On February 13, 1866, the Clay County Savings Bank here saw what historians call the first successful daylight peacetime bank robbery in United States history. On February 13, 1866, armed men rode into Liberty, Missouri, walked into the Clay County Savings Bank, and demanded the cashier empty the vault. The haul was approximately $60,000 in cash and bonds.
As the gang rode out of town, they killed a college student named George Wymore who had the misfortune to be standing nearby. Jesse James was only 18, and whether he was among the robbers has never been conclusively proven — but historical consensus strongly places Jesse and his brother Frank in the gang. The robbery launched a fifteen-year crime spree that made Jesse James the most notorious outlaw in America and, after his assassination in 1882, something close to a Robin Hood figure in Missouri legend.
The reality was darker: James was an unrepentant Confederate guerrilla whose victims were ordinary bank customers and railroad passengers, not the powerful. But the legend proved more durable than the facts, as legends usually do.