Due to COVID-19, the 2020 Defeat of Jesse James Days has been cancelled. We look forward to celebrating with you in 2021!
DJJD
The Defeat of Jesse James Days is held the weekend after Labor Day and is among the largest outdoor celebrations in Minnesota.
This festival is an annual heritage event which began in 1948 as the “Fall Festival” with Saturday’s theme being “Jesse James Day”. It is held the weekend after Labor Day and is among the largest outdoor celebrations in Minnesota and is organized and managed by a true all-volunteer organization. Thousands of visitors witness reenactments of the robbery, which is staged on Division street, outside of the First National Bank of Northfield. Other activities during the festival include: a championship rodeo, carnival, car show, and parade, horseshoe hunt, as well as arts and crafts expositions, and musical performances. Many food stations are set up in Bridge Square, and during the evenings live music is played in a “Entertainment Center” on Water Street.
The Town That Stood Tall
At roughly 2:00 p.m., September 7, 1876, eight men rode into town, intent on robbing the First National Bank of Northfield. It would later be called a textbook James-Younger bank robbery, and it began with three members of the gang entering the bank and announcing that it was a holdup. The three desperados ordered three bank employees to open the safe, but were told the vault was locked and couldn’t be opened.
On the street, local citizens began to arm themselves when a merchant discovered the robbery in progress. Upon their discovery, two gang members sprang to their horses and began shooting and yelling at the townspeople to leave the street. This forced the other three robbers into the fray. The first to fall was a Swedish immigrant named Nicholas Gustafson, who remained on the street because he did not understand English.
The battle lasted only seven minutes, but when it was over two robbers lay dead in the street and two more were badly wounded. Six outlaws fled south, and the largest manhunt at that time in U.S. history ensued. The Younger brothers were captured and Charlie Pitts was killed near Madelia, MN. Jesse and Frank James escaped the posse and made it to Missouri.
The heroes that day included J.S. Allen, A.R. Manning, Henry Wheeler and others. But the biggest hero was Joseph Lee Heywood, who died because he would not open the bank vault and betray the trust of the bank owners and his fellow Northfield citizens. It is the extraordinary courage of these townspeople that we honor on the weekend after Labor Day each year during Defeat of Jesse James Days.
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