Last summer, my family visited the Northfield bank that Jesse James and his gang tried to rob. The tour guide did a very nice job of describing the raid, the gunfight, the subsequent capture of the Younger brothers and the escape of the James brothers, and the subsequent history of each of the survivors. I criticized him for putting a Yankee spin on everything (instead of recognizing that James was a southern Robin Hood
) and he offered to let me give the next tour, but I politely declined. We both laughed. It was a simple little museum, but it was interesting, particularly because we've taken our kids to see the James family home in Kearney, MO and the site of the first daylight bank robbery (which was performed by the James gang) in Liberty, MO. We also went to a cave in SE Missouri where the James gang holed up and escaped from a posse once too. We need to head up to St. Joe sometime and see what kind of James history they have up there.