You've read the story of Jesse James---
of how he lived and died;
If you're still in need
Of something to read,
Here's the story of Bonnie & Clyde.
--Bonnie Parker, 1934

By: Deborah Ground Buckner

In the midst of America's Great Depression, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow became legendary for their spree of criminal activity throughout the Midwest. Bonnie, blond, blue-eyed, petite, a little girl who had been an excellent student, prize-winning speller, and talented actress in school plays, and Clyde, lean and wiry, nattily dressed, with the face of a choir boy, made “good copy” in the nation's newspapers—so much so that a group of Dallas newsboys sent a beautiful spray of flowers to Bonnie's funeral after she and Clyde were gunned down by law officers waiting in ambush on May 23, 1934.

Recently, over 400 people gathered in Kansas City for “The Red Crown Symposium and Road Tour” to remember these notorious outlaws and the law officers who fought them. Jim Spawn, an antique car collector and editor of “The Restorer” magazine coordinated the event. On July 20, 1933, the Red Crown Tavern, near Platte City, Missouri, was the scene of one of the most violent shoot-outs between the Barrow Gang and officers of the law. Two tourist cabins behind the gasoline station and restaurant gave shelter to the Barrow Gang: Clyde, Bonnie (recovering from near-fatal burns suffered in an automobile accident), their young confederate, W. D. Jones; Clyde's brother, Ivan “Buck” Barrow; and Buck's wife, Blanche. The party aroused suspicion. They did not eat in the restaurant, a popular eating spot in the county; instead, Blanche purchased fried chicken, sandwiches, and beer, paying with nickels and dimes, and took them back to the cabin. Clyde, dressed in a pinstripe suit, silk shirt, and fedora, entered the drugstore in rural Platte City to buy medicine for Bonnie. This stylish stranger clearly was out of place in the rural community. A check of the license plate of the car they kept closed inside the garage between the two cabins revealed the car was stolen.

If they try to act like citizens

And rent them a nice little flat,

About the third night,

They're invited to fight,

By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.

As these tips came together, Platte County Sheriff Holt Coffey contacted Jackson County law officers in Kansas City, Missouri, and asked for assistance, including an armored car. The Missouri Highway Patrol also joined in the plans. In those days, the highway patrol was without two-way radio communication. Headquarters would telephone restaurants officers were known to frequent and leave a message with orders and information. Early in the morning, the law officers converged at the Red Crown. Enough gossip had spread through the community that an entourage of spectators accompanied them. In the ensuing shoot-out, as the Barrow Gang discovered “the law” was outside, Sheriff Coffey and his son, Clarence, were wounded as was a Jackson County officer. But the Barrows, for once, sustained the greater damage. Buck received a head wound that would prove fatal and Blanche was blinded in her left eye by a spray of glass as officers shot out the window of the car while the gang made its getaway.

Only days later, another raid on the Barrows in Dexter, Iowa, led to the capture of Buck, who died in a hospital soon after, and Blanche, who was taken back to Platte City for trial. Bonnie and Clyde continued on the run until they met their fate in Louisiana the following May.

Among the crowd that gathered for the Symposium were members of the Barrow and Parker families and descendants of the various law enforcement officers who served during the Red Crown shoot-out. Over 100 antique automobile enthusiasts were present, driving their cars (many Model A Fords) along the route believed to have been taken by the Barrow gang as they made their escape from the Red Crown. Some arrived dressed in 1930s period attire, complete with prop machine guns.

What is it that today, seventy-four years after the shoot-out, draws such a crowd? Why have two bandits, more famous for their amazing escapes than for the amounts they robbed (mostly from grocery stores and gas stations), endured as public figures? Author Rick Mattix (Public Enemies: America's Criminal Past 1919-1940, with William J. Helmer; Dillinger: The Untold Story, with G. Russell Girardin and William J. Helmer) notes that the early 1930s in America saw a number of “bandit gangs”: The Barrow Gang, “Baby-Face” Nelson, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, John Dillinger, Ma Barker and her Boys. These gangs were a culmination of the old west, the last days of desperadoes such as Jesse James and Cole Younger, and also of the days of Prohibition when gangs of criminals, such as that of Al Capone in Chicago, ruled. It was an era when antiquated laws allowed criminals to evade justice simply by passing from one jurisdiction to another. Law enforcement officers had little means to communicate with each other. Automobiles provided fast escapes and were still so unsophisticated that it was easy to steal another when one developed engine trouble or simply became “too hot.”

