Western history author and lecturer Jeff Barnes brings the life and legend of the notorious Jesse James to the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center in Alliance on Thursday, August 12 at 6:30 p.m.
“A Bad Man in a Better Place: Jesse James in Nebraska” covers the outlaw and his family’s several visits to the Cornhusker State, from the 1860s until just before his assassination in 1882. “Jesse James typically isn’t thought of in connection with Nebraska, but he was here,” said Barnes, researching and writing the first travel guide to the outlaw’s associated sites. “Nebraska was where the outlaw could find family and friends. It was where he could plan amazing robberies, make a recovery or an escape, and even sit for his most famous photograph. He wanted to buy a farm here and some even say he started a family here.”
The 45-minute presentation, sponsored by Humanities Nebraska, includes rarely seen images and seldom-heard stories of Jesse James, with the opportunity for questions afterward.
A former newspaper reporter and editor, Barnes writes and lives in Omaha. He is a former board trustee with the Nebraska State Historical Society, former chairman of the Nebraska Hall of Fame Commission, and a frequently requested speaker with Humanities Nebraska. He is the author of Cut in Stone, Cast in Bronze: Nebraska’s Historical Markers and Monuments, 150 @ 150: Nebraska’s Landmark Buildings at the State’s Sesquicentennial, The Great Plains Guide to Buffalo Bill, The Great Plains Guide to Custer, Forts of the Northern Plains, and Extra Innings: The Story of Modisett Ball Park.
For more information, please contact Jodi Ringbauer at (308) 762-2384.