On this day, July 5, in 1896, cowboy outlaw Bill Doolin, head of the Wild Bunch, escaped from an Oklahoma jail.
Doolin began his life of crime at age 32 when he and some drunk friends got into a shootout with lawmen who tried to confiscate their alcohol. Doolin was suited to being an outlaw and soon joined the Dalton Gang before forming his own criminal gang, the Wild Bunch, considered the most powerful outlaw group in the West.
The U.S. Marshals Service lost three men trying to capture Doolin. The lawmen finally caught him in a bathhouse in Eureka Springs, Ark., where he went to treat rheumatism from a gunshot wound. In jail, Doolin overpowered the guards and escaped.
Several weeks later, a posse caught up to him again at his wife’s place in Lawson, Okla.
There, on Aug. 5, 1896, Doolin was killed with a shotgun blast to the chest.
Doolin and the Daltons were the inspiration for the Eagles’ song “Doolin Dalton,” featured on their 1973 album “Desperado.”
