Thieves Steal Headstone From Dalton Gang's Grave
Posted: Oct 01, 2010 4:44 PM CDT
Updated: Oct 03, 2010 10:51 AM CDT
In 1892, townspeople got into a gun battle with the notorious train and bank robbers known as the Dalton gang.
The only things left at the outlaws' grave site are the monuments base and the iron hitching rail the outlaws used during the double bank robbery.
COFFEYVILLE, KANSAS -- Stealing a headstone is bad enough. It's even worse when it's part of old outlaw history.
But that's what happened just across the state line in Coffeyville, Kansas, where residents put an end to the Dalton gangs robbing ways nearly 120 years ago.
At the Dalton Defenders Museum in Coffeyville, they're welcoming a lot of visitors in town for the Dalton Defenders Days celebration.
"All that is just dedicated to the defenders themselves, not to the bandits. We try not to celebrate banditry," John Alvey, Dalton Museum Co-Curator, said.
The event commemorates the day in 1892 that townspeople got into a gun battle with the notorious train and bank robbers known as the Dalton gang.
"It was Coffeyville's first and one of the most famous occurrences," Alvey said.
Four gang members were killed. But as the town prepares to mark the event this year, there's something missing, thanks to thieves.
"My first reaction was that they were lower than the Dalton boys ever thought of being," said Wendy Alvey, Dalton Museum Co-Curator.
Someone took the headstone from the grave of three of the slain Dalton gang members from Elmwood Cemetery.
"Well, it would have weighed around four hundred pounds," John Alvey said. "It would have taken some hefty people to carry it off."
John Alvey and his wife Wendy are co-curators at the Dalton Defenders Museum in Coffeyville.
Wendy is appalled by the theft.
"Why would you desecrate somebody's final resting place. That's immoral. It's not just criminal, it's immoral," she said.
For now, the only things left at the outlaws' grave site are the monuments base, the iron hitching rail the outlaws used during the double bank robbery and the questions of who would take the marker and why.
"It certainly isn't something you can hock," Wendy Alvey said.
The Alvey's and others who love the town's history want the monument returned soon. If it is, they'll try to figure out how to make it more secure, to ensure part of the towns past is left intact.
If the grave marker isn't returned, a local monument company has offered to make a duplicate for free.
Special Note: The Dalton Gang was quite notorious. The Coffeyville robbery attempt was viewed as especially heinous as they had family connections locally. Numerous pictures were taken of the newly-deceased robbers. Google the Dalton Gang to get the full story with pictures.
Also: Coffeyville, Kansas claims the Hall of Famer, pitcher Walter Johnson. The same musuem has a great deal of memorabilia associated with his career.
Same kind of idiots that tried to steal Abraham Lincoln's body several times. What on earth would one do with a body?
Fools and idiots. Bottom dwelling scum suckers. I can think of several categories of lowlife Whale feces types and we all know there is nothing lower than whale feces.
SJ:-@
> Fools and idiots. Bottom dwelling scum suckers. I can think of several categories of lowlife Whale feces types and we all know there is nothing lower than whale feces.
>
> SJ:-@
I second that!!! :-@
Just another example that there is not much to do in Kansas besides remove lint from your navel or make up posts for here.
It was a big problem in New Orleans a few years back.
I was still working for the man when we were sent to do a drainage topo at a cemetery.
We just started working when we were quickly surrounded by NOPD's finest looking to bring some bad guys down.
I guess, in the end, they did not think we were bad enough.
You really should check out my navel lint collection. I've thought of contacting Guinness to send out some verifiers.
Maybe 20 years ago I saw the headstone that has been stolen. At the time I wondered why there was a long piece of bent pipe next to it. At the highest it was only about 12 inches. Turns out that was the hitching post they had used for most of their horses during the robbery attempt.
As for what we do out here during the rest of our free time. We count our money. Agreed to give away another $55,000 over the weekend in exchange for an historical piece of land.
It seems to be happening in other places too
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/10/thieves-steal-bronze-vases-veterans-graves-chesapeake
Yes...pigs!
Same kind of punks that think its fun to bust up a bunch of old headstones in a pioneer cemetery.
Luckily, this particular cemetery has some nice people who live nearby that took it upon themselves to repair what they could, clean up the grounds and build a new fence.
Sad
Yes it has been a problem with the historic New Orleans cemeteries for years.
It is basically been the theft of the antique iron work, gates, fences etc plus the icons, statuary etc. around the crypts.
It seems that most of it was being sent out of state and primarily to Texas for resale as garden antiques.
HC:
I am glad you had a good weekend counting your money. That sounds like a lot of fun.
Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
Truman Capote wrote a well-known book about the killers of a farm family in western Kansas in the 1960's. A movie with the same name was made later.
The two convicted killers, Hickock and Smith, were the last two inmates to be hung in Kansas. They were buried in a prison cemetery in Leavenworth. Somehow, the tombstones turned up missing. About 20 years later they were recovered. They had been turned over and were being used as a step to get into a farm shed. I knew the owner of the farm as we had served together on a rural water district board.
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As part of an occasional series from All Things Considered — the Hidden Treasures Radio Project — Harriet Baskas visits Kansas, where a museum is debating whether to display objects relating to the crime that inspired Truman Capote's book In Cold Blood.
On a November night in 1959, Holcomb wheat farmer Herb Clutter, his wife and two teenage children were bound and gagged, then shot in the head.
Convicted and sentenced to death for the crime in 1960, Richard Hickock and Perry Edward Smith were hanged at the Lansing State Penitentiary in April 1965. Their low granite headstones sit side by side in section 34 at the nearby Mount Muncie Cemetery. Visitors to the site won't see the original stones, however.
In 1980 the markers — paid for by Truman Capote — were stolen, and quickly replaced.
Twenty years later, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation recovered the stolen tombstones. But the question became: what to do with them? No one had clear ownership rights, so a judge ruled that the markers either be returned to the graves or handed over to the Kansas Museum of History for safekeeping.
At first, the museum in Topeka put the markers on display, but soon removed them out of respect for community members still mourning the Clutter family.
Now the museum is currently organizing a crime and punishment exhibition. Curators plan to show the gallows used to hang Hickock and Smith. Baskas says the people she interviewed think, in this case, the objects are appropriate. Retired KBI agent Tom Williams says a crime and punishment exhibition might encourage people to think about the death penalty in Kansas — and decide for themselves what's right and what's wrong.
Some uses for Marbil Monument stone
Have a marble grave stone that I use as a surface for leather tooling, have also used it to lap a fuel transfer pump for one of my RD-6's. Lapped the housing, the end plate and gears. Was happy when it was back to specks and pumping again without any gaskets or sealers with no leaks. That piece of stone is about 15" X 24" and 6" thick. I bought it, not engraved, from a monument outlet, cost about $90 at the time. Also makes a good surface plate.
jud.
