistols do not need to be shot the same
Both rifle and shotgun may be shot from any of the windows in passenger car
Staging and Ammunition Requirements
 Handguns – loaded with 5 rounds each holstered at start
 Rifle – loaded with 10 rounds and staged on the right (rear) of the passenger car
 Shotgun – staged empty on the left (front) of the passenger car
TARGETS & PROPS
 5 cowboys targets & stands
 5 rifle plates and stands
 4 plate shotgun rack