A Dry Run for Northfield?

Did Jesse James use another holdup as preparation?

July 7, 1876. Members of the James-Younger Gang held up a train outside Otterville, Missouri. They got away with more than $15,000.

This may have been something of a dry run for their next project—robbing a bank in Northfield, Minnesota on September 7. The same robbers took part in both jobs, with the exception of Hobbs Kerry, who served as lookout at the train robbery. He was arrested a few weeks later and jailed. The others, of course, went on to the disaster in Northfield.