Originally posted by pinkmoon
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They are both robberies in the old American west: the Northfield Raid of the James and Younger gangs on two banks in Northfield, Minnesota in 1876, which was a daring attempt by Jesse James to establish a new "high water mark" for his bank and train robbing gang, and the similar Coffeyville, Oklahoma two bank robbery planned by the Dalton Brothers gang in 1892. In both cases the results were shatteringly bad for the planners. James and his cousins the Youngers were used to people in southern towns and trains not getting involved while they robbed institutions like banks, but decided to rob the banks in Minnesota (possibly because former Carpetbagger governor Adelbert Ames was on the board of one of them) and discovered the northern residents would not stand for this and resisted them (blasting the gang members, killing some, and so injuring one of the Youngers that Cole Younger and his unhurt brother refused to abandon the hurt one and it split the unity of the James and Younger gangs permanently). The Daltons, some two decades later, were blasted by citizens in Coffeyville so that most of their gang was killed in the attempt. To this date nobody has ever successfully pulled off a two bank robbery anywhere that I have heard of.
Jeff
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