Wednesday, July 13, 2016

LAST OF THE DALTONS

7/13/1937 - Future bright when they marry in 1858, saloon keeper and handy man Lewis Dalton and Adeline Younger (she is an aunt of the notorious Younger Brothers that ride with Frank and Jesse James) never dream that they will eventually have 15 children together (two die in infancy) ... or that five of them will forever link the family name to America's Wild West frontier days ... a bloody adventure that ends in Hollywood, California with the death of the youngest family gunslinger, and the luckiest one, Emmett, at the age of 66.
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Emmett At 60

With the example of oldest brother Frank to follow, Emmett joins older brothers Grat and Bob in also going into law enforcement, but when 28-year-old Frank is killed in 1888 (riding for "The Hanging Judge," Judge Isaac Parker, as a U.S. Deputy Marshal in the Indian Territory, he is killed in a gun battle with horse thieves), and the boys do not receive reward money they believe they are entitled to, they step over the line and becoming outlaws themselves ... first rustling horses and sneaking whiskey into the territory, before moving up to armed robbery in 1890 (brother Bill at this time is in California, trying to become a successful rancher and politician, after the fatal Coffeyville raid, he will return to the region and become a member of the Oklahombres, a gang of cut-throats and bandits he helps lead, along with Bill Doolin, until his death at the hands of a posse in 1894).
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Frank & Grat
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Bob & Bill

Decision made to become bandits, while Bob is the leader of what will soon be known as the Dalton Gang, it is Emmett's days as a cowboy at the Bar X Bar Ranch that provide introductions to the bad hombres that join up with the brothers ... Doolin and Bill Power from the Bar X Bar, and from other ranches in the region, cowboy acquaintances Charlie Pierce, George "Bittercreek" Newcomb, "Black Face" Charlie Bryant (so nicknamed for the pistol powder burn permanently scorched on his cheek), and Dick Broadwell.

Doolin

Outlaw band formed, a year-and-a-half of mayhem ensues in which Emmett is there when the group, thinking it has been cheated, robs a gambling parlor in Silver City, New Mexico, robs a Santa Fe train near the town of Wharton, Oklahoma (now the town of Perry), the brothers are accused of robbing a train in California while visiting their brother Bill (a crime they did not commit), takes $10,000 off a train near the town of Lillietta, assaults another train at the town of Red Rock, and near the Arkansas border, hits a Missouri-Kansas-Texas train while engaging in a gun battle with eight railroad guards, led by the railroad's chief of detectives, J. J. Kinney, and the chief of the Cherokee Indian police, Captain J. H. LaFlore (both men will be wounded, along with a third guard, while Dr. W. L. Goff is killed by a stray round while he is sitting on the porch of the local drug store with his friend, Dr. T. S. Youngblood, who will lose part of his right foot to a different stray slug).  And of course, Emmett is beside his brother Bob's side when the decision is made to out-do Jesse James by robbing two banks at the same time ... two banks in the town the Dalton's grew up in, Coffeyville, Kansas.

The Dalton Gang By J. N. Marchand - 1902

A message to the town of "Look at us now!" from boys that grew up dirt poor in Coffeyville, and a last job to attain funds for retirement to Mexico, Bob takes Emmett with him for the robbery of First National Bank, while Grat, Dick Broadwell, and Bill Power hit the C.M. Condon & Company Bank across the street.  When the citizens respond to the outlaw affront, Emmett carries a burlap sack containing over $20,000 to the horses the outlaws have hitched in a nearby alley, while Bob offers covering support by targeting any Coffeyville citizen he can see holding a gun (deadly accurate with his Winchester, Bob will kill 23-year-old store clerk Lucius Baldwin, 35-year-old shoemaker George Cubine, and 52-year-old shoemaker Charles Brown, and wounds 50-year-old bank cashier Thomas G. Ayres, and 32-year-old freighter Charley Gump, the man who first shouts the Daltons are robbing the bank).

