A gangster tour of Texas
By: T. Lindsay Baker
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: College Station
Language: eng
Number of pages: 330
ISBN-13: 9781603442589; 9781603444071
Subjects: Organized crime; Gangsters; Homes and haunts; Description and travel; Heritage tourism; Local History; History
Description: 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 state's crime wave hit such a level that in 1927 the Texas Bankers Association offered a reward of $5,000 for a dead bank robber; no reward was given for one captured alive.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Bonnie and Clyde slept here: on the trail of the Barrow Gang; title: Four brothers in crime: the Newton Boys, express car and bank robbers of Uvalde; title: The Southern Pacific payroll robbery in El Paso: an attempted heist, the murder of an innocent man, and an international prisoner exchange; title: Becky Rogers, the flapper bandit; title: The Stanton frame-up: killing blameless men for a bounty; title: The Santa Claus Bank Robbery; title: Captain Charlie and the Rum King of San Antonio; title: The Urschel kidnapping: Machine Gun Kelly's foray into Texas; title: The Texas and Pacific mail robbery in Fort Worth: robbery, cold-blooded murder, and incarceration on Alcatraz; title: The unsolved murder of Frank Nand Singh: immigrant smuggling on the Mexican border in the 1930s; title: The Post morphine ring: dope dealing at the edge of the Caprock; title: The greatest medical charlatan of them all: Dr. John R. Brinkley and his empire of fraud in Del Rio; title: High stakes gambling underground at Top O'Hill Terrace; title: Bascom Giles: bribery at the highest levels in the Texas General Land Office; title: The Houston Police dope scandal: selling heroin back to the dealers; title: Two brothers and gaming over Gulf waters: the end of the gangster era in Texas.