Joseph Dacus

Joseph A. Dacus was an American writer and journalist who wrote a history of outlaws Frank and Jesse James and a survey of the 1877 St. Louis general strike. He was also a member of the Missouri State Legislature.

His first work was as an editor in Memphis, Tennessee, and after the Civil War, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri. He went to work for the Missouri Republican, where he was the "river editor." He was also with the Times, the Dispatch, and the Journal there.

In 1868, the Public Ledger of Memphis reported that Dacus was then a "Baptist preacher in Illinois," adding that "Within the brief space of five years he has been a grocer, cotton factor, farmer, school teacher, journalist, poet, political 'stump orator', book agent, chief engineer of a flatboat and superintendent of a saw mill."

He wrote popular novels, including Idle Wild, and then the successful non-fiction Life of the James Boys and Annals of the Great Strike. He also wrote "a volume of facts and figures" about the Temperance movement called Battling With the Demon. His other works included Guide to Success, Golden Glimmer, Life in the Western Wilds, The Last Christmas Eve at Pleurs and poems, critical essays, statistical works, and serial stories. He wrote for the Chicago Current and Eastern magazines.

Dacus teamed up with James W. Buel to write A Tour of St. Louis, or the Inside Life of a Great City, published in 1878.

His book on the James brothers was merchandised by subscription and was said to have sold 21,000 copies in four months' time.

Dacus served in the Missouri Legislature as a Democrat, and in 1875 he was one of the incorporators of the Valley Monthly Publishing Company in St. Louis.

During the American Civil War, Dacus went to San Luis Potosí, Mexico, where, under the name Jose Adison Da Cus, he bought "mountains" filled with gold, according to Judge J.O. Pierce of Memphis. Conflicting land claims followed.

In April 1878, Dacus spoke at a meeting of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences and presented drawings of the ruins of a "vast palace" at Xayi, Chiapas, Mexico.