Bill hickok to bonnie and clyde. The Kansas City Library hosted the event. Welcome. Welcome everyone. My name is jeremy and i had up the Missouri Valley special collection which is the local regional and History Department of the library. Our Research Room and heart and archives are located across the hall. In the Missouri Valley room you will find books, articles, and manuscripts documenting kansas as it rowdy, violent past evolved from a western cowtown to a bustling metropolis. Our history includes bloody border fighting during the civil war, notorious outlaws and prostitutes, rampant illegal gambling and bootlegging during prohibition, and gangland violence and assassinations including one infamous massacre from 1933. Perhaps there is no more widespread lawlessness, violence, and mayhem in missouri in the decades following the civil war and well into the 20th century than in the ozark region. Here today to talk about the notorious characters and sensational events of that. Times awardwinning author, larry would. Onhas written extensively the ozarks. Include,recent works wicked women of misery, lynchings and hangings in missouri. Addition to being a staff ,riter for the ozarks magazine he also publishes a blog called, ozark history. The presentation today draws from two books. Desperados of the ozarks. This will be available following the program. Please welcome to the kansas wood. Public library, larry [applause] mr. Wood first of all i would like to thank jeremy and the staff at the library for inviting me. Thank you for turning out. And thanks cspan for being here also. The main book i will be talking about is, ozarks, gunfights, and other notorious incidents. He mentioned desperados of the ozarks which is a followup to this book but i probably will not have time to get to it but i will have copies of both books for anyone who is interested in them. Suggests, this is about murders and shootouts and anything notorious that happened in the ozarks, in some cases slightly outside the ozarks. The time frames from the end of the civil war up to the gangster era of the 20s and 30s with one exception. The very last or is about something that happened in 1950. Mainly it covers the old west and gangster eras. Other than those connecting threads, if there is any other theme that i tried to develop in the story, it is the one i talk about in the preface. The idea that the old west was not just kansas and arizona territory. Particularly in the years immediately after the civil war like 1960 1865 to 1880. There was a lot of stuff that happened in missouri and the ozarks and we were a part of the old west. The wild west, i would say. The first chapter in my book is about Wild Bill Hickok, his shoot out on the square in springfield. Illinois, came west when he was 18 years old. In 1857, spent time in kansas and other places. At the time of the civil war he handlering as a stock at a way station along the oregon trail in what is now beatrice, nebraska. The name of the place was rock creek. He got involved in a shootout with the mccandless gang. He was the previous owner of a property that the way station was on and came to try to collect the debt and payment on his property and they ended up in a shootout and mccandless and at least one other person was killed. Bill looked on with the union army in missouri as a andn master or wagon driver he ended up in springfield as detective for the union army. Sometimes a spy, sometimes a scout through the territory of southwest missouri. This is a picture of the square of springfield at about the time he was there. This is from circa 1865. Into theking southeast southeast corner of the Springfield Square. The little building in the southeast corner was a saloon owned by a guy named angers. A lot of the things wild bill did when he was detective was he rews for and illegally selling booze to union soldiers. I dont remember what he was cited for but that was one of the things wild bill did. Toward the middle part or the latter part of the civil war, late 1863, early 1864, bill and dave had hooked up and became friends. They might have already known each other. In springfield, they became drinking buddies and gambling buddies. They had a falling out new the end of the civil war. The falling out was over a saiding debt that dave tut that hickok owed him. They disagreed on the amount. Dave said it was 35 and bill said it was 25. They were in a hotel room at the lion hotel which was a block south of the public square. It was an afternoon poker game. Ended and tut reminded him of the debt he owed him and wild bill was digging through his pockets to show in the memorandum to prove it was only 25 and he did out is gold pocket watch he dug out his gold pocket watch and tut said i will wear this across the square if i want to. That evening, wild bill took up a station at the square, waiting to see whether tut would carry through with his warning of walking through the square with the disputed watch. Sure enough, he did. Wild bill stepped out to meet him and they both true their guns at the same time and wild tut missed. But this was called the first shootout of the wild west era. They did not use formal dueling. They had a spontaneous gunfight. The is remembered as first wild west gunfight. Harpersa depiction from new monthly magazine. Of the card game and the gunfight. Cant tell much about that but that is not exactly how it happened. They were farther apart than it seems to appear there. They were 75 years apart 75 yards apart. This picture i took myself. This is 10 years old. This is what Springfield Square looks like today. It is not real uptodate but i took the picture and i was innding they have plaques the road showing where each man was standing. I was standing about where wild itas standing when would be off in here somewhere. The building their is where courthouse of the time stood and dave tut was just outside the entry to the courthouse. My Subsequent Research has led me to believe strongly that hickok was farther over this way to the southwest. It was here down to there. They