
William "Bill" Doolin (1858-24 August 1896) was an American outlaw and the co-leader of the Doolin-Dalton Gang of the Wild West.
Biography[]
William Doolin was born in Johnson County, Arkansas in 1858, and he left home in 1881 to become a cowboy in the Indian Territory. He came to know several outlaw bandits during his time in Oklahoma, one of them being Emmett Dalton. On 4 July 1891, he wounded two lawmen in a drunken shootout at Coffeyville, Kansas, and, shortly after, he joined the Dalton Gang and took part in their final heist, the fatal Coffeyville bank raid. Doolin and the surviving Dalton brother, Bill Dalton, cofounded the Doolin-Dalton Gang, which robbed a bank in Spearville, Kansas on 1 November 1892. The gang engaged in several robberies in Kansas and Oklahoma, and, on 1 September 1893, 16 US Marshals tracked down the gang to Ingalls, resulting in a shootout which left three Marshals and two bystanders dead, and one bystander and three outlaws wounded. By the end of the 1894, the law had killed or captured most of the "Wild Bunch" after a relentless pursuit. Doolin fled to New Mexico and then in Burden, Kansas. In early 1896, he was captured at a bathhouse in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, but he escaped from jail on 5 July and fled to Lawson, Oklahoma. On 24 August 1896, he was confronted by US Marshal Heck Thomas in Lawson and was killed by a shotgun blast. By 1898, the remaining former Wild Bunch outlaws had been tracked down and killed.