IN NORTHFIELD, HISTORY IS GOLD; IN BROWNSVILLE, WE BURY IT

 

By Juan Montoya

On September 1876, the James-Younger Gang headed for Minnesota fleeing the law after their depredations in the South.

The gang consisted of brothers Jesse and Frank James; brothers Bob, Jim, and Cole Younger; Clell Miller; Charlie Pitts; and Bill Stiles. 

Upon arriving in the state, the gang divided into scouting parties of two, three, and four men. Looking for possible sites to execute their plans, they considered banks in Minneapolis, Red Wing, St. Peter, and St. Paul, as well as Madelia, Mankato, Lake Crystal, St. James, Garden City, and Northfield.

The gang decided to abort the first choice for the robbery and headed for its second choice, Northfield. Little did the gang members know that this decision would end all of their careers as outlaws and result in the deaths of three gang members and two Northfield citizens.

There is nothing particularly special about Northfield. The lazy Cannon River snakes its way through town and its population is dwarfed by Minneapolis-St. Paul, 15 to 20 miles to the north. However, the important thing to the gang was that it had a healthy bank, the  Northfield First National Bank.

On September 7, 1876, eight bandits rode into Northfield to rob the bank. The desperadoes ordered the three bank employees to open the safe, but were told that the door was locked and couldn’t be opened. Meanwhile, local citizens on the street began to arm themselves after a merchant discovered the robbery in progress and shouted, “Get your guns, boys — they’re robbing the bank!”

Upon this discovery, two gang members sprang to their saddles and began firing their pistols and yelling for everyone to leave the area or be shot. This forced the remaining robbers to enter the fray. The first to fall was a Swedish immigrant named Nicholas Gustafson. He was wounded in the head and died several days later.

When it was over after just seven minutes, two robbers were dead in the street and two more were badly wounded. 

The remaining six outlaws fled southwest, triggering the largest manhunt in U.S. history. Frank and Jesse James were not caught after the failed raid, but the Younger brothers were captured, and Charlie Pitts was killed two weeks later during a furious gunfight near Madelia.

This claim to fame for this small Minnesota town has been turned into a hugely profitable annual celebration which has placed Northfield on the tourist map. Each year, thousands flock to see a reenactment of the James-Younger attempted robbery of the bank.

Do you now that the greatest cultural event held there yearly has become a source of tourism from which the town derives its greatest economic shot in the arm? Would you believe a three-day-long reenactment of the James bank robbery? 

Northfield has no international border, no nearby sea, and nowhere near Brownsville's ties to major historical, social, and political figures and upheavals. Yet, they have achieved success with one chance encounter with history. (We do have Charro Days, a purely commercial enterprise which had its beginning as a merchants' ploy to attract customers to the city.)

In contrast to Northfield, we seem to be content to have our history carted off to collections in distant university data bases while we continue to ignore it here. Outsourcing of our manufacturing base has not worked out well for our country. Outsourcing our city's past is an even worse strategy.

Brownsville has all those qualities and more. But we seem content to hide our history, to deny events that have had international repercussions happened here. 

July 13 is the 166th anniversary of the day that Juan Cortina shot sheriff Robert Shears and carted off his ranch worker which ignited the turbulent Cortina Wars and, later in the year, in September, he rode into town with some 70 to 80 followers and sought out his enemies.

In Northfield, the bank robbery lasted all but seven minutes. Historians say that Cortina held Brownsville for the better part of 13 hours before he left. 

Why do we ignore the role that Juan Cortina played in the turbulent era following the inclusion of this area into the United States?

Think of a Cortina raid reenactment. All the elements are there. Good vs. bad, whichever way you see it. A daring act, and plenty of drama that took place right in the heart of the city. And a Mexican Army asked to come into the U.S. to protect Americans.   

In fact, the city's leaders begged a foreign army, the Mexican military in Matamoros, to invade the United States to defend them against Cortina, an American citizen naturalized after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. When else has that happened in U.S. history?

And try the city's most vital historical and genealogical documents lie locked in Market Square under the care of the myopic and dormant Brownsville Historical Association.

Could it be that the good citizens of little Northfield were prescient to see that a criminal act – the robbing of the bank – could turn out to be a gold mine while we in Brownsville are sitting on a treasure trove of historical proportions which we continually ignore?