Gayle Lunning

Cole Younger Gayle Lunning

The James/Younger gang terrorized Missouri banks and trains after the Civil War, but it was a small town in Minnesota that spelled the end of the Younger's outlaw career. As a youth, we played cowboys and Indians and took turns being Wyatt Earp chasing Jesse James. I never outgrew my love of westerns and the allure of cowboys and outlaws. Not that many years removed from the era of the western outlaw, I allowed my imagination to bring me to the banks and hideouts of men who were merely opponents of the sheriff's. That imagination put me in Thomas Coleman Younger's place as he opposed lawmen and lawbreakers. General Order No. 11, the Drake Constitution, and the assimilation of the Confederate soldier and Bushwhacker during reconstruction in Missouri was very unpleasant for the vanquished. Some of these laws were designed to punish the opponents of the Union and not to reunite the nation. I have an opinion, but it is up to you to decide whether Cole Younger was an unwiting or willing outlaw.