Procure Gangster Tour Of Texas By T. Lindsay Baker Rendered As Print
story telling of mayhem, murder, mischief and more ! Across Texas, Each of thechapters are arranged in three parts, the event, then the how to visit the site of the bank robbery, kidnapping, bootlegging etc.
and a page of “Judge for yourself” which is a page or so of footnotes,
The crime is relayed in an exciting manner that always had me wanting to continue to the next chapter, Some of the outlaws are well known, such as Bonnie and Clyde, or the Newton Boys, others youll learn may not be as famous, but no less the meant toward ill intent.
The toned, black and white photos are well placed and add to the aura of the era, be it thes thru thes.
You are there !
With my various travels through the state, I was surprised at how many of the scenes Id been at or near, without realizing it, including some in my own back yard of Round Rock, Texas.
The directions to the scenes of the crimes are detailed with good maps, Though Im a fan of historical sites, Ive never thought much about visiting crime scenes, now I must,
The book itself is of a vinyl soft back, of durable construction, with large leaves for easily keeping your place, maybe made for taking it along on road trips.
Purchased at the Texas Ranger Museum, Waco, Texas August
Pardon me, Im off to locate the grave of Machine Gun Kelly,
Fun read, and well puttogether, A little anecdotal sometimes, but if I recall there are footnotes to help with further research, I read this for the info on Top O' Hill Terrace, and it did not disappoint,
Great book to pick up and put down because of its structure, It also sent me to some of the locales just for a look, Was a good read. Would be a great asset on road trips through Texas, as it details locations and how to get to the sites, by Lloyd Daigrepont
In Chapterof Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck witnesses the shooting of "Old Boggs" in a small town in Arkansas.
In the aftermath the dying man is dragged into a drugstore and placed in the storefront window so that the citizenry may see the bullet holes and enjoy a better view of his death throes.
Still later a lanky man with a white fur stovepipe hat extends the entertainment by repeated reenactments of the murder, for which he is praised by the townspeople and regaled with alcoholic refreshment.
The human tendency to draw entertainment from the violent and sensational which Mark Twain here satirizes is a rather obvious characteristic, evident in American society today.
And when readers confront T, Lindsay Baker's Gangster Tour of Texas they will no doubt assume that this level of entertainment is the chief purpose of the volume.
If we are interested in the "tour," no doubt it is at least in part because of the sensational appeal and fascination of stories about people who are known for "breaking bad" Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, George "Machine Gun Kelly" Barnes, the Newton brothers, and more.
But Gangster Tour of Texas is also an ably researched volume put together by a noteworthy historian who provides detailed yet succinct biographies as well as detailed instructions for wouldbe tourists, replete with maps, illustrations, and photographs.
The biographies may be the volume's best feature, They are well written, fastpaced, and objective, and Baker reveals a penchant for humor as when he recounts the story of the robbery of the First National Bank in Cisco two days before Christmas inby four men, one of whom was dressed as Santa Claus wishing to abandon the getaway vehicle, the robbers attempted to commandeer an Oldsmobile driven byyearold Woodrow Wilson Harris, who was taking his parents and his grandmother into town.
Young Harris yielded the driver's seat but took the keys with him when the robbers released him, and they were forced to return to the getaway car only to realize that they had left the loot in the Oldsmobile.
Then there is the story of the "Flapper Bandit" Rebecca Bradley Rogers, ayearold college student overwhelmed by a variety of debts, who decided to rob the Farmers' State Bank in Round Rock.
She set fire to a nearby abandoned house as an attempted distraction, but the fire drew so many onlookers that she became discouraged, so she drove to Buda, Texas, where she entered a bank, produced a.
automatic no magazine and one cartridge in the chamber, took, and locked the bank employees in the vault but only after making sure they would have enough air.
After capture, the petite and harmlesslooking ingenue was tried four times on charges ranging from arson to robbery but never convicted.
She married one of her attorneys,
Whether intended or not, one effect of the volume is a general undermining or, we may say, "deconstruction" of its supposed premise that the lives of criminals and the scenes of crime and punishment are glamorously worthy of the attention.
Photos of the youthful yet notorious members of the Barrow gang
are disappointingly mundane, like pictures of the least promising seniors in the high school yearbook.
Buck Barrow his thick, coarse dark hair combed straight back without a part a bit too much resembles Shemp Howard, The photograph of Bonnie Parker on the mortician's table does inspire interest her face cleansed of blood, her reddish blonde hair unpinned, her bare shoulders exposed but Bonnie still is no Faye Dunaway.
Photographs of hideaways, banks, funeral homes, gravesites, and even bulletriddled automobiles are in general dreary and without particularity, begging the question: Would anyone really want to take the trouble to go to see these
Along this same vein, Professor Baker's descriptions inform us that many of the socalled gangsters possessed neither dash nor genius.
With the exception of Clyde Barrow who did exhibit an extraordinary talent for both stealing cars and evading capture most were bumblers, like the Santa Claus robbers in Cisco.
How did Becky Rogers not realize a house fire next door to the bank she intended to rob would only bring more witnesses In an instance leading to the most notorious mail robbery in Texas history, the perpetrators' antics sometimes resembled burlesque: "Once they argued so long over who would drive the.
. . getaway car that the mail rolled by undisturbed, Another time they saw a man walking along the route of the mail trucks, and they took him to be a railway mail agent.
The third time the getaway driver drank so much at a Christmas party that he wrecked the stolen care intended as the escape vehicle",
Gangster Tour of Texas may certainly be appreciated for its sensational and violent content, And it certainly will clearly guide the interested "tourist" to crime scenes, gravesites, former bungalows, and museums, But perhaps its greatest benefit to readers is as a work of history, Moreover, Professor Baker's text clear and concise, ironic and humorous challenges us to reconsider our own desire to glamorize such subjects, The photographs, maps, and directions provide a subtle reinforcement of this challenge,
sitelink campaignarchive. com/u Bonnie and Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly, the Newton Boys, the Santa Claus Bank Robbers, During the era of gangsters and organized crime, Texas hosted its fair share of guns and gambling, moonshine and morphine, ransom and robbery.
The states crime wave hit such a level that inthe Texas Bankers Association offered a reward of,for a dead bank robber no reward was given for one captured alive.
Veteran historian T. Lindsay Baker brings his considerable sleuthing skills to the dark side, leading readers on a fascinating tour of the most interesting and best preserved crime scenes in the Lone Star State.
Gangster Tour of Texas traces a trail of crime that had its beginnings in, when the Texas legislature outlawed alcohol, and persisted until, when Texas Rangers closed down the infamous casinos of Galveston.
Baker presents detailed maps, photographs of criminals, victims, and law officers, and pictures of the crime scenes as they appear today, Steeped in solid historical research, including personal visits by the author to every site described in the book, this volume offers entertaining and informative insights into a particularly lawless period in our nations history.
Readers interested in true crime, regional history, or this unique aspect of heritage tourism will derive hours of enjoyment as they followon the road or from their armchairsthe trail of both cops and robbers in Gangster Tour of Texas.
“Baker knows how to spin a yarn that keeps his readers engrossed knows that it does history no harm to write it so folks will enjoy many illustrations, maps, and pictures of outlaws, lawmen, victims, witnesses, and crime scenes that accompany each story.
Plus, his picture captions are as informative as his story narratives, "Bill Neal, author, Getting Away with Murder on the Texas Frontier,