Cole Plans One More Big Score

in #history5 years ago (edited)

Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

We are continuing with the series of Cole Younger and his gang of outlaws. Yesterday I told the story of how Cole's youngest brother died in a shootout with two Pinkerton agents and the brothers split up, Jim going to California.

Jim was officially out of the crime business, he'd had enough and planned to stay in California for good. Of course that didn't last when he got a letter from Cole asking him to go on a major bank heist.

Just ONE MORE big one

Jim decided to do ONE MORE and then retire for good. lol. It's not really funny but this is always the thinking of bank robbers..they will always retire after one more big score.

This was certainly Cole's reasoning because he talked to his brothers about going back to Texas to get Belle and Pearl after this last big heist. They needed a bank in another state though. Banks in Missouri and neighboring states were becoming more security conscious(after the Boys had been robbing them blind for 10 years!).

I don't know how they decided on Minnesota, maybe they threw darts at a map, I don't know, but that's what they decided. It was such a long distance that they wanted to take a train and buy their horses once they arrived so that's what they did.

The gang

There were 8 of them: Cole and two of his brothers, Jim and Bob, then Jesse and Frank James. There was also another member who had worked with them for years named Charles Pitts. Then there was a regular member named Bill Chadwell, he's the one who usually picked the banks and he most likely picked this one.

There was also a new member, just a kid who idolized the gang and was the son of a man whose farm the Boys would use to hide out in. The kid's name was Clelland Miller and he begged the men to let him come along for the fun.

Well shoot, why not? they thought..give the kid some excitement and experience!

Afterall, this was going to be another fast, in and out job with a huge payout and no danger. So they let him come with them, he could help hold the horses.

Here's most of the gang and this was taken the same year as this last bank heist in 1876. This photo does not have 2 of the members, Charles Pitts and Bill Chadwell. I believe Clelland Miller is on the front row on the left end:

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source

Getting set up in Minnesota

The guys took a train to St Peter, Minnesota and split up into pairs of two, staying at different hotels, some in hotels of neighboring towns, eating at different restaurants. They posed as land buyers looking to buy farmland and farms for cash. The cash offer detail got them more interest and more people willing to give them information.

At Cole's hotel the owner was happy to have him and when Cole asked him about area roads and bridges so he'd know he could get his produce to market efficiently, the owner gave him detailed information. The actual bank that they planned to rob was 4 miles from St. Peter in a town called Mankato.

The next thing was to purchase horses. Good ones. They again went in pairs to buy horses from neighboring towns. They would ride on the roads in the area, familiarizing themselves with the terrain and roads and when in remote areas they'd fire off shots to get the horses used to gunfire.

The big day arrives

Well, it wasn't long before they were ready. They were familiar with their horses, the horses were familiar with gunfire, they knew the lay of the land and how to escape quickly. So the big day had come. They met outside of town and started in from different directions but were surprised when they got close to the bank because there was a crowd of people in front.

Turns out they were watching construction on a building across the street. The gang rode on by. Jesse rode to the different pairs and told them to try it again at 2 o'clock. It was noon at that time. They repeated the same action at 2 and again the crowd was packed in front of the bank watching the construction. Jesse gave the signal to leave and they met outside of town.

Change of plans

The Boys were stumped. They couldn't believe it, nothing like this had ever happened before. They were the toughest, most dangerous gang who ever rode the West and when they made their carefully drawn out plans they executed those plans successfully. And now to be stopped by a crowd of gawkers??

They couldn't very well go back and ride through town again without attracting suspicion so they called off the robbery. Then Bill Chadwell said all they had to do was go to Northfield and rob the bank there, a large and easy target. Ok, why not? So they headed to Northfield about 40 miles away.
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The story continues tomorrow folks, leading up to one of the most famous bank robberies in American history.
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck

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ps- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:

There's a stuffed possum anywhere in your house!

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Haha, so interesting to think that they were stopped from robbing that bank by a big crowd watching some construction!

howdy violetmed! yes it is, it's nuts. They should have just waited a few days and sent one of them through there to check on the situation. But they had alot of confidence.
Thanks so much for reading and commenting!

Hi @janton. So loads of planning and surveillance I see. Big cock up coming.

hahaha! yes sir very true. We don't use that terminology here but I like the sound of it, it fits!

I had no idea that the original plan was to rob the bank of Mankato! @fotosdenada teaches in Mankato. I wonder if he knows this story. I'll send him over!

oh how interesting! well Mankato might have got some of it's citizens killed it they'd gotten to rob that bank.

Gawkers? Really? Haha!

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haha! yeah those gawkers can really mess things up. lol. they ruined everything!

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I have an ominous feeling with this one big last bank heist janton! Bank robbing is a kind of an addiction isn't it ........ bad as playing the pokies, lol. ...so I hear!

howdy angiemitchell! yes exactly, it is totally addicting. fatally addictive.

Ah, the "One last job." I can't imagine how this is going to turn out.

lol. thank you sir madgoat..well..it might not be pretty.

Looks as if they are about to get in some big trouble. I don't know how long the first one took to plan, but it seems they are going off half cooked.

No stuffed possum, but I have the skin of a Copperhead snake all nice and stretched out and on display at the shop in NJ. No way would my wife allow that in the house. When I killed it back in the day, I threw it in the back of my pickup for later. Five or six hours later when I went to go home there in the back of the truck were a half of a dozen little guys. That was a little hectic as I knew that the venom from these youngsters was just as potent. After killing them all, I was a bit nervous for a week or two. May be one had slithered away and had gotten into the cab.

Don't know too many non-rednecks that would do that. Don't know too many rednecks who wouldn't!

Tomorrows episode, looking forward to it!

oh my gosh! I hate snakes of any kind, killed on Copperhead here and thankful it was only one. So that was a pregnant snake about to give birth?
And you said you threw it in the back for later...to do what with it? lol. now see that sounds nuts to me because they creep me out so bad but yes, totally redneck thing to do!

Fun post! I'm actually surprised they don't do reenactments here in Mankato. They sure do in Northfield, though, and one of the bars apparently still has a bullet hole from the failed robbery there. They really underestimated the people of Minnesota.

As for Mankato, well... This town has a darker stain on its history.

well howdy fotosdenada! That's very interesting about the reenactments in Northfield. But what is the darker stain on Mankato's history?

This area was one of the focal points of the Dakota War. Afterward, a bunch of Dakota surrendered. Some had been told that they would be spared if they did so, but that was not the case. President Lincoln, himself, signed the order to have them hanged. Mankato, MN remains the site of the largest mass execution in US history.

oh my gosh, I've never heard of that tragedy, that is very dark indeed!

There's an article posted on the Star Tribune Website from the Mankato paper in 1862 about it, if you're interested.

oh thank you so much, yes I'm very interested, this kind of thing is hard to comprehend.

www.unitednativeamerica.com/hanging.html

Yep. They sang their death songs. And I think they recorded it from what I remember.

thank you ganjafarmer! this stuff grieves me but it's important that people know. Actually I could do a post about it but that would be a very depressing post.

It just blows my mind how all the outlaws seemed to know each other and travel around together now and again.

Just one more... thats how we get into trouble for sure.

Ren

haha! howdy xcountytravelers! Yes you know it, it's always that last big job that gets them! lol. thanks so much for reading and commenting.

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