were 75 yards apart when they shot at each other. And waskok was arrested going to be prosecuted for manslaughter. T was buried in the City Cemetery a couple blocks off springfield. Right isstone on the probably the one that was placed when he was moved from the city thetery to where he is now, maple park cemetery, three or four blocks south of the square and the modern one hadnt been there that long. Maybe 50 years or so. About manyting thing of these episodes is that they had overtones left over from the civil war. In this case, the fight between hickok and tutt did not because they were friends. Tutt was a former confederate soldier and hickok was a federal, they still were friends. That didnt enter into it. What did enter and was when hickok went to trial for manslaughter, they had what was , passed right at the end of the civil war, it said that anyone who supported the confederacy could not vote or hold office or be a preacher or teacher, all sorts of things. Jurors and officers of the court were union people and hickok was a union person so he got off. [laughter] a lot of the confederate people thought he was to blame because he had gone to the corner and waited. Waiting to see whether the guy would come across, stalking him almost. That really did have a lot of overtones from the civil war was the killing of a ,reacher in Webster County across the county line from greene county. Webster county is the next county east. Headley was the preacher in a methodistepiscopal church. The church right across the county line. During the civil war, as the north took charge, that church was taken over. At the end of the civil war, a year later in july of 1866, headley despite the fact that he , like theen the oath great constitution said you had to, he tried to reclaim the church for the southern wing. He announced when he would do it and he would preach their and they warned him not to but he showed up and did it anyway. They killed him. [laughter] this is all that is left of the church. Just a cemetery. The newwhat they called Pleasant View church. It was built around 1904. Both of the guys that shot headley and the guys that had warned him not to come the , theyzers of the one ended up going on trial but they were acquitted because they were northerners. Granby,a picture of missouri, from around the turnofthecentury. Poles, it isephone around 1900 probably. It will give you a taste of what granby looked like in the old days. This is a newton county. It is probably one of the most notorious, little towns in the United States in the years immediately after the civil war. I dont know any other town of a similar population that produces many notorious characters. A lot of names you have never heard of but they are word in a tory us they are notorious people. If them was a guy named have gone too far. [laughter] i will get to her in a minute. Kelly as named jake jake killian. He went to a traveling circus it grands be in granby, was a double feature. You had to stay for the first one but you had to go out and pay to get back into the second one. He tried to hide so he wouldnt have to pay a second time. Outthey forcefully put him and that made him mad and he went and got a gun and killed william lake. That is william lake austin widow William Lakes widow. She set up a reward for the arrest of jake killian. She later married Wild Bill Hickok. Not later from this picture but later from after she after lake was killed. This might have been taken after Wild Bill Hickok was killed. Jake killian himself ended up getting killed in 1878 in galena, kansas by a man named norton. They had been sworn enemies since the civil war. They were soldiers together in the Northern Army and got into a fight over a card game and norton partially blinded killian in 19. The almost almost blinded killian in one eye. Of when out killian got out of jail he found sawon and as soon as norton him coming he pulled out his gun and shot him. Didnt give killian a chance. Thetill got off because fact of killian had been stalking him and coming after them. The Killian Family said that he was murdered. This is the bender family, not actually in the ozarks, there are a couple of stories in here that are not in the ozarks but close enough. Benders ran a wayside inn. Kate,ad a daughter named kate was the only one that spoke fluent english. They were a german family. She was considered the leading spirit of the family. She was a healer and spiritualist. What this family did was they n and people started disappearing. They would be traveling on the road and would never reach their destination. People got suspicious that it had something to do with these bender people and in 1873 a man named york went missing and his brother followed him to the bender house and asked questions and got suspicious answers. He organized a posse but by the time he got back with a posse the benders had fled. They put out a reward. The governor signed a proclamation, describing the benders and how much money was offered. This is a picture of the house when they finally started investigating. They dug up 10 or 11 bodies of people they had killed. They had the house partitioned off and they would arrange it where the traveler would be sitting with his back to the partition and another person sitting behind there would hit him over the head with a hammer and finish him off with a knife and drop the body through a trap door and hang them. They killed 10 or 12 people. To be awhat used historical marker. Im not sure there is still one there. There is one close to where it happened, close to cherryville. Notice the very last paragraph, it says that, stories abound, bender fate of the family is uncertain. The story remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the old west. I am one of those who is convinced that they were executed by the vengeful posse. The posse went after them and came back several days later and absolutely would not talk about it. They would not say what happened. Why would you not talk about it . You dont want people to know. Or to be prosecuted. Not