Moreover, just as Jesse James was a product of the American Civil War, so were the bandit gangs of the 1930s the products of the Great Depression. Author James W. Farley (Forgotten Valor) reminded the Symposium of the darkest days of the Depression: Farm foreclosures were commonplace, farm hands worked for one dollar a day, banks were closing, school districts struggled with overcrowding and insufficient books and supplies. Just as in the era of the James Gang, when banks and railroads prospered at the expense of farmers and young Confederate soldiers returned from the war unable to make a living, many young people in the Depression found themselves in similar circumstances. Clyde Barrow, unskilled, uneducated, found a way to make easy money. When he was caught as a young man, his time in the Texas prison system gave him a new brutality and a knowledge that it was far better to run and hide or even be killed than to risk facing prison again.

But the laws fooled around,

Kept taking him down

And locking him up in a cell,

Till he said to me,

“I'll never be free,

So I'll meet a few of them in hell.

Perhaps, more than anything else, Bonnie and Clyde's endurance is the result of their relationship. The nice girl, running with the bad boy, hoping, believing someday, he will change, but even if he doesn't, still needing to be by his side. Their ending, perhaps even more tragically viewed because they knew it would come, propelled them into legendary status alongside Jesse James, shot in the back by “that dirty little coward.”

They don't think they're too tough or desperate,

They know that the law always wins;

They've been shot at before,

But they do not ignore

That death is the wages of sin.

Someday they'll go down together;

And they'll bury them side by side;

To few it'll be grief--

To the law a relief--

But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.

The books, too, have kept the legend alive. Almost immediately after their deaths, Bonnie's mother, Emma Parker, and Clyde's sister, Nell Barrow Cowan, wrote The Fugitives (with Jan Fortune). Reminding their readers that even the most violent of criminals still had families that loved them, the two shared childhood stories of Bonnie and Clyde, told of secret family reunions and of the couple's love for each other. The book was re-published in the 1960s as The Story of Bonnie and Clyde when the Arthur Penn-directed movie Bonnie and Clyde starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway generated new interest.

Blanche Barrow, who survived the Red Crown Tavern shootout and served time in the Missouri State Penitentiary, wrote her memoirs. My Life with Bonnie & Clyde, edited by John Neal Phillips, tells the story of a beautiful young girl who fell hopelessly in love with Buck Barrow. She married him, not knowing he had escaped from prison. Once she learned the truth, she persuaded him to give himself up and return to serve his time, promising she would wait for him. When Buck was pardoned only a short time later, Blanche looked forward to their life together, but a visit with little brother Clyde, whom Buck hoped to persuade to give up his life of crime, resulted in a shootout in Joplin, Missouri. Buck joined his brother as a wanted man. Blanche, like Bonnie, chose to stay beside the man she loved.

In Running with Bonnie and Clyde The Ten Fast Years of Ralph Fults, John Neal Phillips tells the story of an early confederate of the Barrow gang, Ralph Fults, who met Clyde in prison. The story is compiled from news accounts, court documents, eyewitness interviews and Fults's testimony.

The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, by John Treherne, strips away the various biases presented in the books by the Parker and Barrow family members. He tells a story of a psychopath, forever scarred by his childhood poverty and days in prison, making a life of bumbling robberies and fast escapes with his girlfriend beside him.

Ambush, by Ted Hinton, tells the story of the famous duo from the perspective of one of the law enforcement officers who shot Bonnie and Clyde. Ironically, Hinton had been acquainted with Bonnie before her life of crime began, when she worked as a waitress in Dallas.

For those whose interest cannot be sated merely by reading, an annual Bonnie and Clyde Festival is held in Gibsland, Louisiana, on or around May 23. Also, Jim Spawn reports plans are already underway for an expanded Red Crown Symposium in Kansas City next July 19th, marking the 75^th anniversary of the shootout.