Oklahoma is a state rich in lawmen and outlaw history, truly the last bastion of the "Old West." The state has a tradition of banditry dating back to the time of the Indian Territory. The following account presents a collection of rare photographs, biographical sketches, and true stories offered in chronological order dealing with the epic battle between the forces of law and order and wrongdoers taking place in a geographic area encompassing the modern state of Oklahoma. This narrative, which represents nearly ten years of research, is presented in two-part form within a single volume. Part...

The story contained in these pages is a detailed description of a vicious crime and the eighteen-month long manhunt to track down the criminals involved. It details the history and crimes of a loose-knit gang of bold outlaws originally known as the Cookson Hills Gang, then the Ford Bradshaw Gang and finally the Underhill-Bradshaw Gang whose members blazed a path of robbery and murder through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Arkansas in 1932-34. It also chronicles the efforts and sacrifices of a handful of brave lawmen that tracked them down.

Wilbur Underhill-the "Tri-State Terror"-is the Boogeyman of Depression-era outlaws in more ways than one. For nearly a decade in the turbulent period of the 1920s and 30s, he was one of the most infamous and feared criminals in the Southwest. Convicted of one of his murders in Oklahoma he was sentenced to life and escaped, killing a cop and receiving another life term in Kansas, and then escaped again, leading ten others in a mass breakout. In the last months of his life, he rose to national notoriety as a prolific bank robber and suspect in the infamous Kansas City Massacre and became the...

In the months prior to America's involvement in the First World War there came charging out of the West an organized band of cutthroats dubbed the Poe-Hart Gang. This notorious group of outlaws cut a swath of robbery, murder, and wholesale theft not seen on the frontier since the arrival of the infamous Dalton Brothers. This is the story of that lawless band of renegades and how they made the transition from horse to automobile.

This book chronicles the true adventures of a loose-knit confederation of daring bank bandits originating from the infamous Cookson Hills of Eastern Oklahoma who terrorized the Arkansas-Oklahoma borderlands for more than a half decade following the close of the First World War. The original leader of the group was Henry Starr, the Cherokee bandit, who claimed to have robbed more banks than any man. Upon his death, a middle-age storekeeper along with an audacious young war hero named Ed Lockhart took over the helm. In a time when most Americans were captivated by the "Teapot Dome" scandal, the...

The Irish O'Malley Gang represented the final installment of America's great 1930s depression-era "Super Gangs" following in the footsteps of both the John Dillinger and "Ma" Barker/Karpis Gangs. The final version of the outlaw band was the result of the merging of two separate and unique criminal enterprises, one deriving from a rural environment, the second urban in nature. Their story involved a small cadre of hard-nosed underworld hoodlums joined by an army of thrill-starved gangster molls and criminal associates, which eventually evolved into a loosely-knit organization. It's members...