By 1890, the “Old West” was dying.  The terrible winter of 1886-87 had destroyed he original “open range” cattle industry and thrown many cowboys out of work forever.  The advance of settlement, and the law enforcement that went with it, had greatly reduced outlawry.  Across the West, however, a combination of economic displacement and the wilder dreams of young men set off spasms of violent crime. 

            Adeline Younger, aunt to Cole and Bob Younger, married Lewis Dalton, who ran a saloon in Kansas City, Missouri.  They moved from Missouri to the “Nations” (Oklahoma) to Coffeyville, Kansas.  Along the way, they had a passel of kids (15, of which 13 survived).  They seem to have grown up listening to dramatic stories of their Younger relatives and the James Gang.  Unlike his outlaw Younger cousins, Bob Dalton (1869-1892) first went to work as a lawman, serving as a policeman in the Nations and riding with possess organized by the US Marshalls.  When he was 19, Bob killed a man who ran an illegal still, although rumor had it that they both were chasing the same girl.  A year later he killed another man who was in flight from arrest.  Pretty soon he got fired as a policeman for selling illegal whisky in the Nations. 

            Bob and his brothers Grat (1861-1892) and Emmett Dalton (1871-1937) may have stolen some horses soon afterward.  In any event, they all went to California, where their brother Bill (1866-1894) already resided.  Bill Dalton had been elected to the state legislature, but figured that there must be a more exciting way of stealing people’s money.  In early 1891 the four brothers held up a Southern Pacific train, making off with $60,000, which was a lot of money in those days.  They never were too good about hiding their identities and a posse soon hunted them.  Bob and Emmett got away back to Oklahoma, but Bill and Grat were captured. 

            Bob and Emmett decided to set up as outlaws.  They recruited a bunch of former cowboys (Bill Doolin, George “Bitter Creek” Newcomb, and some others).  The Dalton Gang robbed a train in Wharton; then robbed another near Wagoner; then Grat, who had escaped from jail in California showed up; then they robbed another train; and then they robbed another train.  They didn’t make much money from these robberies.  Hard feelings among the gang-members led to a split.  The Dalton brothers stuck together, but Doolin, Newcomb, Charley Pierce, and some others split off to form their own gang.  The brothers decided to try for one big score to finance their move to some new territory. 

            In October 1892, the Daltons decided to rob the two banks in their hometown of Coffeyville, Kansas.  This proved to be a poor idea: they were well-known in the town and known to be robbers; and the locals were heavily armed.  The robbery itself went OK but only because the locals who recognized them when they rode into town went home for their rifles and shotguns.  Getting out of town proved to be harder than getting in.  Grat and Bob Dalton got killed, along with two other gang-members.  Emmett Dalton caught a shot-gun load that left 23 wounds, but didn’t kill him.  Emmett Dalton got life in prison. 

            Bill Dalton joined up with Bill Doolin to rob banks.  After the gang shot it out with federal marshals in Ingalls, Oklahoma, in September 1893, Bill Dalton split off to form his own gang.  His gang robbed a bank in Texas in May 1894, then spent the next month running from the law.  The law caught up with him in Ardmore, Oklahoma, in June 1894.  He died in the fight. 

            The U.S. Marshalls in Oklahoma made the destruction of Bill Doolin’s gang their chief mission.  Between November 1892 and April 1898, they killed six of them and captured two others; Newcomb and Pierce were killed by the brothers of Newcomb’s lady-love, who wanted the reward (the brothers, not the girl).  Doolin himself caught the full load from a double-barreled shotgun when he came out of the house where he had been visiting his wife. 

Emmett Dalton won a pardon in 1906.  He moved to California, where he went into the real estate business.  (Wyatt Earp lived there—intermittently—at the same time.  The Rotary Club meetings must have been interesting.)  Late in life he published a book, When the Daltons Rode (1931).  It was turned into a movie starring Randolph Scott in 1940.  Emmett Dalton died in 1937. 

Retired U.S. Deputy Marshall Bill Tilghman, one of the chief manhunters, later made a silent movie about the hunt.  He filmed on location, played himself, got a couple of his old buddies to play themselves, and even talked one of the few surviving outlaws into playing himself.  You can watch a surviving chunk of the movie at Passing Of The Oklahoma Outlaws – 1915 (youtube.com)  Later, the former-outlaw went back to being an actual-outlaw.  A Joplin, MO, police officer killed him in a gun fight in 1924.  And that, I suppose, marked the passing of the Old West.