Bill Doolin's Outlaw Gold — Cowley County

Bill Doolin rode with the Dalton brothers on Oklahoma and Kansas train holdups before the October 1892 Coffeyville disaster. Many historians believe Doolin held the gang's horses in the alley and was the only Coffeyville participant to escape. After Coffeyville, Doolin, Bitter Creek Newcomb, and Charlie Pierce continued robbing banks and trains across the Territories. Captured near Lawson, Oklahoma, in August 1896, Doolin was killed by Deputy Marshal Heck Thomas. Folklore holds that early gang loot was hidden "near the border where nobody could find it" — a phrase also applied to Henry Starr's caches. Cowley and Montgomery counties on the Arkansas River corridor are the Kansas-side search country for Doolin-Dalton plunder. Coordinates approximate the border hills east of Arkansas City.