law enforcement – Page 3 – Texas History Notebook

Frank James in Texas

Former bank robber Frank James lived in Dallas, Texas for a while. In an Associated Press newspaper article out of Dallas in The Indiana Gazette issue of April 26, 1957, it was reported that James’ former personal barber, an African American by the name of Johnny Dickson, had died at the age of 89. Dickson had said that James was a regular customer at his Dallas shop. A barber since the age of 14, when he started cutting hair, Dickson had to stand on a box or a stool to see the top of his customers’ heads. Dickson had come to Dallas in 1887 and began working at the Bird Cage Barber Shop. The barber shop got its name for the two caged canaries that were kept inside and sang for customers. Dickson said that Frank James would ride up to the shop on a handsome sorrel horse and just drop the reins, trusting the mount to wait for him. Dickson added that James was usually quiet and did not have much to say.

1894 Longview Bank Robbery by the Bill Dalton Gang

According to a Washington, D. C. Evening Star newspaper account on May 24, 1894, a bank robbery had occurred in Longview, Texas the day before, involving suspected members of the Dalton Gang. When read today, the account could easily be the story line from a Hollywood western.

Ben Kilpatrick and the Fort Worth Five

(Image credit: Smithsonian Institute)

This famous photograph, sometimes called the “Fort Worth Five,” was taken in 1900 an the Schwartz Studio in old downtown Fort Worth. Pictured are the following: left to right, front row: Harry A. Longabaugh (aka the Sundance Kid), Ben Kilpatrick (aka the Tall Texan), Robert Leroy Parker (aka Butch Cassidy); standing: Will Carver and Harvey Logan (aka Kid Curry). The photo is said to have helped authorities later to identify each of them and within twelve years, they would all be dead. Carver was killed in a shootout in Sonora, Texas the following year. Logan was killed in a shootout with a posse in Parachute, Colorado in 1904. He may have taken his own life rather than submit to being captured. Longabaugh and Parker are believed to have been killed in a shootout in Bolivia in 1908. Kilpatrick died in 1912.

Bass Reeves, Lawman

Bass Reeves was a groundbreaking lawman in the West. Most people who know his name would be aware that he was born a slave and became a respected law officer mostly in the area that became Oklahoma, long before it became a state.

Reeves was born into slavery in 1838 in Crawford County, Arkansas on the property of former Arkansas state legislator, William Steele Reeves. Authoritative accounts say instead that he was born in Texas. His last name was that of the owner William Reeves and his first name is believed to have been in honor of a grandfather by the name of Bass Washington.

Doc Goodnight and the Goodnight Gang

The Goodnight Gang was a name given to a group of outlaws operating in East and Central Texas headed up by William E. “Doc” Goodnight. Members of the group included Goodnight, Hugh Merrick, J. R. Willis and J. H. Johnson according to various newspaper accounts. They were by reputation robbers and the crimes mostly attributed to them involved the theft of cash from local individuals. There was a legend that William E. Goodnight was somehow related to rancher Charles Goodnight of North Texas, but we can find no obvious connection after looking into Charles Goodnight’s extended family. Perhaps coincidentally, Charles Goodnight had a number of relatives in Illinois and the State of Illinois appears to also figure into Doc Goodnight’s early history.