Banks known or suspected of being robbed by Clyde Barrow
Unknown bank somewhere in the Midwest. Robbed by Clyde Barrow, Ralph Fults, and Raymond Hamilton sometime between March 25 and April 11, 1932. The take was said to have been $33,000, but the location is unknown. (For Ralph Fults’ version of the robbery, and the problems involved, see the end of this appendix.)
Farmers and Miners Bank, Oronogo, Missouri. Robbed by Clyde Barrow, Frank Hardy, and Hollis Hale, November 30, 1932. One of three occasions when Clyde Barrow was required to fire a weapon during a bank robbery. He returned the fire of a teller who pulled a gun inside the bank and exchanged shots with some townspeople who fired at the bandits as they were driving away. In spite of all the shooting, no one was hit. The take was said to have been around $100.
Lucerne State Bank, Lucerne, Indiana. Robbed by Clyde and Buck Barrow on May 12, 1933. Probably the brothers’ first attempt at bank robbery together. They broke into the bank during the night and surprised the first two employees to come to work. These men managed to take cover inside the vault and arm themselves, however, so Clyde and Buck fired several shots inside the bank and ran to the car, where Bonnie and Blanche were waiting. During the getaway, they shot up the town, slightly wounded two bystanders, and ran over two pigs. No money was taken.
First State Bank, Okabena, Minnesota. Robbed by Clyde and Buck Barrow on May 19, 1933. The Barrow family, in two different documents, claim that Clyde and Buck did this robbery, but three other people were tried and convicted for it. This was the third time that there was an exchange of gunfire associated with a Clyde Barrow bank robbery. Again, no one was hit. The take was given by the local paper as $1,419.
First National Bank, Rembrandt, Iowa. Robbed by Clyde Barrow, Raymond Hamilton, Henry Methvin, Hilton Bybee, and Joe Palmer on Tuesday, January 23, 1934. This was the first bank robbery done by the second “Barrow gang,” one week after the January 16 Eastham Prison Farm escape. The take was $3,800.
Central National Bank, Poteau, Oklahoma. Robbed by Clyde Barrow, Henry Methvin, Raymond Hamilton, and Joe Palmer on Thursday, January 25, 1934. This robbery was done forty-eight hours after— and 500 miles away from—the Rembrandt, Iowa, job, but two sources credit it to the Barrow gang, which at this point was just trying to raise money as quickly as possible. The take was $1,500.
State Savings Bank, Knierim, Iowa. Robbed by Clyde Barrow, Henry Methvin, and Raymond Hamilton on February 1, 1934. This was the third bank robbed by the gang in nine days. By this point, the gang had lost two members. Hilton Bybee had left them and been captured in Amarillo, Texas, and Joe Palmer was staying in Joplin, Missouri. The take was $272 from the bank and $35 from a customer.
R. P. Henry and Sons Bank, Lancaster, Texas. Robbed by Clyde Barrow, Henry Methvin, and Raymond Hamilton on February 27, 1934. On this occasion, Clyde Barrow returned $27 to a bank customer rather than take his WPA paycheck. A disagreement about how the money should be divided from this robbery began the final split between Clyde Barrow and Raymond Hamilton. The take was $4,176.
First National Bank, Stuart, Iowa. Robbed by Clyde Barrow and Henry Methvin on April 16, 1934. Barrow and Methvin had become separated from Joe Palmer after the Grapevine killings. Bonnie waited in the car. The take was no more than $1,500—probably less.
Farmers Trust and Savings Bank branch located at Everly, Iowa. Robbed by Clyde Barrow, Henry Methvin, and Joe Palmer on May 3, 1934. By this time, Palmer had rejoined the gang. This is the last bank robbery done by Clyde Barrow for which we have any evidence. At first, the take was thought to be as much as $2,000, but later checks by the bank found that the gang had missed a good part of the cash on hand. The bank’s final loss figure was about $700.
