© MPR Virtual Museum Collection

This is a very historic image as it is of the 1898 Quantrill Reunion. Most all other researchers erroneously "date" this postcard as the 1912 Reunion, as the postcards bear 1912 -1913 postmarks.

To wit, the Williamson Haffner Publishing Company company did not start producing these memorial cards until 1912 to bolster the memories of the aging Quantrill Partisan survivors. A truly historic image due it's proper identification and monumental history.

Furthermore, in this image, one can see 48 members of Quantrill's Rangers. Most notably, Frank James is shown kneeling, in brown jacket, the ninth Quantrillian from the left. We have all rosters and dates of Quantrillians attending reunions and this, by far, was the largest!

We know this is the first reunion, as there were never that many Quantrill men present at subsequent reunions after the first reunion. Again, proving it is from the first Quantrill reunion held in 1898.

Historically, after attending many reunions of the "Ex-Confederate Association Of Missouri", famed Missouri Partisan Ranger and ex-outlaw Alexander Franklin "Frank" James and his beloved wife Anna thought it time to start reuniting the surviving members of the old Missouri Partisan Ranger guerrilla band.

Frank and wife Anna decided to put together a Quantrill (Quantrell's Guerrillas) reunion. Frank and Anna hosted the reunion in Blue Springs, Missouri, and became the first of many annual reunions.

So, what we we see here is the extraordinarily phenomenal inception of the Quantrell Reunions! This is an inconceivably historic photo and misconceived by the vast majority of modern researchers.