On July 21, 1873, Jesse James and the James‑Younger gang derailed and robbed a train near Adair, Iowa—an event widely considered the first train robbery west of the Mississippi River.
The gang loosened a rail to overturn the locomotive, killing the engineer and injuring passengers before seizing gold and cash from the express car. This shift from small‑town banks to the railroads marked a new era of outlaw tactics, targeting symbols of corporate wealth and national expansion.
The brutality of the Adair raid forced railroad companies and the Pinkerton Detective Agency into an unprecedented private war against the gang. Yet among Southern sympathizers, Jesse James’s legend only grew, fueled by the myth of a rebel striking back at Northern institutions during Reconstruction.