For these ten bank robberies, we have fairly convincing evidence that Clyde Barrow was involved. There are others that some authors credit to Barrow but lack the same kind of evidence. For instance:
First State Bank of Willis, Texas, robbed on July 28, 1932. This is sometimes credited to Clyde Barrow and Raymond Hamilton, who were twenty-three and nineteen years old at the time, even though the two men involved were described as “about 30 years old, heavily whiskered and dressed in overalls and khaki shirts.” The men, whoever they were, got $3,575.
Commercial Bank, Alma, Arkansas, robbed in the early hours of June 22, 1933. Clyde Barrow, Buck Barrow, and W. D. Jones were staying in a tourist camp thirteen miles away when this robbery occurred, so some authors assume that it was their work. The robbery included the capture of the town marshal, who was serving as the night watchman, and the physical removal of a 4,000-pound safe containing $3,600 by use of a stolen truck with a winch. The safe was later found unopened with the contents intact, so whoever did it got nothing.
Finally, there is the mystery bank where Clyde Barrow, Ralph Fults, and Raymond Hamilton made their big score sometime around the first of April 1932. The only account of the robbery was given by Fults to his biographer, John Neal Phillips, fifty years after the fact, and it goes like this:
Fults said that after the three of them decided against robbing the bank at Okabena, Minnesota (see p. 43), they drove south to Lawrence, Kansas. There they checked in to the Eldridge Hotel and began to case the First National Bank at the corner of Eighth and Massachusetts. They watched it for three days, and on the morning of the fourth day they intercepted the bank president at the front door as he came to work and took him inside, along with two other employees who happened to show up. A few minutes later, Raymond Hamilton pulled the car around and the three left with two bags full of money totaling $33,000. They then drove away, without seeing any pursuit, and didn’t stop until they reached East St. Louis.1
Fults’ story is very convincing and his details are accurate. The building occupied by the First National Bank in 1932 stills stands today in downtown Lawrence (it’s a restaurant called Tellers), and the old Eldridge Hotel is still there too (also a restaurant), just one block north on Seventh Street. Unfortunately, no record has ever been found of a robbery of the First National or any other bank in Lawrence during the time in question. In 1932 the First National Bank of Lawrence did business out of an impressive three-story marble building and had a capitalization of $300,000. It was probably the largest bank in town—maybe in the county. The odds that it could have been robbed, in the middle of downtown at 8:45 in the morning, of an amount of cash that would have represented just over 10 percent of its assets, and that the event would leave no record in any of the newspapers or other documents of the time, are very long indeed.
Ralph Fults’ record for accuracy in the stories he told his biographer is extremely good, and at least three people saw Clyde Barrow or one of the others with a lot of money after they returned to Texas from the road trip, so they almost certainly made a big score somewhere, and the amount of money involved favors a bank job. For all Fults’ detail, however, Lawrence, Kansas, seems out of the running and the actual location remains a mystery.
There were other bank robberies planned but never carried out, and probably some that were done that we know nothing about. No one can even begin to guess how many robberies of other, smaller places were done, or the number of stolen cars for which Clyde Barrow was responsible.
INTRODUCTION
1. Jan I. Fortune, Fugitives: The Story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker (Ranger Press, Inc., Dallas, 1934).
2. All stories and other materials pertaining to the Barrow family history have as their source—unless otherwise referenced—notes taken by Jonathan Davis during several years of conversations with Marie Barrow Scoma at her home in Dallas, Texas. These notes were taken with Mrs. Barrow’s permission in the knowledge that they might someday be used in a publication. Mrs. Barrow also furnished other family material for Mr. Davis’ use. Together, they form the basis for most of the Barrow family material in this volume. Other materials, used to verify Mrs. Barrow’s information, or Mrs. Barrow’s statements given to others, will be separately cited.
3. The serie
s entitled “The Bloody Barrows” ran in True Detective magazine in six installments from June through November 1934.
