Dalton Gang facts for kids

The Dalton Gang was a group of outlaws in the American Old West during 1890–1892. It was also known as The Dalton Brothers because four of its members were brothers. The gang specialized in bank and train robberies. During an attempted double bank robbery in Coffeyville, Kansas, in 1892, two of the brothers and two other gang members were killed; Emmett Dalton survived, was captured, and later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, although he later asserted that he never fired a shot during the robbery. He was paroled after serving 14 years in prison.

Brothers Bob, "Grat", and Emmett had first worked as lawmen for the federal court at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and then for the Osage Nation. They started stealing horses to make more money, and then fled the area. They decided to form a gang, and started robbing trains and banks. While their older brother "Bill" Dalton never joined any heists, he served as their spy and informant.

Due to the sensationalism that surrounded the Dalton Gang's exploits, they were accused of robberies all over the country, but operated chiefly in California, Kansas, Oklahoma Territory, and Indian Territory. Numerous myths were published about the gang. After Bob and Grat were killed at Coffeyville, Bill Dalton formed another gang with Bill Doolin. It was known as the Wild Bunch, or the Dalton-Doolin Gang.

Gallery

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  Grave of Dalton gang in Coffeyville, Kansas

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  Emmett Dalton

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  Prison photo of Emmett Dalton

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  Grat Dalton

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  Bob Dalton, 1887

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  Bob Dalton, with an unidentified woman (possibly Eugenia Moore), May 9, 1889

In popular culture

• A largely fictional film version of the Daltons' lives was adapted from Emmett's 1931 book, When the Daltons Rode. Released in 1940, it starred Randolph Scott, Broderick Crawford, and Brian Donlevy.
• The Daltons were featured in Randolph Scott's Western, Badman's Territory (1946).
• The Daltons were also featured in yet another Randolph Scott Western, Return of the Bad Men (1948), loosely based on Doolin's leadership of an outlaw gang in Oklahoma Territory, combining the remnants of the original Dalton gang with new members to become the Wild Bunch.
• Randolph Scott himself plays Bill Doolin in the film The Doolins of Oklahoma (1949), in which he is depicted as a reluctant outlaw forced into a leadership role by circumstances after the Coffeyville raid.
• The motion picture The Cimarron Kid (1952), about the Dalton Gang, starred Audie Murphy as Bill Doolin.
• "The Dalton Gang" is a half-hour, 1954 episode of the American TV series Stories of the Century with Myron Healey as Bob Dalton, Fess Parker as Grat, Robert Bray as Emmett, and John Mooney as Bill Dalton.
• The 1954 Franco-Belgian comic book Hors-la-loi, part of the Lucky Luke series, embroiders the Coffeyville events, with the gang made up only of Dalton brothers. Morris's comical depiction of the outlaws — as mustachioed and identically dressed quadruplets differing only in their height — having proved popular, a second fictional gang of Dalton brothers physically indistinguishable from the originals and presented as their (bungling) cousins became recurring villains in the Lucky Luke series, later written by René Goscinny. These were also depicted in several films including La Ballade des Dalton (animated feature, 1978), Lucky Luke (1991) and Les Dalton (2004).
• The Dalton Girls (1957) is a fictional Western B-film in which Dalton sisters continue in the ways of their brothers.
• In 1957, the CBS documentary anthology series episode called You Are There offered the episode "The End of the Dalton Gang (October 5, 1892)", with Tyler MacDuff in the role of Emmett Dalton.
• May 25, 1959 episode of Tales of Wells Fargo was called "The Daltons".
• Three Minutes to Eternity is a half-hour, 1963 episode (season 12, episode 9, narrated by Stanley Andrews, known as "The Old Ranger") of the TV series Death Valley Days about their last robbery in Coffeyville, with Forrest Tucker as Bob Dalton, Jim Davis as Grat, and Tom Skerritt as Emmett.
• In Charles Portis's novel True Grit (1968), the young heroine Mattie Ross refers to Bob and Grat Dalton as "upright men gone bad" and to Bill Doolin as "a cowboy gone wrong".
• The 1973 song "Doolin-Dalton", by the Eagles, is a song about the Dalton Gang. The album from which the song came, Desperado, has a photograph on its back cover that shows the Eagles band members and songwriters re-enacting the image of the capture and death of the Dalton Gang.
• Robert Conrad starred as Bob Dalton in The Last Day (1975), depicting the events leading up to the gang's attempted robbery of two banks in Coffeyville. The film has a documentary-style voice-over by Harry Morgan.
• Randy Quaid starred in The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang (1979), a portrayal of the gang's attempted robbery of two banks simultaneously in Coffeyville. (The following year, the actor would co-star in The Long Riders, about Jesse James's bank robbery attempt in Northfield, Minnesota, which similarly led to destruction of his gang.)
• The Ron Hansen novel Desperadoes (1979) is a fictional memoir purportedly written by 65-year-old Emmett Dalton in 1937.
• The Dalton Brothers is the name of a parody country and western band briefly impersonated by U2 during their 1987 Joshua Tree U.S. tour.
• The Max McCoy novel The Sixth Rider (1991) tells of the group's exploits from the vantage point of the possible sixth member involved in the Coffeyville bank holdups.
• In the movie Reign of Fire (2002), Matthew McConaughey's character states he had killed a dragon in Coffeyville, Kansas, and refers to the historical shoot-out.
• The videogame Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (2013) contains an episode based on the Coffeyville shootout.
• The Dalton Gang is referenced in the Morgan Kane book Killer Kane about the fictional gunslinger.
• The Dalton Gang appears in the Italian comic book Tex, No. 8 and 9.
• Joe Dassin wrote a song called "Les Dalton", inspired by the Lucky Luke characters.
• Hanna-Barbera created various versions of the Dalton Gang in animated productions, most notably with Huckleberry Hound.
• In Payday 2, one of the medic's lines is "You guys are going down like the Daltons.", in reference to the gang.
• The video game Red Dead Redemption has a gang called "Walton's gang", loosely based on the Dalton gang.

See also

In Spanish: Banda de los Dalton para niños