Wanted Poster

The Condon Bank

In the alley where they hitched their horses, the Dalton Gang comes to a bullet riddled end.  Bill Power is shot through the heart and dies trying to mount his horse, Dick Broadwell manages to mount his horse and rides off, but only for a few blocks, falling off his ride from too many wounds and bleeding to death in the street, Grat is gunned down by livery stable owner John. J. Kloehr after the outlaw kills Marshall Charles T. Connelly (dead by the time he hits the ground, the bullet hits Grat in the throat and breaks his neck ... a delightful injury that children delight in when the smokes clears as someone discovers that by shaking hands with the dead man, blood and a gurgling noise will come out of the hole in Grat's throat), and Bob is brought down by another Kloehr bullet that hits the gunman in the chest.  Suddenly, Emmett is the only bandit still functional (with only a wound to his right arm ... so far), and in the midst of smoke, gunfire, screaming horses and death, he provides the morning's only moment of grace.  Mounted and with the money in hand, Emmett is about to ride out of the alley to safety, but instead, wheels his horse about, leans down. and tries to pull his brother Bob up on to his saddle (dying, Bob tells his younger brother, "It's no use.  Goodbye Emmett.  Don't surrender, die game.") ... an act of brotherly love and bravery that barber Carey Seaman and Kloehr instantly end by firing on Emmett simultaneously ... Kloehr puts a slug through the outlaw's left hip and groin and Seaman sends a load of buckshot into Emmett's back ... when the 21-year-old desperado falls into the dirt of the alley, he is leaking blood from 23 different wounds!
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Diagram Of The End - True West Magazine

Death Alley

Bob & Grat - Moments After The Gunfire Stops
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The Dalton Gang - 10/5/1892 - Power, Bob, Grat,
And Broadwell
  
"They're all down," someone yells, announcing the end of the 11-minute battle ... all down and dead, save one, somehow despite his wounds, Emmett clings to life, and he is unconscious when the doctor treating his wounds saves him from a necktie party by telling the irate mob not to waste their energy, because the outlaw won't survive the night ... but he does.  Patched up, and nursed back to health by the ministrations of his childhood sweetheart, Julia Johnson, Emmett goes on trial for robbery and murder, pleads guilty to second degree murder (expecting a lighter sentence because he claims not to have fired his gun during the entire battle), and is sentenced to life in prison at Lansing's Kansas State Penitentiary. He will not however, spend his life there ... behind bars, he becomes a model prisoner and finds religion, and despite protests from much of the citizenry of Kansas, is unconditionally pardoned by Governor E. W. Hoch in 1907 after serving 15 years of his sentence.

Wounded Emmett

Emmett At Lansing

Released, the last bandit Dalton does not revert to his old ways. Instead, he marries Johnson in 1907 (they will remain married for the next thirty years), the year he is set free, then begins trading in on his name and notorious past by traveling with the Pawnee Bill Wild West Show (ending his portion of each show with a rousing speech on how crime doesn't pay).  Discovering he likes being in the entertainment industry, Emmett and Julia will eventually settle in Hollywood, California, where the former bandit writes two books about his days as a desperado ("Beyond the Law" and "When the Daltons Rode"), acts, gives advise on the making of several silent westerns (playing himself in two), is baptized by celebrity Pentecostal evangelist, Sister Aimee Semple McPherson, and makes money selling real estate in the Southern California area. And before he dies, in 1931, Emmett returns to Coffeyville, walking the streets where his outlaw career came to an abrupt end, giving interviews, shaking hands with folks that once shot at him, and putting a proper headstone over the grave of his brothers, Bob and Grat (previously, they were buried beneath the metal hitching rack they'd tied their horses to in the alley).
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1907 - Year Of Emmett's Release

Pawnee Bill Poster

The Emmett Show

Emmett With Tom Mix
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Emmett's Book

Gentleman Emmett

Much different from a fast bullet death, on 7/13/1937, with Julia by his side (after suffering a ruptured appendix, Julia will suffer a stroke and die in a Fresno hospital on 5/20/1943 at the age of 73), from the aftermath of a stroke, Emmett passes away in bed, with his boots most certainly NOT on ... the last of the gunslinging Daltons (three years later, Emmett's tale, "When the Daltons Rode" is made into a Universal Production starring actor Frank Albertson as Emmett, and future Highway Patrol star, Broderick Crawford as Bob).
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Julia
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Movie Poster

