The "Dust Bowl" Era Bank Robbers, Vol I: Bonnie & Clyde

By James R Ashley

The “Dust Bowl” of the early 1930s spawned the era of the Mid-West bank robbers. Gangs led by Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillinger, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, and “Baby Face” Nelson became the stuff of American legend. None of them was spectacularly successful at bank robbing and all of them came to bad ends, being shot down in the end by the law. They all, however, caught the public imagination and were the anti-hero’s of their day. This was the era of the Great Depression where the banks were perceived of being greedy and heartless despoilers, grinding the common people down for their own profit. The “Dust Bowl” bank robbers personified the anti-hero who gave the banks a taste of their own medicine and the public could not get enough of it. When Bonnie & Clyde shot it out with the law and John Dillinger broke out of jail the public followed their every move with the greatest of interest, as many of them would have secretly have liked to have done the same thing, had they the nerve for it. As it was they glamorized these bandits and made them bigger than life, because that’s what the public wanted to believe about them. Painting the town red every night at the best restaurants and nightclubs, always on the arm of beautiful women, leading a life of danger and excitement at every turn, and engaging in machine-gun fights with the law was the life people dreamed these bandits led.
The reality, however, was something quite different. Bonnie & Clyde frequently lived like bums, either out of their car or camping out in the woods. They were continually on the run and rarely stayed in the same place for long. They never could go to a decent restaurant for fear of being recognized and, consequently, had to eat most of their meals in their car or in the woods. If they rented a place to live the police showed up before long and they were awaken during the night or approached during the day to engage in a life and death gun battle. Any wounds they sustained in the gun fight, no matter how serious, had to be self-treated, as it was too risky to rely on a doctor’s discretion to not turn them in. They had no friends, only associates who were in the game for the money. And when the going got rough there was no loyalty and Bonnie & Clyde found out that they only could rely on each other, and they stuck by each other right up to the end.
Bonnie & Clyde were dealt a bad hand in the beginning and unlike many other people who took new cards hoping for a better one, they decided to play theirs out. Both of them foresaw that the road would get dimmer and dimmer as time went on and their end was going to be a bad one. And whether from courage or false hope, they played their cards out to the end. They lived fast and dangerously and died in a hail of bullets. And for many readers this is the fascination with their short life of crime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James R Ashley
• Release date: Jul 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301778782

Book preview

The Dust Bowl Era

Bank Robbers

Vol I: Bonnie & Clyde

James R Ashley

Copyright 2015 James R. Ashley

Smashwords edition

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Cast of Characters

Bonnie & Clyde's Lives of Crime

The Deaths of Bonnie & Clyde

The Aftermath

What Happened to Everyone?

Bibliography

Introduction

The Dust Bowl of the early 1930s spawned the era of the Mid-West bank robbers. Gangs led by Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson became the stuff of American legend. None of them were spectacularly successful at bank robbing and all of them came to bad ends, being shot down in the end by the law. They all, however, caught the public imagination and were the anti-hero’s of their day. This was the era of the Great Depression, where the banks were perceived of being greedy and heartless despoilers, grinding the common people down for their own profit. The Dust Bowl bank robbers personified the anti-hero, who gave the banks a taste of their own medicine and the public could not get enough of it. When Bonnie & Clyde shot it out with the law and John Dillinger broke out of jail, the public followed their every move with the greatest of interest, as many of them would have secretly have liked to have done the same thing, had they the nerve for it. As it was, they glamorized these bandits and made them bigger than life, because that’s what the public wanted to believe about them. Painting the town red every night at the best restaurants and nightclubs, always on the arm of beautiful women, leading a life of danger and excitement at every turn, and engaging in machine-gun fights with the law was the life people dreamed these bandits led.

The reality, however, was something quite different. Bonnie & Clyde frequently lived like bums, either out of their car or camping out in the woods. They were continually on the run and rarely stayed in the same place for long. They never could go to a decent restaurant for fear of being recognized and, consequently, had to eat most of their meals in their car or in the woods. If they rented a place to live, the police showed up before long and they were awaken during the night or approached during the day to engage in a life and death gun battle. Any wounds they sustained in the gun fight, no matter how serious, had to be self-treated, as it was too risky to rely on a doctor’s discretion to not turn them in. They had no friends, only associates who were in the game for the money. And when the going got rough, there was no loyalty and Bonnie & Clyde found out that they only could rely on each other, and they stuck by each other right up to the end.

Bonnie & Clyde were dealt a bad hand in the beginning and unlike many other people who took new cards hoping for a better one, they decided to play theirs out. Both of them foresaw that the road would get dimmer and dimmer as time went on and their end was going to be a bad one. And whether from courage or false hope, they never asked for a re-deal. They lived fast and dangerously and died in a hail of bullets. And for many readers this is the fascination with their short life of crime. So turn the page and proceed to ride along with Bonnie & Clyde, where bullets fly at every turn and the cops bite the dust in every gun fight. Here is the real story of Bonnie & Clyde, one you will not soon forget.

The Cast of Characters

Clyde Barrow Clyde quit school at age 16, unable to adopt to both the regimentation and the hard work that was required for success there. He then was employed at a number of low paying jobs: at a candy company, for $1 a day; at United Glass Company, as a glazier; and as a messenger boy for Western Union. When he tried to enlist in the navy, he was turned down. Finding he had no interest in a normal 9-5 job, Clyde turned to petty crime, where the work was easy and he could set his own hours.

In 1926 Clyde began his criminal career by being picked up for poultry theft. Three weeks later Clyde and his brother Buck were picked up with a truckload of stolen turkeys. Clyde was released for the crime, but Buck served a week in jail for it. In 1927 Clyde tried to go straight for a time, getting a job at the Bama Pie Company, then the A&K Top and Paint Shop. However, being constantly picked up by the police for questioning on suspicion of every unsolved petty crime on their books, Clyde was constantly fired from his jobs and developed a hatred for the law, feeling, with some justification, that he was being unjustly persecuted.

The result was that Clyde now decided to step up to the big-time and turned to car theft, stealing cars in North Texas and selling them in Oklahoma for $100 or more. The cars in those days were relatively easy to steal, as many people in small towns and rural areas left their keys in the ignition and even if they didn’t, it was relatively easy to hotwire them (just having to touch the two ignition wires together). In 1929 Clyde and Buck were arrested on suspicion of planning to burglarize a lumber company,