only that, i have gone through enough papers later on, 15, 20 years later, i have run into four men, on their deathbed , who say they were members of the posse and that was what happened. We overtook them and kill them. I dont think they escaped. Youngera picture of jim of the infamous younger gang in 1874. They pulled off the train robbery in wayne county, eastern part of missouri. They came back and took refuge in clay county. In st. Ngers took refuge clair county. That is where their grandfather had lived and they spent time as kids. Two detectives came into the territory looking for them. They brought along a local eputy from mozilla from oceola. They knocked at the door of a fer and thenuf youngers were there but they were hidden in the attic. They went on their way and after they had left the youngers follow them and caught up with them happy mile away and overtook them and had a gunfight. Killed, jim was younger was injured. Killedthe detectives was and the local Deputy Sheriff was killed. The only one that got away was the second detective. This is a monument about it. A little ways away from where it happened. This is the original monument setting very close to where it happened. Roscoe. O miles north of that is why it is called the roscoe gunfight. They were on their way to the springs two or three miles north of where that is. Somethinger concerns i mentioned. This is a picture of galena, kansas around the turn of the century. You can see light posts so it is probably around 1900. It was a hopping place around the turnofthecentury and even earlier. It was a wild place, a mining town. There are a lot of young, single men and anywhere there are a lot of young men there will be wild drinking and gun fighting. That was galenas reputation. One of the things that happened ,here in the fall of 1879 was supposedly, jesse james got killed by George Shepherd. Supposedly. That is jesse james. George shepherd had been a former member of the james gang but he had had a falling out with frank and jesse and he offered his services to the law and they said ok. Thenfiltrated the gang with intention of trying to kill or capture jesse james. After the glendale train robbery which took place in jackson i think glendale as part of independence now after the train robbery they were going south to texas to spend the winter. This was in november of 1879. Got south of galena. Some confrontation occurred. I dont know exactly what it was but George Shepherd went riding back into galena with a bloody leg saying i have killed jesse james. Investigated and couldnt find the bodies and said, either George Shepherd lied or jesse james lies dead. Most people believed that it was George Shepherd lying living. My own believe is that something did happen and i think george thought he and killed him. He probably shot at him and maybe saw him fall out of the saddle but did not kill him. He was killed later on, three years later. That is George Shepherd, a picture of him. Group south of springfield, they rose up around 1883, they call themselves the law and order group. Or sometimes the citizens committee. They consider themselves an ok group. An honorable group. They started out that way. The way a lot of vigilante groups do. They went overboard. Firstas where their organizational meeting was held on a bald knob. This was the leader. Nathaniel kenny. When this picture was taken he was a saloon keeper in springfield. Andtly after this he moved became a preacher. And started laying off the booze, i dont know. I have talked about how some of the incidents were a carryover or bitterness from the civil war carried over to aggravate these incidents. That is the case with the bald knobbers after the civil war because they were almost all of them former northern soldiers. And then a group rose up to oppose them who were former confederates. Overtones from the civil war. The bald knobbers and the antibald knobbers but as far as the law was concerned, none of them were apprehended but many were killed. Moving into Christian County a few years later in the mid1880s, the law did get into it. This is billy walker, the sign his fathers name was dave walker and another one of the main ones was John Matthews and he had a nephew named wiley matthews. All of them were eventually captured and tried for murder because they had killed a couple of people in a family over by chadwick. They were convicted and scheduled to hang but the nephew escaped and was never recaptured. Hanged on thethem square in ozark in 1888. That was the end of the bald knobbers. This is a replica picture of one county theyn had secret signs and codes. This was a mask. This is a picture of Emmett Malloy a better picture over here. Malloy was a temperance revivalist and she traveled over the country giving revivals and trying to get people to not drink. She gave one in springfield, missouri in the winter of 188485. When it was over she moved out to a farm west of springfield near brookline. An adopted daughter, a foster daughter named cora lee, and maybe one or two other People Living with her. She was always taking in people and trying to help them, as was her downfall. She had taken in this guy named george graham, who she first met in an indiana prison when she was doing prison ministry. She had taken him under her wing. After he got out they went into the business together of putting antidrinking newspapers temperance newspaper the pretty soon after they started living on the brookline farm, he showed up and started romancing cora lee, the foster daughter. Actually, he resumed courting her because they had already started when they were back together in washington, kansas, putting out this paper. They had gotten into cahoots putting up the temperance paper, and when she moved to springfield, he kind of followed her there and resumed the romance. Eventually he talked her into letting them get married. They were concerned because they knew he had been married to sarah graham, but he assured them he had divorced her or that she had divorced him when he went to jail. That was true,