Category: outlaws and crimes

Ray Hamilton and the Cedar Hill Bank Robbery

Ray Hamilton grew up in the same Dallas, Texas neighborhood as Clyde Barrow, which is where they are thought to have become acquainted.  He is mentioned in several crimes with Barrow including the August 5, 1932 gunfight in Stringtown, Oklahoma in which Deputy Sheriff Eugene Moore was killed.  Moore and Sheriff Charles Maxwell had become suspicious of the youths at an outdoor country dance.  Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow and Hamilton were sitting in a car drinking moonshine when the officers tried to investigate and were fired on by the trio.  Moore was killed; Maxwell would survive six gunshot wounds and Parker, Barrow and Hamilton would escape unharmed.

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Bigfoot Wallace and the Bandito Vidal

William A. A. “Bigfoot” Wallace lived from 1817-1899 and was a Texas Ranger, one of 30 to be inducted into the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. He came to Texas after the death of his brother and a cousin at the hands of the Mexican Army at Goliad in 1836, intending to somehow even the score for his lost relatives. Wallace is believed to have many times exacted his revenge, though he was captured and imprisoned by the Mexican Army himself in the early days of 1843 in the so called “Black Bean Episode,” which he survived. Wallace is mentioned in many other historical accounts as he fought as a Ranger in the Mexican-American War, continued to serve as a Texas Ranger during the 1850s and beyond. He did not serve in the Civil War, electing instead to remain in Texas to guard the borders against Indians, renegades and Union soldiers.  The young State of Texas benefited from an uneasy arrangement with the Confederate Army to allow some Rangers to remain in place to defend the frontier.

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Frank Hardy, one time member of the Barrow Gang

frankhardy

On Christmas Day, 1932, Doyle Johnson of Temple was taking a nap after the family Christmas dinner when he was awakened by his wife saying that some individuals were trying to steal his new car, parked outside.  Mrs. Johnson yelled for them to stop as Doyle ran to the car, jumped on the running board and struggled with the thief, Clyde Barrow, who fatally shot him.  Bonnie Parker, Barrow and W. D. Jones escaped with the stolen car.

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John Wesley Hardin, Outlaw (1853-1895)

Reported in the Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas Saturday August 25, 1877:
“A Texas Desperado

WHITING, -ALA, August 24. – Today, as the train was leaving Pensacola, the sheriff, with a posse, boarded the cars to assist two Texas officials to arrest the notorious John Wesley Hardin, who is said to have committed twenty-seven murders, and for whose body four thousand dollars has been offered by the Legislature of Texas. His last murder in Texas was the killing of the sheriff of Comanche County. He has lived in the State of Florida for years as John Swain. Being related to the county officers he has escaped arrest. About twenty shots were fired in making the arrest.

Hardin’s companion, named Mann, who held a pistol in his hand, was killed.”

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