Dallas history: Deaths of Bonnie and Clyde, May 23, 1934
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, notorious bank-robbing outlaws from Oak Cliff, Texas, ran into a police ambush and were shot to death on May 23, 1934, in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
Bonnie and Clyde in 1933, about a year before their deaths - Wikimedia image
Though they wished to be buried together, her family protested. They are buried in separate cemeteries in Dallas. Bonnie is buried in the Crown Hill Cemetery off of Webb Chapel Road. Clyde is buried in the Western Heights Cemetery off of Fort Worth Boulevard, in Oak Cliff.
The relatively brief “gangster era” has always intrigued me.
There are two things about it I wasn’t prepared for. One, no small number of these criminals were armed with Thompson submachine guns and Browning Automatic Rifles…ordered via mail. There were no restrictions on the ownership of these fully automatic weapons and, in the case of the Thompson at least, the 50 round, drum magazine was the preferred attachment for the crooks.
The Thompson was devastating at close range and the BAR could deliver withering and accurate fire at a distance. At first, the cops and the feds were entirely unprepared.
Which leads to the second thing I discovered.
In some instances, the banks were NOT unprepared. I remember reading an article many years ago — it might have even been in Guns & Ammo — entitled, “When the Banks Shot Back”. Some banks, including here in Indiana, trained their employees to wield shotguns, Tommyguns and sidearms…just in case. I don’t remember the article’s ultimate conclusion. But one could rationally conclude that arming bank tellers proved to be an “epic fail”.
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Interesting read, Ed.
The relatively brief “gangster era” has always intrigued me.
There are two things about it I wasn’t prepared for. One, no small number of these criminals were armed with Thompson submachine guns and Browning Automatic Rifles…ordered via mail. There were no restrictions on the ownership of these fully automatic weapons and, in the case of the Thompson at least, the 50 round, drum magazine was the preferred attachment for the crooks.
The Thompson was devastating at close range and the BAR could deliver withering and accurate fire at a distance. At first, the cops and the feds were entirely unprepared.
Which leads to the second thing I discovered.
In some instances, the banks were NOT unprepared. I remember reading an article many years ago — it might have even been in Guns & Ammo — entitled, “When the Banks Shot Back”. Some banks, including here in Indiana, trained their employees to wield shotguns, Tommyguns and sidearms…just in case. I don’t remember the article’s ultimate conclusion. But one could rationally conclude that arming bank tellers proved to be an “epic fail”.
Great post, Ed. MFB never disappoints.
Jim
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