There are two theories of why a Clinton rancher named Warren C. Bronaugh visited the Younger brothers in prison after they were arrested and sentenced to life sentences for robbing a bank and shooting several people in 1876.
One is that Cole Younger was the soldier that saved Bronaugh’s life during the Civil War Battle of Lone Jack. The story goes that Cole guided Bronaugh and another Confederate soldier back to their unit after they became lost in the town, which was filled with smoke.
Another is that Capt. Bronaugh, known as Wal, made the visit because he was a good friend of Frank James, Jesse James’ brother, who couldn’t make the trip himself.
Whether one or the other story is correct, or the truth is a combination, the house where Capt. Bronaugh lived when he was working to get the Younger brothers out of prison still stands on a hill northeast of Clinton. It’s now owned by Dawn Guterman, who offers tours, an event venue and overnight stays.
She calls it “The Jesse James Hideaway.”
“It was called the Jesse James House, but it wasn’t his house,” Dawn said. “Supposedly Jesse was here. When people used to see a couple of horses that were not here normally, they’d say it was the James Boys.”
The two Victorian houses that the Bronaugh family built in the 1880s stand across from each other on a hill on either side of Hwy. YY, off Hwy. 52 E. near Clinton. The houses have become part of local lore connecting Henry County to the notorious James Gang and the Younger brothers who rode with them.
But when Dawn saw the house listed for sale in December of 2022, she didn’t know much about its history. She did know she loved the house, a three-story Victorian with gingerbread trim, wrap-around porches and widow’s walk on the roof.
“I called immediately,” she said.
When she bought it, the house was painted gray, she said, and faded into the landscape. She chose to have the exterior painted in bright colors that would bring out the architectural details.
“When the painters came, they said it was known as the Munster House,” she said. “I wanted it to look like a flower. It deserves to be seen.”
Originally from New Jersey, Dawn moved to Branson, Mo., 18 years ago after she fell in love with the area on a family visit and decided it would be a good place to raise her daughter. She owned an Air BnB in Branson, and after moving to Henry County, realized she missed being a host.
“I missed talking with people, and getting to know them and their children,” she said.
The property is also ideal for the equine rescue she started in Branson for her younger daughter, Catheryn, who now runs it on the 20-acres surrounding the house. The farm is home to two full-sized horses, two mini-horses, and two mini-donkeys, Dawn said. Catheryn, 20, lives in a cottage next to the main house, built around 2000, but with an old root cellar underneath it.
Dawn has also heard the rumor about an escape tunnel that ran from one Bronaugh house to the other. That has been deemed an impossibility, but she has received verification of a tunnel from her house to a small barn near the house.
“I have been contacted by three people who claim to have played in the tunnel,” she said, “I haven’t found any evidence of it. I guess we’ll never know.”
A history minor in college, Dawn researched her house’s history at the Henry County Museum’s Genealogy Library and found old photographs of the house and its owners. Dawn also found a button from a Civil War uniform on the grounds, and lots of interesting stones.
“One has a boy’s name, Nathan, carved in it,” she said. “A stone in the bottom part of the barn is dated, and I found a slate dated 1817.”
A photograph of the house shows a woman, two small children and their dogs standing on the porch. Dawn wonders if the boy is Nathan. An interesting feature in the house is a removable panel in the wooden newel post of the main staircase near the front door, which she said was used to store a gun.
“There was a lot going on here,” Dawn said.
The house that Capt. Bronaugh built has a Southern vibe, his family originally being from Virginia. There are working transoms over the interior doors. Focal points in each room are ornate fireplaces, including one with a surround attributed to Tiffany. Dawn furnished the kitchen with an antique wooden table and chairs. A settee in the parlor was made from an old bed. She needed a downstairs bedroom, so created one out of what was the main parlor and turned the gentlemen’s parlor behind it into a bathroom.
According to Al Bronaugh, Wal’s son, construction of the family home on the south side of the road started in 1883 and was completed in 1884. Al, who had migrated to California, came back to Henry County for a visit with his wife in 1975, when he was interviewed by a reporter from the Democrat. Then 83 years old, he recalled that his uncle, Frank Bronaugh, built the twin Victorian house across the road at about the same time as his father’s.
The uncle’s house became known as the Kraft House after Mr. and Mrs. Phil Kraft, who restored it. Al and his wife were guests of Cecil and Norma Harmon, who were restoring his former home.
