Mrs. Dalton’s Boys, part 6

After the Adair train robbery, which netted the Daltons $17,000 in coin, the whole territory was in an angry uproar. And now Mrs. Dalton's boys, and the rest of their gang, were worth even more.

The Daltons stayed in hiding for a while but there was more being cooked up around their campfire than coffee, bacon and beans. One of the other members of the gang may have been heating the vitals but it was twenty-three year old Bob Dalton who was cooking up plans about what the gang would do next.

The gang was now certain about a few facts: The price on their heads had increased, the law had intensified their search for the gang, and there was a need for them all to scatter for a while. This last certainty brought up another good point: for the boys to scatter and stay hidden for who knew how long, they were going to need money-lots of money. So just one more robbery needed to go down to fund their individual vacations.

Here, too, Bob took the lead. The Dalton Gang was going the make the boldest bank robbery ever heard of in the history of the west. They were going to rob two banks at the same time.

Coffeyville, Kansas, near the Oklahoma border, was the local this wild event was to take place in. The boys figured it was to their advantage that they had lived in Coffeyville for a time in their youth and knew the lay of the land. The big doings was to take place on October 5, 1892, soon after the banks opened, before too many withdraws were made. Their twin targets were the Condon Bank and the First National Bank.

The boys hadn't seen their mother in many years and decided that on their way to Coffeyville they would stop and give her a visit. It was after dusk on the night before the robbery that the boys reined up in front of the old cabin where she lived. Halting their horses they saw Adeline Dalton step to the window to draw the shades. One source says that the boys probably, at that moment, realized what their chosen career may have done to their mothers. They couldn't face her now, so turned their horses and rode away. Later that night, they camped on Onion Creek where they could see in the near distance the lamplit windows of Coffeyville, Kansas.

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