Pirates of the Prairie

The dramatic story of outlaws and vigilantes on the American frontier invariably calls to mind the Wild West of the latter nineteenth century. Yet, there was an earlier frontier, Illinois, that was every bit as wild and lawless as Dodge City or Tombstone.

Between 1835 and 1850 several hundred outlaws and desperadoes descended on the prairie state, holding up stagecoaches, robbing homes and individ...