John Newman Edwards, editor and founder of the Kansas City Times, was a former Confederate cavalryman who campaigned to return former secessionists to power in Missouri. After James was publicly labeled an "outlaw" by Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden, Edwards published the first of many letters from Jesse James to the public, asserting his innocence. Over time, the letters gradually became more political in tone and James denounced the Republicans and expressed his pride in his Confederate loyalties. Together with Edwards' admiring editorials, the letters helped James become a symbol of Confederate defiance of federal Reconstruction policy.

According to Dr. Henry F. Hoyt, a friend of Billy the Kid's who was working in the Exchange Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1879, he ran into Billy and a companion the Kid referred to as "Mr. Howard from Tennessee." The Kid later told Hoyt that "Mr. Howard" was actually Jesse James, who was in town visiting a boyhood friend from Missouri. The Kid claimed Jesse offered him a job robbing trains, but that he had replied it was not his line of business.

The most famous thing that ever happened in Garretson, South Dakota, was a meeting of the outlaw Jesse James and a ravine named Devil's Gulch. According to Garretson lore, Jesse evaded capture just outside of town by spurring his horse to leap the 20-foot ravine -- a feat that most historians agree is nearly impossible.

During their 15-year crime spree, the James-Younger Gang committed 26 holdups making off with more than $200,000 (worth approximately $4.3 million today) and killed at least seventeen men.

On September 7, 1876, Northfield, Minnesota experienced one of its most important historical events when The James-Younger Gang attempted a robbery on the First National Bank of Northfield. Local citizens armed themselves and successfully thwarted the theft. Only Jesse and Frank James escaped, while all the remaining gang members were either killed or taken into custody. The event has become the basis of an annual outdoor heritage festival called The Defeat of Jesse James Days, which is held the weekend after Labor Day and is among the largest outdoor celebrations in Minnesota. Thousands of visitors watch reenactments of the robbery, a championship rodeo, a carnival, performances of a 19th-century style melodrama musical, and a parade during the five-day event.

On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was shot in the back of the head with his own pistol by Robert Ford, a new recruit to the gang who hoped to collect a reward on James' head and get amnesty for his previous crimes. Ford and his brother Charley surrendered to the authorities and were dismayed to be charged with first-degree murder. In the course of a single day, the Ford brothers were indicted, pleaded guilty, were sentenced to death by hanging, and were granted a full pardon by Governor Crittenden. The governor's quick pardon suggested he knew the brothers intended to kill James rather than capture him. The implication that the chief executive of Missouri conspired to kill a private citizen startled the public and added to James' notoriety.

James's original grave was on his family property, but he was later moved to Mount Olivet Cemetery in Kearney, Missouri. The original footstone is still there, although the family has replaced the headstone. James' mother Zerelda Samuel wrote the following epitaph for him: "In Loving Memory of my Beloved Son, Murdered by a Traitor and Coward Whose Name is not Worthy to Appear Here."

After his death, Zerelda charged tourists a quarter for pebbles taken from his grave.

Already a celebrity in life, James became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death. In the 1880s, the James Gang became the subject of dime novels that represented the bandits as pre-industrial models of resistance, standing up against corporations in defense of the small farmer. But despite popular portrayals of James as an embodiment of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, there is no evidence that he and his gang shared any loot from their robberies with anyone outside their gang and close family.

Numerous actors have portrayed Jesse James in film and television, including Kris Kristofferson in The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James (1986), Rob Lowe in Frank and Jesse (1994), and Brad Pitt in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007).