Browse Exhibits (1 total)

the Legacy of "Pretty Boy" Floyd

 

An investigation into the influence of the infamous Okie outlaw Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd. 

 "Her face looked for the answer that is always concealed in language. She said in confusion, "I knowed Purty Boy Floyd. I knowed his ma. They was good folks. He was all full a hell, sure like a good boy outghta be." She paused and then her words poured out. "I don't know all like this-but I know it. He done a little bad thing an' they hurt 'im, caught 'im and hurt him so he was mad, an' the next bad thing he done was mad, an' they hurt 'im again. An' purty soon he was mean-mad. They shot him like a varmint, an' he shot back, an' then they run him like a coyote, an' him a-snapin' an a-snarlin, mean as a lobo. An' he was mad. He wasn't no boy or no man no more, he was jus' a walkin' chunk a mean-mad".(76) 

 Born in 1904, Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd was from the Cookson Hills of Oklahoma, which inspired his other nickname,  'Robin Hood of the Cookson Hills'. He began his life of crime at a young age, and was imprisoned at 21 for payroll robbery. His forte was robbing small country banks, where he was known to destroy the mortgages to local farms. Without a banknote it was impossible for the banks to possess the land. He would also allegedly use his ill gotten gains to provide food and Christmas gifts to impoverished families. He was infamous for using a machine gun and managed to get out of so many robberies unscathed with the help of a bullet proof vest. His most infamous crime was the Kansas City Massacre, a shootout at a train station that left four police officers dead. After the massacre J. Edgar was hot on his trail. He managed to allude authorites for a few months before being named 'Public Enemy Number 1' following Dilliger's death. Shortly after he was killed in a shootout with police on a small farm in Ohio, he was thirty years old. 

 

 

 

Tags: , , ,