Saturday, April 20, 2024
Amidst the countless number of spurs located at the Coryell Museum and Historical Center stands a lone wooden stirrup which some visitors may have overlooked. It’s not just any stirrup, but one that came from a saddle ridden by infamous outlaw Jesse James. The stirrup is a brass-bound wooden stirrup from a saddle used by Jesse James in the mid-1870s.
Jesse James, the daring outlaw from Missouri, became a legend in his own lifetime by committing crimes supposedly out of revenge for the poor treatment he, his family, and other Southern sympathizers received from Union soldiers during the Civil War. His crimes terrorized innocent civilians and hampered economic growth in Missouri in the years following the Civil War.
In 1863, Jesse James, joined by his brother Frank, rode with the Quantrill gang from Missouri to their winter quarters in northeast Texas. The Quantrill gang camped just northeast of Sherman in Grayson County. The James boys also stayed in McKinney, the county seat of Collin County where they supposedly freely circulated with the townspeople.
Jesse James was eventually killed by a member of his own gang on April 3, 1882, in St. Joseph, Missouri.
