James, wanted for a string of bank and train robberies across the Midwest, was killed by a member of his own gang seeking amnesty and reward money from the governor. His death instantly transformed him into American folklore, a symbol of the fading Wild West mythologized in ballads and legend.
On the morning of April 3, 1882, Jesse James was in his rented house on Lafayette Street in St. Joseph, Missouri, dusting a picture frame and, unusually, unarmed — he had removed his guns because he worried about arousing suspicion from neighbors who might spot an armed man inside on a warm day. Robert Ford, a member of James's own gang, seized the moment, drew his revolver, and shot the outlaw in the back of the head at close range.
James died instantly at age 34. Ford and his brother Charley had been secretly negotiating with Missouri Governor Thomas Crittenden, who desperately wanted the notorious robber gone and had offered amnesty and reward money for the deed. Rather than being hailed as heroes, the Fords found themselves scorned as cowardly traitors who had killed a man for money while his back was turned.
The killing spawned an immediate ballad, 'The Ballad of Jesse James,' with the line 'that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard' (James had used the alias Thomas Howard), cementing his transformation from vicious criminal, responsible for numerous killings during robberies, into romanticized folk antihero. His grave and the bullet-scarred house became tourist attractions almost immediately, launching a mythology that Hollywood would revisit for the next century.