DURANGO, Iowa -- Banks, trains and stagecoaches were all targets of outlaw Jesse James, the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang.

When Gary and Sharon Childers bought their 15-acre farm located west of Durango on U.S. 52-Iowa 3 in 1976, they were told there was a Jesse James connection.

About five years ago, the couple combined Internet research and exploring books and scrapbooks to find out whether the connection was fact or fallacy.

In a TimeLife series book "The Gunfighters," the Childers say they found a picture of their house with the James Gang standing outside.

The log cabin house gang members are standing in front of is now the doorway between the Childers' kitchen and dining room.

Jesse James neither owned the property nor lived on it, but he and the gang visited often, Gary Childers said. James' stepfather's (Reuben Samuel) second cousin, Presely Samuel, built the house. Samuel is buried in Dubuque's Linwood Cemetery.

Childers, a retired teacher, said the log house was "hidden," covered with plaster

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and lathe over it. Gary, an accomplished artist, decorator and carpenter, removed the material, opening it up so he could see the log cabin, which he estimates was about 15-feet by 25-feet. Little did he know then what his research would later reveal.

"They used this as a hideout," Childers said. "They were probably here numerous times. I think the last time they were here is before they went up to Northfield (Minn.) and robbed the bank (First National Bank) up there."

Childers can imagine what the area looked like about the time the James-Younger Gang departed for the ill-fated raid in Northfield in September 1876.

"It was probably a nice place to live, scenic, the bluffs and the Little Maquoketa River," he said. "It would have been a perfect hideout. They had to have relatives because there weren't hotels. Somebody had to sympathize with them, and not get into the politics of it."