Before the two houses were built, C.C. Bronaugh, Al’s grandfather, lived in a small house on the north side of the road, Al said, which was originally a log house. There was also a one-room schoolhouse on his uncle’s property, and there was a schoolroom in the back of the Jesse James House, Dawn said.
The James Brothers, Frank and Jesse, grew up on a farm east of Kansas City. After the Civil War, men who had fought for the Confederacy were pardoned, but the governor of Missouri did not pardon Bushwhackers, who had terrorized their neighbors who sided with the Union.
Cole Younger and Frank James both rode with Quantrill’s raiders, a band of Confederate guerrillas. With a price on their heads from their Bushwhacker days, the James Boys and the four Younger brothers formed a gang and resumed a life of violence, robbing banks, stores and railroads throughout the Midwest, shooting whoever got in their way.
People interested in Civil War history enjoy touring the house, Dawn said, and hearing of its connection with the infamous James Gang and Capt. Bronaugh. Bronaugh enlisted in Springfield, Mo., with Gen. Sterling Price, and fought at Lone Jack, Wilson Creek and Lexington in Missouri, and Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove in northwest Arkansas.
Children and teens are more interested in fishing the pond, Dawn said, which holds crappie, bluegill, catfish and bass. Young children like feeding carrots to the mini-horses and donkeys, she said. Dawn offers day visits to property, which is also home to flocks of chickens and ducks, including some newly-hatched ducklings.
“There’s also a turkey named Clover and four peacocks,” Dawn said. “My daughter loves her birds.”
The Jesse James Hideaway hosted a farm visit for a group of teenagers from Kansas City and one of their fathers, who fished the pond. The father had never collected an egg from under a chicken before, Dawn said. Many of her Branson BnB guests were from Kansas City, so she is drawing from that list as well as advertising the farm as an event venue.
For a quiet weekend with friends, Dawn offers retreats at The Jesse James Hideway. There are four guest bedrooms upstairs, which can sleep eight, and are accessible by a chair lift on the rail of the back staircase, and she knows a massage therapist who will come to the house, she said.
The Jesse James Hideaway is appropriate for children’s birthday parties, with guests having the run of the farm and use of a picnic space with a barbecue and fire pit. Dawn, who used to own a party service, said that Jesse James Hideaway birthday parties are more farm-themed than cowboy-themed.
However, the possibility that Frank and Jesse James visited Capt. Bronaugh at the house makes it a natural for Western fans. W.C. Bronaugh spent a great deal of his own money lobbying for the parole of the two surviving Younger brothers, which was granted in 1901 on the condition they remain in Minnesota. Bronaugh is said to have met Cole and Jim at the prison when they were released.
John Younger had died in 1874 in a shootout with Pinkerton agents. Brother Bob died in prison of tuberculosis in 1889 at the age of 36.
Jim Younger was badly wounded when the three Youngers were captured after the bank robbery. He never left Minnesota, and died in St. Paul in 1902, age 54.
Cole Younger received a pardon in 1903 on the condition that he leave Minnesota and never return. Cole returned to Missouri where he joined a Wild West show with Frank James. They remained good friends with W.C. Bronaugh, perhaps reliving their Civil War days over cigars in the gentleman’s parlor of Wal’s home.
Cole Younger retired to his hometown of Lee’s Summit, Mo., where he died of a heart attack in 1916 at the age of 72.
W. C. Bronaugh wrote a book about his efforts to get the brothers released from prison, “The Youngers’ Fight for Freedom; a Southern Soldier’s Twenty Years’ Campaign to Open Northern Prison Doors,” published in 1916.
That was also the year that the Bronaugh family moved to St. Louis, according to Al, and then moved to Kansas City. Capt. Bronaugh died in Kansas City in 1923 at age 82. His body was brought back to Clinton, where he was buried at Englewood Cemetery in his Civil War uniform.
Frank James also lived a long life, but Jesse James was shot and killed in 1882 by a former member of his gang for the $10,000 bounty offered by the governor. The 53rd Jesse James Festival takes place on two weekends in mid-September at Kearney’s Jesse James Park.
The Jesse James Hideaway is located at 5102 NE Hwy. YY, Clinton Mo. 64735. To arrange a visit or book an event, call Dawn Guterman, 561-267-7914. Find the BnB listing for The Jesse James Hideaway on tripadvisor.com.