4. Marie Barrow was a woman of strong opinions, especially where her family and her famous (or infamous) brothers were concerned. She felt that they were unfairly portrayed in every book, newsreel, or movie she saw. Of course, some were worse than others. She was known, on occasion, to take a copy of what she considered the worst offenders and bounce them off the walls of her house, or to say a few well-chosen words to their authors when she met them. Sadly, her feelings about the accuracy of many of the works on Bonnie and Clyde were well founded. Many of the errors that originated in The Bloody Barrows and Fugitives can be followed through all later treatments, some of which—like the 1967 movie—would also add new ones of their own. The good news, for those of us interested in the true story, is that the level of scholarship and documentation has risen substantially in the last few years. By far the best effort to date—and this was grudgingly admitted by Marie Barrow herself—is the 1996 book by John Neal Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde.
5. Marie Barrow’s concern that nobody came to the family and asked for information may have been sincere, but the fact is, she and other family members have said repeatedly that the subject was not discussed for years afterward—even among themselves. One of Clyde’s younger nephews said that it was never discussed when children were in the room. He finally asked, “Who was Clyde?” He was told that they would tell him when he was older. He was seventeen at the time. Somehow, the idea that the family would have been receptive to requests from authors during this time to “set the record straight” is a little hard to believe. This began to change in the 1980s and 1990s. The two most recent books on Bonnie and Clyde, as well as this one, have had significant Barrow family involvement.
6. Marie Barrow often left the impression that everything in Fugitives was made up by Jan Fortune. It has, in fact, been shown to be in error in many places, and must be verified by other sources, but recent research has shown it to be more accurate than previously believed. Fugitives is still the starting point for any study of the subject and is repeatedly referenced by all authors.
7. For instance, the True Detective series cited above was written by the chief of detectives of the Joplin, Missouri, Police, Ed Portley.
CHAPTER 1
1. These dates for the births of Buck and Nell are the ones the Barrow family insists are correct. Unfortunately, Buck’s headstone says “1905–1933.” Marie Barrow said that, in the stress and confusion of Clyde’s death and funeral, her mother, Cumie, gave the wrong date for Buck’s birth to the stonecutters who were preparing the marker. For personal and financial reasons, it had been agreed that the two brothers would be buried side by side and share one marker, so it wasn’t bought and engraved until Clyde’s death. Most researchers, and the Barrow family, agree that the 1903 date is actually correct for Buck Barrow.
2. L. C. was the only name Clyde’s younger brother ever used. As far as the Barrow family members know today, the initials didn’t stand for anything. Some of the news items at the time of L. C.’s death give names for the initials, but the family says that they are not correct.
CHAPTER 2
1. The family stories in this chapter come from Marie Barrow’s conversations with Jonathan Davis.
CHAPTER 3
1.The information on the effect of the end of World War I on the cotton market in the South and the lives of farmers was taken from a speech given by Charles R. Starbird, attorney for the Commercial Bank, Alma, Arkansas, on his retirement. Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1981. Mr. Starbird was eighty-six years old at the time. His father was an original stockholder when the bank was founded in 1902.
CHAPTER 4
1. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript. There is some question about the dates here. If the 1903 date for Buck’s birth is correct, as most researchers believe, then the 1920 date in the text represents Buck at seventeen, as his mother’s manuscript says. Unfortunately, the manuscript goes on to say that this was “shortly after we moved to Dallas,” which was in 1922. If this is true, then Buck would have been nineteen at the time—unless, of course, we are all mistaken and the 1905 date on Buck’s tombstone is correct, after all. Sometime in this two-year period, Marvin I. Barrow married Margaret Heneger.
2. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript.
CHAPTER 5
1. One of Clyde Barrow’s pay stubs, furnished by Sandy Jones, shows wages of $18 for sixty hours’ work.
2. According to her cousin, Lela Heslep, the girl’s full name was Eleanor Bee Williams. Eleanor had two brothers who worked at Procter and Gamble, so that may be how Clyde met her. This mirror was recently sold in the same auction as Clyde’s rifle. For the information about Eleanor Bee Williams, the author would like to thank Buddy Williams and Lela Heslep.
3. John Neal Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1996), p. 45.
4. Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 23–24.
CHAPTER 6
1. True Detective magazine, “The Inside Story of the Bloody Barrows,” by Ed Portley, June 1934.
2. Ibid.
3. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript.
