Bonaventure s cole younger biography

A Minnesota Century: The Story of Cole Younger
By Annie Feidt
October 1999

The warden needed help evacuating the female prisoners.

He handed a revolver to a confessed murderer, the man who, with Jesse James, led the Northfield Raid, one of the bloodiest bank robberies in Minnesota history.

The year was 1884 and the prison was Stillwater, Minnesota.

The prisoner with a gun was the notorious outlaw Cole Younger. This month in our Minnesota Century series: the story of a charismatic bank robber who the nation made into a legend because of its fascination with the untamed western frontier.

Bonaventure s cole younger biography timeline

TO UNDERSTAND COLE YOUNGER, you have to understand the Missouri-Kansas border region he grew up in. Intense guerrilla fighting over slavery destroyed families and farms, creating a war state even before the civil war began.

Cole: I was only a boy, born January 15th, 1844. My brother, James, was born January 15, 1848, and Robert in December 1853. This was before the conflicts an