WORTHINGTON -- Today Worthington celebrates turkeys. Or maybe not. Maybe turkeys don't really rouse us to sing and dance, but turkeys give us excuse for celebration. Maybe we are only celebrating to celebrate. No harm in this.
One week ago Northfield again celebrated Defeat of Jesse James Days. Fittingly. Northfield brought the end to the James-Younger gang. Frank and Jesse might have been wise to head for Bolivia, as did Butch and Sundance. Or Australia.
"They speak English in Australia. ...They got horses in Australia and thousands of miles of countryside that we can hide out in, and good climate. Nice beaches. You can learn to swim ..." Butch Cassidy.
The week between Northfield's celebrations and Worthington's celebrations -- the week just past -- is open for nearly any community between Northfield and the South Dakota border to celebrate the chase and passing of the James brothers. In our southwest corner, Cottonwood County, Nobles County and Rock County most certainly can say they saw dust raised by outlaws' horses. Sept. 14, 15, 16, 17. 1876. These are the days Jesse and Frank trotted along our reach of planet Earth.
There is a story told very often by Ed Krause, homesteader in Cottonwood County. Empty prairie reached in all directions from Ed Krause's most humble house. Two lean young men riding tired horses appeared from the east. They asked food and shelter for the night -- there most certainly was no nearby hotel/motel. The men offered money.
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"Sure," Ed Krause said. The riders took their horses to Krause's crude barn and then joined the family at a supper table. One of the pair removed his gun and holster and laid them on the table with an assurance that no harm would come to anyone.
It was dark when the meal ended. The weary riders asked for blankets, refusing any consideration of a bed. They laid themselves on the kitchen floor, beside the kitchen door, and quickly fell asleep. Ed Krause never said he was frightened but never before, never after did he entertain such guests.
When Ed came to his kitchen in the morning to make coffee, the visitors were gone. The blankets were left, neatly folded. Many days went by before the Krause family learned of Frank and Jesse James and their misdeeds at Northfield.
Calendars were rare on Minnesota homesteads. Whether it was Sept. 14 or Sept. 15 that the bank robbers were in Cottonwood County is unclear still.
Nobles County's Sheriff Julius Town was alerted. The sheriff organized a posse and headed north. It was guessed by some that the bandits were near Nobles County's empty north side.
I believe if you were going to trust a Nobles County pioneer, Andy Dillman, Worthington's first resident, would be a man to trust. Andy was recruited to ride with Sheriff Town's posse in pursuit of the James brothers. "I hoped we wouldn't find them," Andy confessed later. An honest man, surely.
The trail of Frank and Jesse across this area has been charted very many times, both in fact and in imagination.
Margaret Roelofs recalled many years later at Lismore, "Our farm was near Lost Timber -- you know that...near Chandler.
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"You know why they call it Lost Timber? The story was, they lost the James Brothers in there. This is when they were coming from Northfield. Maybe it's a legend, but that's what they always said. The James brothers went in there ..."
Maybe not.
"Mrs. Thompson -- she died when she was ninety and I think she's been dead 30 years -- she lived north of here -- she said she fed Jesse James."
Maybe so.
The young James brothers made their way to Rock County and once again spent a night on a prairie homestead. Then -- the story most people have liked best -- Frank and Jesse came to Garretson with more than one posse in pursuit.
Jesse, on his horse, leaped across Devil's Gulch and escaped. Sept. 17. This is the ending I like.
Some say no horse could make that leap.
Maybe not.
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Some say Frank and Jesse never did cross the gulch. They say the boys made their way south into Iowa.
Maybe so.
May we never be done with telling these tales.
Ray Crippen is a former editor of the Daily Globe. His column appears on Saturdays.
