Frank James New Venture-from a newspaper clipping

Found in the same newspaper clipping as a family obituary dated 1894. The Smithville paper copied it from the Kansas City Star.

Childhood stories of Frank and Jesse James

I grew up hearing stories of Frank and Jesse James and how ancestors on both sides of my family had known him. I thought that highly unlikely, but as I grew older and asked more questions I found out it was mostly true.  Frank and Jesse had friends in Platte County who helped them when they could. When I asked an older resident why Frank and Jesse frequented this area he told me, “I don’t think they were hunting them too hard here.” 

Frank James New Venture

Kansas City Star.

St. Louis, Sept. 25.--At the door of the Standard theater last night taking tickets was Frank James, the once noted outlaw. He said:  "I have abandoned the race course forever. There is no money in it. It has ceased to be profitable. I have a son who is 17 years of age, and it is natural to suppose that if I had continued in the business he would have drifted into it also.  I do not say that the business is disgraceful; oh, no, not that, for I have met hundreds of gentlemen on the track. Some of my best friends are there. But of course, there are bad ones to be found on a race course, and somehow or other, you can't tell why exactly, but these are the kind a young man generally falls in with.  I have, therefore, forsaken a following that has afforded me much amusement and entertainment for his sake.  In the future I will be in the theatrical line--not on the stage, but in the business office, or at the door, or somewhere near about where the money is taken in.  I have commenced at the bottom round, and expect to work my way gradually up. There is money in the business when you work it right."

"So you will never go on the stage?"

"Never. I have no merit in that line and no sort of practice would make me an actor. I have had plenty of opportunities to go before the footlights.  Immediately after my acquittal and vindication I was offered $52,000 a year by a New York company, but declined it. In the future my home will be in St. Louis. I am tired of roaming around. I shall try to find my son a place in a commercial house and we will live together. To make a quiet, steady, sober man of him is now my highest ambition.”

Smithville Herald, pg. 1 

Herald Supplement
Sept. 28, 1894