Emmett

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

THE DAY THE CLOWNS CRIED

7/6/1944 - Nicknamed the "Insurance Capital of the World," one month after the Allies successfully land at Normandy on D-Day, Hartford, Connecticut suffers a devastating tragedy that no victim payout can assuage, one that still haunts the town to this day ... the Hartford Circus Fire.
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The Big Top Catches On Fire

Seeking an escape from the war news coming out of Europe and Japan, and relief from an extremely warm and muggy Thursday afternoon, somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 residents (mostly women and children while the male population is off fighting the war or at work ... among the attendees are 13-year-old future comedian Charles Nelson Reilly and 14-year-old future Rock & Roll Hall of Fame drummer Hal Blaine) of the region show up at Barbour Street Show Grounds to witness a matinee performance of the famed Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
That's Entertainment

Inside a giant tent, 425 feet long and 200 feet wide to fit the show's three entertainment rings (it weighs 19 tons!), water-proofed with a highly flammable coating of a paraffin melted with gasoline due to war-time restrictions on other materials (four parts Texaco White Gasoline and one part Standard Oil Company Paraffin Wax), supported by six poles stretching 75 feet to the top of the structure, a full house is enjoying the afternoon's performance as the big cats of French lion tamer Alfred Court conclude their thrilling act and the big brass circus orchestra of band leader Merle Evans plays transition music for the Great Wallendas as they climb ropes up to their aerial positions above the crowd.  Thrills and fun, happiness abounding ... it all becomes a nightmare in a matter of seconds (a day after the circus has to cancel a show due to a late train arrival in Hartford ... a circus superstition thought to bring on VERY bad luck) when the tent suddenly catches on fire.  It is approximately 2:48 in the afternoon.
The Layout
 
Court & Evans
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The Great Wallendas

Evans is the first to see the fire, a small flame licking its way up the canvas material near the tent's main entrance, and he instantly alerts the circus personnel of danger by having the orchestra break into "The Stars and Stripes Forever," musical code to circus people that there is a serious problem to be dealt with.  Serious indeed, from a flame that could be doused by a single bucket of water (or a well directed gob of spit), if one had been available, the flame goes from small to a major conflagration in a matter of moments, as insanely in the light of what is about to happen, the circus' fifty fire extinguishers have not been unpacked, and the four circus fire trucks are parked a quarter-mile from the blazing tent (additionally, though the circus is taking place on city property, no Hartford firefighters are assigned to the event, and the fire chief, John King, is not even aware the circus is in town).  Hearing the danger music being played, ringmaster Fred Bradna asks the crowd to remain calm and exit the tent, but the power on his microphone goes out and no one is listening anymore as 100-foot tall flames eat away at the big top.
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Bradna 

In the chaos that takes place as the tent catches fire and then collapses on the crowd, the vagaries of fate decide who lives and who dies ... some people make the exits (two are horribly blocked by the metal caging used to guide the animal acts out of the tent), others remain in their seats too long, thinking that the flames and smoke at first are part of the next clown act (or that the flames will be quickly extinguished), congestion is caused by the first row of seats in the stands (the top level is fifteen feet above the ground) being encircled by a metal railing.  Big time panic, heroes also abound in the crowd and circus personnel ... children are tossed or carried over impediments to their safety, bucket brigades are formed (in one famous photo of the fire, legendary clown Emmett Kelly is seen carrying a bucket of water), using pocket knives, escape holes are slashed in the tent siding as a means of escape, and Frieda Pushnik, who performs with the circus as the "Armless and Legless Wonder," is carried to safety by one of the show's minstrel performers (she will continue to perform with the circus until 1955).
Fire!
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Kelley Trying To Help
Frieda Pushnik

But for many (an official death count will never be arrived at as in some cases, bodies have been turned into nothing but ash, while in other cases, only pieces of people are found ... most accounts of the catastrophe give numbers between 167 and 186 dead, with an additionally 500 to 700 people injured in the event, many burnt by the flaming wax glop mixture that falls off the roof of the tent), there is no escape and death comes by way of burning, injuries caused by jumping off the top of the stands, asphyxiation caused by smoke inhalation, trampling (at some bottlenecks, the bodies will be piled up to three deep in places ... and in at least two cases, survivors are found sheltered underneath the corpses), and from crushings caused by the support system of heavy wooden beams coming down.  Of the dead, only 10 will be adult males, the balance of the perished are women and children ... with a third of the dead younger than 10-years-old.  From the moment the fire is first seen by bandleader Evans, it takes only seven short minutes for the tent to be completely destroyed! 
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Holocaust!!!
After

