The Dalton Raid Aftermath


Coffeyville citizens amusing themselves
with the remains of Bob and Grat Dalton.

     When the smoked cleared, the citizens flocked to the alley from all directions. A few people made off with snippets of the bandits clothing and tufts of hair from their horses, by way of souvenirs. As one newspaper reported, "Bits of cloth and pieces of belt, pass now as relic of the departed Daltons, and are in current demand." One of these persons was seen bearing a small piece of plank with a splash of Bob Dalton's blood, along with a small piece of pants.

     Somebody set up a hayrack on the south side of the alley, and boards from the Long-Bell lumber yard were leaned against a rack. Then the citizens dragged the corpse of Broadwell and Powers and Bob and Grat Dalton over to this makeshift easel and propped them up in a row. They laid the outlaws on their backs and folded each man's hands across their chest. Someone took a photograph, with a Winchester rested across the bodies of Bob and Grat.

      Someone discovered, presumably during the movement of the bodies, that if you pumped Grat's right arm up and down, jets of blood spurted out of the hole in his throat. A good many folks amused themselves by trying this out in the alley and later on, after Grat's remains became part of the heap in the jail.

      On Thursday burial of the robbers had not been accompanied by any great ceremony. The Bandits were treated to black-lacquered coffin at public expense, and were laid to rest in the Elmwood Cemetery the afternoon after the raid. Providing coffins was as far as public decency went, for the outlaws only marker was the pipe, or rail, to which they tied their horse to in the deadly alley.

     On Friday, the poor mother of the dead Dalton Boys arrived from Kingfisher, O.T., accompanied by two sons, Ben and Bill and by her daughter Eva Whipple. She found one son clinging to life and two more other boys already in the ground. Adeline was very courteous and quiet, and apparently was treated politely and sympathetically by the people of Coffeyville. On October the 14th, she placed a note of thanks in the Journal : "We desire to return our sincere thanks to the citizens of Coffeyville for their uniform kindness to us during our stay... We have no enmity against anyone whatsoever on account of the late terrible tragedy."

     In addition to Aleline Dalton, Dick Broadwell's brother, George,arrived to claim his remains and moved it to Hutchinson, Kansas. When approached by a local report they gave their point of view stating, "We are as greatly shocked by this occurrence as you, and entirely ignorant of Dick's being with the gang. We had not heard of him since May. He never was wild or a drinker or gambler and we always thought him to be straight and law abiding." Dick Broadwell was dressed in a new suit and encased in a better coffin before leaving Coffeyville.

      Because of how the bodies were buried on top of each other, Bob and Grat in one grave and Dick and Bill Powers in the other, Powers remains were left out of the grave for a few days but nobody appeared to retrieve him. He is now laying beside Bob and Grat forever in Elmwood Cemetery.

     
Emmett Dalton and his mother, Adeline, are buried in Kingfisher, Oklahoma.




Boy In Classic Photograph Identified


  
Ray Clark - "The Boy In The Fence"

     The following excerpt is from a column, The Coffeyville Grinder, published in The Coffeyville Journal on July 28, 1953.

      The little boy peeking through the fence at the four dead Dalton gangsters was Ray Clark.

     That has been verified for us by Jack Long of Dearing and T.P. Perry, who were kids along with young Clark the day the attempt was made to rob the two Coffeyville banks.

     Neither Jack nor Pete is interested in the $10 which was put up as a prize by the publisher of the new Kansas Jayee travel booklet. They just want to set the record straight.

     "That Boy was Ray Clark," Mr. Long said. "After he grew up he worked at Isham's Hardware Store and then moved away from here. He died several months ago in Portland, Ore."

     The travel book publisher had offered $25 as an inducement to get an interview with the man who was peeking through the fence as a small boy that October day 61 years ago.

     "I have a letter from Ray," Mr. Long continued, "which was written shortly before his death in which he asked me to try to find him a copy of that picture showing his face. I was unable to find one."

     "I was in the alley with Ray when the picture was taken," Mr. Perry said. "He was in my grad in school, but I don't know why we were not in class that day. We were between 12 and 13 years old at the time. There was a number of small boys back there with us. We had been attracted by the shooting and the general excitement."

     The bodies were laid out, Mr. Perry explained, on a hayrack parked beside the fence, which ran along the east side of the Coffeyville city jail. The jail was a stone building with one long cell and two smaller ones behind it. The jail stood west of what is now the Condon Bank and north of 9th street.

     But back to Ray Clark, the boy whose curiosity has brought him a degree of immortality. Mr. Perry hadn't seen him for more than 30 years until Ray visited here around 1946.

      In 1948, after Mr. Perry had been elected grand high priest of the Royal Arch Masons of Kansas, Clark flew in from the Far West to attend the party given in Mr. Perry's honor. He tried at that time to secure a copy of the picture but failed to get one.