Parker and Barrow got around

In 2000, a man in Lamar County, Texas, mentioned the time Bonnie and Clyde came to Paris.

“The sheriff got word from Oklahoma law officers that Bonnie and Clyde were seen headed for Texas. Well, the sheriff got some men together and deputized them and sent them to various places where Bonnie and Clyde might get across the Red River. He told them to stop every car that came along.

“The sheriff took a few old boys out to the Highway 271 bridge and set up a road block. He put his new deputies behind the cars.

“Highway 271 wasn’t paved then. It was dirt and gravel, so you could see a long way off when a car was coming. There’d be a big plume of dust in the air.

“The highway was a pretty well-traveled road, you know, between Paris and Hugo. Cars and trucks made the trip every day.

“The sheriff stopped every car and every truck that came along. His deputies were real interested in what was going on, but they didn’t find anything unusual.

“Well, sometime around noon they saw a big plume of dust that meant a car traveling fast. The sheriff told his deputies to get behind the cars. He walked to the middle of the road and waited. The car slowed and then stopped. The sheriff could see two people in the front seat. He walked up to the driver’s window. There was a man and a woman in the front seat. In the back seat was a man with a bloody bandage around his right arm.

“The driver said, ‘Good morning, Sheriff. Is there a problem?’ The sheriff said, “Nope. We’re just checking cars coming from Oklahoma.’ The driver said, ‘We’re looking for a doctor. Our friend got shot in a hunting accident.’

“Now, there wasn’t any hunting season at that time, not in Oklahoma or Texas. The sheriff knew that. He looked at the man driving the car and he looked at the woman in the passenger seat and he looked at the man with the bloody bandage. He thought about the five men behind the cars. They had shotguns and never shot anything but dove and quail and such.

“The sheriff stepped back from the car and he said, ‘Paris is a few miles down the road. You can find a doctor there.’ The driver smiled and he said, ‘Thank you, Sheriff. We’ll be on our way.’”

The man telling the story said, “I think the sheriff showed good judgment.”

A few months later, I was in Honey Grove, a few miles west of Paris, in Fannin County. I don’t remember what I was covering there, but at some point an older man said, “Say, you ever hear about the time Bonnie and Clyde came to Fannin County?” I said I had not. The man said, “Well, I don’t remember what year it was, probably 1933 or ’34, the sheriff got word Bonnie and Clyde was driving across Oklahoma, headed for Texas. The sheriff deputized several men and took them up to the bridge north of Bonham …”

Bonnie and Clyde were busy people, making trips to Paris and Bonham, at both river crossings met by a rural sheriff with deputies inexperienced in all facets of law enforcement. Probably, Parker and Barrow made the same drive into Red River County and Bowie County to the east, and into Grayson County and Cooke County to the west, maybe into every county that had a bridge across the Red River.