Jesse James, A tale of Two Monuments

                                                      The Adair Iowa Train Robbery

I now come down to the Iowa train robbery, which occurred the 21st of July, 1873, and which filled all Western Missouri with Spies, detectives, and armed men in search of us. 

The newspapers made me out the leader of the band. With me, according to the papers, were Frank James, Arthur McCoy, and the two Youngers. You remember the outlines of the robbery. A rail was removed from the track, a train thrown off, an engineer killed, and a general rifling of an express car, thought to contain money belonging to the United States. An Iowa Sheriff named Bringhoff came down to Kansas City with a pocket full of requisitions. He made some magnificent promises, not a few threats, hunted everywhere except in the right place, and, as far as I'm informed, is still in Kansas City waiting for something to turn up. (4)

-Jessee James

- A Terrible Quintette  by John Newman Edwards From Jessee James The Best Writings on the Notorioious Outlaw and His Gang by Harold Dellinger

WRECKING AND PLUNDERING A TRAIN.

In June following both the James Boys were seen in Kansas City by intimate acquaintances, and the night of June 27th was spent by both the bandits with their mother at the Samuels' residence. On the 15th of July, Bob, Jim and Cole Younger, Jesse and Frank James, Bud Singleton and two other bandits, whose names have never been learned by the authorities, left Clay county Missouri, and rode northward to a spot which had been selected by Frank James and Jim Younger, on the line of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, about five miles east of Council Bluffs. 

On the evening of July 21st a formidable band of eight of the most desperate men that ever committed a crime, took position in a dense thicket beside a deep cut in the railroad. They hitched their horses out of view of passengers on the train and then, after a few minutes' work, displaced one of the rails. This[Pg 61] accomplished, they waited the coming of the express train which was due at that point at 8:30 P. M. From a knoll near the rendezvous Jesse James descried the blazing headlight of the coming train, and then made everything ready for their villainous work. A sharp curve in the track prevented the engineer from discovering anything wrong, until it was impossible to prevent the disaster which the banditti had prepared for. The screaming engine came thundering like an infuriated mammoth, which a reversal of the lever only began to check when it struck the loosened rail and plunged sideways into the bank, while the cars telescoped and piled up in terrible confusion. The engineer was instantly killed, and a dozen passengers were seriously injured, but the desperadoes did not stop to consider this terrible disaster. The moment the havoc was complete the bandits fell upon the excited passengers, whom they robbed without exception, both men and women, taking every species of jewelry and the last cent that could be discovered from the wounded as well as those who remained unhurt. The express car was entered and the messenger, groaning with pain from a broken arm, was compelled to open the safe, which was rifled of six thousand dollars and then the messenger was forced to give the robbers his watch and ten dollars which he had with him. Fortunately the desperadoes were twelve hours too soon for the train upon which the expected treasure was carried, as the[Pg 62] express that went east on the morning of the 21st, carried gold bricks, specie and currency amounting to over one hundred thousand dollars.

                                                        The Monument(s)

 Located between Des Moines Iowa and Omaha Nebraska, runs a lessor known historic roadway called "White Pole Road" White Pole road is a very unique piece of road because it once the way west in the early days of the automobile. It current runs Parallele to the famed I-80, but for those who would prefer to avoid Interstate 80 will find themselves traveling along a quieter, more historic stretch of road.  Unbeknownst to modern travelers, this part of Old US Highway 6 was not only the sight of a type of criminal heist heretofore unheard of in the American West in Adair Iowa.                                            

 It was also near the same road the Barrow gang, of the famed outlaws Bonnie and Clyde were located and shot up by law enforcement and deputies near Dexter Iowa at Dexfield Park in 1933. But most significant is the train robbery of 1873. The telling the story of this history-altering event is etched upon a modest marker just over a mile west of Adair, Iowa, located off County Road G30. Here, an upright train car wheel marks the spot where, on the summer of July 21, 1873, Jesse James and his gang pulled off the world’s first robbery from aboard a moving train.                                                                           

 But there is another part of this story. There was in fact two monuments. The first monument was, according to Connie Scarlett the President of the Adair Historic Society, a bronze plaque that sat at the same location as the current monument. However the original plaque mounted in the train wheel, was stolen years ago and taken to Ohio; then the thief's house burned down and the plaque was discovered, returned to Adair and is now in ownership of a private party.                                                                      

-Gene Stevens

Central States Lawman and Outlaws Historic Assoc.