RESEARCH TRIPS FOR THE WRITING OF BLIND HORSES A. NORTHFIELD, MINNESOTA

This is the Scriver Block as it appeared in 1992. In September of 1876, the James-Younger gang would've seen these three arches as they approached the bank.

First National Bank. I'm standing where outlaw Clell Miller was posted to guard the door. Had he pushed bank patron J.S. Allen, a hardware merchant, inside instead of throttling him, cursing him, and allowing him to wrest free, the alarm that brought the townsfolk with their rifles and shotguns might never have been sounded. His error began a concatenation of events that got the James-Younger gang shot to pieces before they escaped.

******************************************************************************************************************************************************** B. DUNDAS, MINNESOTA

This is the Cannon River at Dundas, where the outlaws stopped to wash their wounds.

******************************************************************************************************************************************************** C. KEARNEY, MISSOURI

Frank James added this white clapboard structure when he returned with his wife, Anna, to spend his last years at the farm where he grew up.

This picture shows more clearly Frank's architectural additions to the James Farm. The log cabin part of the house is all that was there during Jesse's lifetime. It was the site of the notorious Pinkerton bombing that killed his nine-year-old brother, Archie, and blew off his mother Zerelda's right hand.

******************************************************************************************************************************************************* D. ST. JOSEPH, MISSOURI

Jesse James was murdered by Robert Ford in this house on the morning of April 3, 1882. The house has been moved from its original location.

Jesse James was killed in this room. Unarmed, he stood on a chair to straighten a picture frame. Robert Ford leapt up and shot him in the back of the head. The blue-jacketed person at right is exactly in the place Jesse stood when assassinated.

******************************************************************************************************************************************************** E. CREEDE, COLORADO

Robert Ford, "the dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard and laid Jesse James in his grave," was first interred here in 1892. A few years later, Ford's kinsfolk dug up his remains and carried him back to Missouri.

Early morning coffee on the streets of Creede, the town where Robert Ford owned a saloon and basked in the glory of killing Jesse James--until a man named Ed O'Kelley came to exact justice with a shotgun.