Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde was a Texas-born team of outlaws who robbed banks and killed those who confronted them during a crime spree during the early part of the Great Depression. Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (born October 1, 1910, in Rowena near Abilene) and Clyde Chestnut (or Champion) Barrow (born March 24, 1909 in Ellis County near Dallas) crisscrossed the interior United States with the gang. Their exploits attracted the attention of the American people, some of whom viewed them, like Robin Hood or Jesse James, as "folk heroes" or "anti-capitalists". The two were on the "Public Enemy" listing from 1931 until they were gunned down on May 23, 1934, near rural Sailes in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, by four pursuing Texas law enforcement officers and Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan and his chief deputy and successor as sheriff, Prentiss Oakley.

Besides the approximately dozen bank robberies, the gang struck small stores and rural fueling stations. The gang may have killed as many as nine police officers and several civilians.

Bonnie and Clyde were not a married couple and are interred in separate cemeteries in Dallas. At the time of her death, Bonnie was the estranged wife of Roy Glenn Thornton (1908-1937), who died before the age of thirty in a prison break attempt in Houston County near Crockett, Texas.

The outlaws' story is unveiled in the 1967 film, Bonnie and Clyde, with Faye Dunaway as Bonnie and Warren Beatty as Clyde. An earlier film version which got less attention starred Dorothy Michelle Provine (1935-2010) in The Bonnie Parker Story. The "Bonnie and Clyde Trade Days Festival" is still held the third week of May in Gibland in Bienville Parish.