4. Buck Barrow to Ralph Fults. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 101–102.
5. If anything, the Barrow family seemed to feel that Clyde took advantage of his older brother’s concern about him. They admit that Buck took the blame for things that were really Clyde’s doing. They believed that Buck felt responsible for Clyde’s situation and tried repeatedly to get him to mend his ways. This was not reflected in Buck’s conversations in prison, however. Cumie T. Barrow, unpublished manuscript. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 101–102.
6. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 46.
7. E. R. Milner, The Life and Times of Bonnie and Clyde (Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, IL., 1996), p. 11.
8. Robert E. Davis, edited by Eugene Baker, Blanche Barrow: The Last Victim of Bonnie and Clyde (Waco, Texas, 2001), p. 8. The information on Blanche’s birth is from her birth certificate, published by Mr. Davis.
9. Ibid., p. 62.
10. Marie Barrow, as told to Sandy Jones.
11. The information on Buck’s wives comes from his mother’s writings. She says Buck’s first wife was Margaret Heneger. Less than a year later, however, he fell for another girl, named Pearl Churchley. Margaret divorced him and received custody of their son. Buck and Pearl later married and had a daughter, but then separated. That was Buck’s situation when he met Blanche in early 1929. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript.
12. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 125, 306.
13. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 30.
14. Denton (TX) Record Chronicle, November 30, 1929.
15. E.R. Milner, The Life and Times of Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 11–15. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 46–47.
16. Other sources say that Bonnie was there because someone (Clay’s daughter or a girlfriend of Bonnie’s) had broken an arm in an accident. Bonnie was helping out with the housework either out of the goodness of her heart or because she had been hired to do so (she was out of work at the time), depending on the source (see Phillips, p. 47; Milner, p. 17; and Fortune, p. 57). Marie Barrow always maintained that it was just a social gathering with no injured girl involved.
17. E. R. Milner, The Life and Times of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 15. Marie Barrow to Jonathan Davis.
CHAPTER 7
1. Milner, The Life and Times of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 16.
2. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 36.
3. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 81.
4. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 44.
5. Ibid., p. 43.
6. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 82–84, note 63.
7. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 47.
8. Milner, The Life and Times of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 17.
9. Phillips, Running with B
onnie and Clyde, p. 83. Bonnie may have worked at a third cafe also. Ted Hinton says he knew her as a waitress at the “American Cafe,” near the post office. Ted Hinton, Ambush (Bryan, Texas, 1979), p. 7.
CHAPTER 8
1. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 59.
2. Ibid. Milner, The Life and Times of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 17.
3. According to the heading on Bonnie’s letters to Clyde while he was in jail, the house was located at 1406 Cockrell Street. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 61.
4. Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 59–60.
5. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 47–48. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 71.
6. Text of letter provided by Jonathan Davis.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Many authors like to emphasize the fact that Bonnie was small, and she certainly was petite. Marie Barrow, who was over 5 feet, said that, as a fifteen-year-old, she was sent to buy clothes for Bonnie, since she and Bonnie wore the same sizes. There are several pictures of Clyde and Bonnie side by side in which Bonnie reaches to at least the bridge of Clyde’s nose. This would make Bonnie about four to five inches shorter than Clyde, who was variously listed as 5'5½" to 5'7". While the 4'10" that some have stated is probably too small, the 5'5" given for Bonnie by the Division of Investigation (later the FBI) is certainly too tall. Most likely, Bonnie was 5 feet to 5'1". Marie Barrow interview. Dept. of Investigation wanted poster #1227, May 21, 1934. Hinton, Ambush, p. 11.
10. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 56. Marie Barrow interview.
11. Ibid., p. 71.
CHAPTER 9
1. Some may wonder how this escape would be possible from a prison such as Huntsville. The fact is that Buck was not at the main prison location (called “The Wallss”). It would have been almost impossible for them to simply walk away from there. Buck (see his letter of February 24, 1930) was at one of the outlying “farms.” These were old cotton plantations acquired by the state in the surrounding countryside. The inmates were used as convict labor in the agricultural operations, which were named for the family who had owned them before the state took over. Buck was at Ferguson Farm. Later, he and Clyde would be at Eastham Farm.
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