In the aftermath of the tragedy, its victims are brought to a makeshift morgue at the State Armory in Hartford ... each body is assigned a four-digit number and toe tag, and then placed on rows of blanket-covered army cots until they can be identified (burnt beyond recognition, many never receive names).  Tears abounding for days, identification comes by way of groups of twelve people at a time being registered, and then walked through the morgue by either a nurse or a police officer (a canteen for refreshments is also established at the site by local members of the Red Cross).
Some Of The Victims
The Morgue Walk
The Funerals Begin

The most famous victim of the tragedy is one of the unknowns, a mystery that lingers to this day.  Dressed in a white summer dress with her features basically intact (a victim of asphyxiation), other than for a burn on her face, a young little blonde girl is given the number 1565 (when the newspapers get the story, she forever becomes Little Miss 1565), but is never given a name despite the extraordinary efforts of two police investigators, Sergeants Thomas Barber (a widower with two children who had planned on attending the Thursday performance) and Edward Lowe, to identify the corpse (the men take finger prints, foot prints, dental impressions, and pictures of the girl that are circulated around the country to no effect, and obsessed with the little girl and wanting to honor her memory, on Memorial Day, Christmas, and July 6th, place fresh flowers on her grave without fail until the day they die ... a tradition that local florists then continued after the police officers are gone).  Despite the array of evidence, there are no bites, though some think the body is that of a six-year-old named Sarah Graham and a 1991 book is published declaring the victim to be Eleanor Emily Cook (Eleanor's mother however will claim the little girl is not her daughter ... right up until she dies in 1997 at the age of 91!) ... a mystery that without several exhumations and extensive DNA testing will never be solved.
Little Miss 1565
Eleanor Emily Cook

Cause and blame required to fully finish a tragedy's story, in the case of the Hartford Circus Fire, they remain, like Little Miss 1565, unknowns.  Some theories have the fire being caused by a recklessly discarded burning cigarette, while others have the incident being the work of an arsonist, and sure enough, an arsonist is found that seems to fit the requirements of the case.  In 1950, after a series of very bizarre dreams featuring lots of flames (in one dream, an Indian rides a flaming horse, in another, a mysterious woman stands in flames demanding an admittance of guilt), mentally ill Robert Dale Segee of Circleville, Ohio (he is sentenced to 40-years behind bars on other arson charges) confesses to being the fire bug culprit from when he was a 14-year-old roustabout working for the circus.  There is a problem however with the confession ... no one can prove Segee ever was in the state of Connecticut in 1944, and three years before his death in 1997, in an interview, Segee denies having anything to do with the fire!
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Segee - 1950

The same denials are not available to five Ringling Brothers executives who are charged with involuntary manslaughter the day after the fire ... James A. Haley, the 45-year-old vice-president of the circus, George W. Smith, the 51-year-old general manager, Leonard Aylesworth, the 52-year-old "24 Hour Man" responsible for overseeing the circus being set up in each city it visited, Edward Versteeg, the 44-year-old chief electrician, and 75-year-old David W. Blanchfield, the chief wagon man.  Not wanting any more bad publicity other than what they have already received, days after the indictments are announced, Ringling Brothers announces it accepts full financial responsibilities for the fire and will pay whatever Hartford officials feel is appropriate to the victims of the fire, and their families ... payouts that will reach $5,000.000.00 before being completed! Brought to trial in late 1944, four of the men are found guilty and sentenced to prison, but are entirely pardoned before having to spend time behind bars (exonerated, Haley will go on to serve in the Florida House of Representatives from 1949 to 1952, and as a member of Congress from 1953 to 1977).
Haley

Lives ended, or changed forever, called the "Day the Clowns Cried," the Hartford Circus Fire takes place in Connecticut on this day in 1944!
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Headlines
The Hartford Circus Fire