“They’re robbing the bank!” (Part 3 of 4)

It was warm and sunny that October morning, and Aleck McKenna decided to take a few minutes to step outside to sweep the sidewalk in front of McKenna and Adamson’s Dry Goods Store.  The store faced Walnut Street adjacent to the alley.  On the opposite side of the alley stood Slossen’s Drug Store.  East across Walnut Street was a red brick building: the C. M. Condon & Company Bank.  McKenna happened to look up from his chore just as five men emerged from the alley and walked across Walnut to the bank.  Despite their disguises, he was certain he recognized the three in the lead as the Dalton brothers who had grown up near Coffeyville.  That they were carrying Winchester rifles did not escape his notice.  He was well aware of their reputation as bank and train robbers.

McKenna wondered what they were up to, so he paused long enough to watch as three of the men entered the Condon Bank as the other two continued on across Union Street to the First National.  He couldn’t hear what was being said inside, but through the bank’s windows he could clearly see the men level their rifles at one of the employees.  That was all he needed to witness.  “They’re robbing the bank!”

By the time Bob and Emmett entered the First National Bank, the alarm was spreading along Walnut and Union Streets and along Eighth and Nineth.  Brother Grat, Bill Powers, and Dick Broadwell were already ordering the employees of the Condon to stuff their grain sack full of money.  None of the robbers noticed the flurry of activity outside.

In 1892 there were no federal programs insuring bank deposits.  If a bank was robbed, the money was gone; all the community’s hard-earned cash gone unless the robbers could be apprehended and the money recovered.  The Daltons may not have been able to predict the lack of hitching posts near the bank, but they were right about one thing: no one in Coffeyville other than them was armed that morning.  At least not at the moment they strolled down that alleyway.  But that was about to change.

Adjacent to the First National Bank stood Isham Brothers and Mansur Hardware.  A few doors down was A. P. Boswell & Company Hardware.  Both carried firearms.  Both carried an ample supply of ammunition.  As the alarm spread, townsfolk streamed into the hardware stores, armed themselves with Winchester rifles, shotguns, Colt revolvers, and boxes of ammunition and positioned themselves inside near open windows or outside behind what cover they could find that allowed a clear view of the two banks: a clear view and a clear field of fire.

Inside the banks, the gang was oblivious to the small army that was forming outside.  Bob and Emmett gained access to the vault and stuffed twenty thousand dollars into their grain sack.  Brother Grat’s efforts weren’t nearly as productive in the Condon.  The employees insisted that the vault had a time lock so they couldn’t open the door, and Grat wasn’t bright enough to actually test the latch.  Had he done so, he would have realized they were deceiving him.  So, he managed to get only about a thousand dollars from the cash drawers.  For some reason the bank had three thousand silver dollars outside of the vault that morning, and Grat directed that that be dumped into his grain sack as well, all one hundred sixty pounds of it.  How he expected to lug a hundred sixty pounds of silver a hundred yards to his horse remains a mystery, but then Grat wasn’t known to think all that clearly at times.

It's not entirely clear who fired the first shot, several townspeople claim the honor, but it came about the time Bob and Emmett were stepping out of the First National’s front door.  Once the gunfire started, all hell broke loose and a steady stream of bullets filled the plaza, many of them pelting the walls and windows of the Condon where Grat had been patiently waiting for the vault’s imaginary time lock to expire.

Bob and Emmett wasted no time retreating to the temporary safety of the First National.  From there, they slipped out of the back door to Union Street, ran north to Eighth and then west to the entrance of a branch alley that connected to the main alley at the rear corner of McKenna and Adamson’s Dry Goods Store, Emmett carrying the sack of money, Bob providing cover fire.  Bob was an excellent marksman, and he stopped long enough to shoot several townspeople attempting to impede their escape and that of brother Grat.

In the Condon, Grat, Powers, and Broadwell seemed uncertain of what to do.  Grat finally realized that the trio wouldn’t be able to make much of a dash to the horses carrying a hundred sixty pounds of silver, so he ditched the silver and stashed what paper bills were in the grain sack inside his vest.  By this time Broadwell had been hit, a slug smashing through the window and into his arm, breaking the bone, the man no longer able to fire his rifle.  It didn’t take long for even the dimwitted Grat to figure out that they couldn’t stay in the bank; they’d be shot or arrested if they did.  Their only hope was to bolt for the horses a hundred yards away.  If they could run clear of the open plaza in front of the bank and across Walnut Steet to the alley he thought they just might make it.

The bank’s front door flew open and the three scrambled out, running for the alleyway, running for their horses, running for their lives.  Some fifty yards on their right, Bob and Emmett were running along Eighth Street, about to reach the entrance to the branch alley that would take them to the main alley, their horses, and out of danger.

But they weren’t the only ones running for their horses.  There was a trio of townspeople racing west on Ninth Street and then cutting between buildings toward the alley, determined to stop the outlaws from making their escape: Marshal Connelly, liveryman John Kloehr, and barber Carey Seaman, all now armed, and all good shots.