
Emmett Dalton (3 May 1871 – 13 July 1937) was an American outlaw of the Wild West and a member of the Dalton Gang from 1891 until his capture following the Coffeyville bank robbery in Kansas in 1892. He was pardoned after spending 14 years in prison.
Biography[]
Emmett Dalton was born in Belton, Cass County, Missouri on 3 May 1871, one of twelve children; he was the brother of Grafton, Bob, Frank, and Bill Dalton. The brothers were raised in Visalia, California and became muleskinners in the San Joaquin Valley, and Frank later moved to Arkansas and served as a deputy US Marshal until he was killed by whiskey bootleggers in 1887. Bob and Grat were given their brother's job and moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas, where Bob hired Emmett to work as a jail guard. When Bob and Grat became cattle rustlers in the Indian Territory, Emmett decided to join them, and they were later forced to flee to California. There, they stayed with their brother Bill at his ranch near San Miguel, San Luis Obispo County. On 6 February 1891, Bob and Emmett Dalton robbed a Southern Pacific Railroad train near Alila, California, but they failed to take any money. The local sheriffs assembled a posse to search for them, forcing them to flee to Ogden, Utah and then to Oklahoma, where they robbed a train at Perry in May 1891. At this time, Bob and Emmett formed the Dalton Gang, and they robbed several banks, stagecoaches, and trains in California and Oklahoma before deciding on one last score, a double-bank heist, in Coffeyville, Kansas in October 1892, aiming to make enough money to flee the country. On 5 October 1892, Bob, Grat, and Emmett Dalton, along with their fellow gang members Bill Powers and Dick Broadwell, carried out the Coffeyville bank robbery. In the ensuing shootout, only Emmett survived, as Bob and the other gang members were gunned down during their failed escape. Emmett survived with 23 gunshot wounds, but he was sentenced to life in prison in Lansing, Kansas. He was pardoned 14 years later and moved to California in 1907, becoming a Hollywood actor and a real estate agent. He died in Los Angeles in 1937 at the age of 66.