Monday is the birthdate of Bonnie Parker, one of the most famous criminals to haunt Depression-era America--including Arkansas. By the time she died in a hail of gunfire when only 24 years of age, Bonnie and her lover and partner-in-crime Clyde Barrow were front-page news across much of the world. Were they not so prone to killing innocent people, it would be tempting to paint the young lovers as romantic characters--badly flawed for sure, but still romantic.
Born Oct. 1, 1910, Bonnie was the middle of three children born to Henry and Emma Parker in the tiny central Texas town of Rowena. Her father died in 1914, pushing the family into dire poverty. Despite her plight, Bonnie was a good student. She especially enjoyed writing poetry and consumed romance novels--perhaps clues to understanding why she would throw away her life in a hopeless liaison with a young but hardened criminal.
Though she stood only four feet, eight inches tall and weighed a mere 85 pounds, Bonnie was an attractive young woman. She had a steady boyfriend, Roy Thornton, whom she married in 1926. According to the entry on Bonnie Parker in the Handbook of Texas History, the young couple "suffered a tumultuous marriage." Bonnie refused to divorce Roy, and indeed she had the words "Roy and Bonnie" tattooed above her right knee.
About this time, Roy was given a five-year prison sentence. Alone and highly vulnerable, Bonnie met and immediately became enamored of Clyde Barrow in January 1930, only one month before he too was sent to prison. Barrow escaped in March 1930 when Bonnie smuggled a pistol into his cell. He was soon caught and back behind bars.
Clyde was paroled after two years, and Bonnie rejoined her black-haired beau. They immediately began robbing their favorite targets--small grocery stores, filling stations, and occasionally small banks.
Jill Curran, the author of the entry on Bonnie and Clyde in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, notes that the Barrow Gang was never very large, including "at one time or another Clyde's brother Marvin "Buck" Barrow, Marvin's wife Blanche Caldwell Barrow, Raymond Hamilton, Henry Methvin, and William (W.D.) Jones." Over the next two years, these criminals committed 12 murders--the majority being law enforcement officers.
The Barrow Gang repeatedly robbed businesses across much of middle America: Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. In the early summer of 1933, the gang made its way to Arkansas. Actually, the group had driven through Arkansas on several occasions as Clyde used the state's back roads to escape the police.
James R. Knight, author of an excellent account of the Barrow Gang in Arkansas, noted that "they stayed about 10 days and were involved in or accused of robbery, murder, rape, and assault and were the subject of a three-county manhunt."
The Barrow Gang came to Arkansas in search of a quiet place to hide out while Bonnie recovered from a burned leg suffered in an automobile accident in Texas. On the evening of June 14, 1933, Clyde rented two cabins at the Dennis Tourist Camp in Fort Smith. The party consisted of five people, though Bonnie's sister Billie later joined them from Texas.
When the group ran low on money, Clyde sent his brother Buck and 17-year-old W.D. Jones on a mission to rob a store and steal a larger car to replace the Ford sedan they were driving. In an apparent attempt to draw attention away from Fort Smith, Buck and Jones drove northward to Fayetteville before casing three grocery stores. They robbed Brown Grocery on Lafayette Street, netting a measly $20.35, then fled southward at a high speed on Highway 71.
The Fayetteville police called authorities in several nearby towns including Alma, where town Marshal Henry D. Humphrey and Crawford County deputy sheriff Ansel M. "Red" Salyers drove north on Highway 71 in an attempt to intercept the gangsters.
Buck drove the getaway car at an unsafe speed and crashed into a slower car just as Marshal Humphrey's car drove by. The officers turned their car around and returned to the scene of the wreck. Buck Barrow, though shook up in the crash, grabbed his brother's sawed-off shotgun and shot Marshal Humphrey in the chest. Deputy Salyers fired several shots at the robbers to no avail. He then fled to a nearby farmhouse, reloaded his rifle, and proceeded to shoot at the fugitives as they drove off in the deputy's car.
Before it was all over, Buck and Jones were afoot when they sneaked across the Arkansas River on a railroad bridge and rejoined the gang at the tourist camp. They immediately fled and by daylight on Saturday, June 24, 1933, the gang was hiding in dense woods in Oklahoma, about 125 miles west of Fort Smith. Two days later Marshal Humphrey died. The Barrow Gang fled to Kansas and then to Oklahoma. They broke into a National Guard armory in Enid, Okla., taking a variety of weapons.
By this point law enforcement agencies across the region were focused on Bonnie and Clyde. The gang survived two fierce firefights, though Buck was severely injured, prompting him and his wife to surrender. He died on July 29.
Miraculously, Bonnie, Clyde, and W.D. Jones all recovered from their wounds and continued their rampage for several more months--even helping five men escape from a Texas state prison farm.
On May 23, 1934, former Texas ranger Frank Hamer and five other lawmen caught Bonnie and Clyde in an ambush near Shreveport, La. Given the number of lawmen killed by the Barrow Gang, it is not surprising that Hamer and his men opened fire without warning. A barrage of 167 bullets riddled both Bonnie and Clyde. Bonnie was said to be holding a gun, a sandwich, and a pack of cigarettes when she died.
Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.
Editorial on 09/30/2018