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A glass frame covers what may well be the most famous hole in the wall in the United States.

"We call it 'the legendary bullet hole,'" says Gary Chilcote, curator of the Jesse James Home in this western Missouri city.

The hole is about 2.2 metres from the floor in the high-ceilinged living room. "About the height where Jesse's head would have been as he stood on a chair to straighten a picture," says Chilcote.

Everybody knows how Jesse James, bank and train robber, was shot dead from behind by a new member of his gang, Bob Ford, as he juggled with a picture that was askew. The date was April 3, 1882.

Forensic scientists say the bullet probably never left his skull - "that's why we call it the 'legendary' bullet hole," says Chilcote. "But a reporter at the time wrote about a bullet hole in the wall. We think maybe Charley Ford [the assassin's brother, who was also in the room] may have fired, too, and missed.''

The house, where James was living under the name Thomas Howard with his wife and family, is one stop on the Jesse James Trail, a number of places in Missouri associated with the man who has gone into folklore as the Robin Hood of the West. These places are gearing for a boost in visitors with the release of the new movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, in which Alberta stood in for 1880s Missouri. Brad Pitt plays James and Casey Affleck is Bob Ford. The movie will make its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this month.

The Jesse James Home stands at 12th and Penn streets in St. Joseph, having been moved from a block away.

James's life of crime ended in St. Joe. But it began 16 years earlier in the little town of Liberty, Mo., 80 kilometres to the south, and a red-brick building in Liberty's town square is the next stop on my self-guided tour of the Jesse James Trail.

In 1866 this building was the Clay County Savings Association bank. On Feb. 13, 1866, two men entered and paused to warm their hands at the pot-bellied stove. Then one of them sauntered over to the counter, pulled a gun and said: "I'd like all the money in the bank.''

The building is now the Jesse James Bank Museum. The pot-bellied stove is still there; so is the counter and the strong room where the bandits herded the bank clerks before fleeing with $60,000 - equivalent to more than $1-million today, according to Carolyn Brennecka, a guide at the museum. Visitors can handle a sack full of metal washers, simulating one of the sacks of gold and silver coins the bandits stole, along with paper money and bonds. Also on display is a copy of chief teller George Bird's statement, in his copper-plate handwriting, detailing the raid.

"We believe the two men in the bank were Frank James (Jesse's older brother) and Arch Clement, a gang member, and that Jesse was keeping watch outside," says Brennecka.

The robbery was a sensation. Apart from a Confederate raid on a bank in St. Albans, Vt., in 1864, during the Civil War, no one had robbed a bank in daylight before in the U.S.

As the bandits rode off, one of them - no one knows which - shot and killed a 19-year-old student, George Wigmore. It was the first of many peacetime deaths attributed to the James brothers - the word "peacetime" being relevant because they had fought as Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War under William Clarke Quantrill, the leader of the Lawrence Massacre in Kansas.

The hunt for the bank robbers spread west into Kansas, but it didn't reach a farm just 20 kilometres north of Liberty where the widow Zerelda Samuels lived with her two sons, Frank and Jesse James. .

Clay County now runs the farm as a park. There's a visitor centre, where a video tells the Jesse James story, and decades of movie posters and dime-novel covers show how the outlaw became a pop icon.

A short walk from the visitor centre takes you to the farmhouse, recreated inside to look much as it did in the last quarter of the 19th century. Visitors can view a picture of Zerelda and then stand where she was standing when the Pinkerton's National Detective Agency men threw in a bomb, hoping to get Jesse. Instead, Zerelda lost an arm, and popular opinion in Missouri turned in favour of the James gang.

A gravestone in the yard bears the inscription "Jesse Woodson James ... murdered April 3, 1882, by a traitor and coward whose name is not worthy to appear here." The stone is a replica; the original, much of it chipped away, is in a glass case in the visitor centre.

James was first buried on the farm, but in 1902 his remains were removed and reburied in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Kearney, beside his wife, who died in 1900. That gravesite, 50 metres from the eastern boundary of the graveyard, is now a place of pilgrimage for James fans.

"The coward Robert Ford" of the movie title is buried about 35 kilometres east of Kearney in Richmond, Mo. He was shot dead in Creede, Colo., in 1892; his killer, Ed Kelly, was jailed but later pardoned.

Western fans still place flowers on Jesse's grave and on Frank's, in Hill Park Cemetery, Independence, Mo. Frank surrendered after Jesse's death. He faced just one charge - robbing a payroll in Alabama - and was found not guilty. He died in 1915, aged 72.

Around the turn of the last century he could be found leading visitors around the James farm, for 50 cents a head, and selling pebbles from Jesse's grave.

Pack your bags

GETTING THERE

The Jesse James sites mentioned in this story are within 100 kilometres of Kansas City, Mo., which is served by major airlines.

JESSE JAMES TRAIL

Jesse James Home 12th and Penn streets in St. Joseph, Mo.; (816) 232-8206; http://www.stjoseph.net/ponyexpress. It is open daily and is part of the Patee House Museum, which also features exhibits on the Pony Express.

James Farm 21216 Jesse James Farm Rd., Kearney, Mo.; (816) 628-6065. It is open daily.

jesse james bank museum 103 North Water Street, Liberty, Mo.; (816) 781-4458; http://www.claycogov.com. It is open Monday through Saturday.

Jesse James's grave Mount Olivet Cemetery on Highway 92, Kearney.

Bob Ford's grave Richmond Cemetery, West Main Street, Richmond, Mo.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford The movie was filmed in and around Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg. The movie is based on a novel of the same name by Ron Hansen (Harper Perennial).

MORE INFORMATION

For general tourist information, visit http://www.visitmo.com.