Outlaw at Fort Smith, Ark.

Here is a link to a picture of outlaw Belle Starr in Fort Smith, Ark., in 1886.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Belle_Starr,_Fort_Smith,_Arkansas,_1886.jpg

I can’t tell if she is wearing a Colt’s pistol or a Smith and Wesson.

Starr was born Myra Mabelle Shirley in 1848 near Carthage, Mo., and was shot to death two days before her 41 st birthday near King Creek, Okla. She reportedly was married three times, to Sam Starr, James C. Reed and Jim July Starr.

In 1883, Starr and her second husband were arrested by famed Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves on a charge of horse theft. Star spent nine months imprisoned in a federal jail in Detroit.

“On February 3, 1889, two days before her 41st birthday, she was killed. She was riding home from a neighbor's house in Eufaula, Oklahoma, when she was ambushed. After she fell off her horse, she was shot again to make sure she was dead. Her death resulted from shotgun wounds to the back and neck and in the shoulder and face. Legend says she was shot with her own double barrel shotgun.

“According to Frank ‘Pistol Pete’ Eaton, her death was due to different circumstances. She had been attending a dance. Frank Eaton had been the last person to dance with Belle Starr when Edgar Watson, clearly intoxicated had asked to dance with her. When Belle Starr declined, he later followed her. When on the way home, she stopped to give her horse a drink at a creek, he shot and killed her. According to Frank Eaton, Watson was tried, convicted and executed by hanging for the murder.

“However, another story says there were no witnesses and no one was ever convicted of the murder. Suspects with apparent motive included her new husband and both of her children, as well as Edgar J. Watson, one of her sharecroppers, because he was afraid she was going to turn him in to the authorities as an escaped murderer from Florida with a price on his head. Watson, who was killed in 1910, was tried for her murder, but was acquitted, and the ambush has entered Western lore as ‘unsolved’".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Starr

Starr’s relatives were Confederate guerrillas, or terrorists, depending on definition.

Town on the rise

Knoxville, Ark., has grown by more than 500 in the last 47 years. In 1970, the Johnson County town was home to 202 people, by official Federal census. Estimated 2015 population was 746, that figure an increase of 15 from the 2010 census.

Johnson County is on a southwest corner of Northwest Arkansas. The county has been growing since 1970, after a four-decade decline. Before 2000, the county’s highest population was in 1920, when 21,062 people lived there. The 2010 official count was 22,781. The estimated 2015 population was 25,540.

Bill Doolin was born in Johnson County in 1858. He went on to found the Wild Bunch of train robbing and Hollywood fame. Doolin was killed by Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas in 1896 in Lawson, Oklahoma Territory. Doolin’s Wild Bunch did not include Kid Curry or the Sundance Kid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Doolin

Knoxville is about 95% white. About 9% of families and 12% of the overall population has income below the official Federal poverty line. The town is just a little west of I-40 and a few miles east of the Arkansas River. Women outnumber men by 4%. About 30% of employed men in Knoxville work in manufacturing, compared to a statewide average of around 18%. For employed women, the figures are 20% locally and 8% statewide.

Tornado activity is at normal for Arkansas, or 91% greater than overall U.S. average. An F4 tornado went through Knoxville on Feb. 5, 2008, killing 13 people, injuring 139 and causing $119 million in property damages.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Knoxville-Arkansas.html

Local government workers in 2012 were: four fulltime at total monthly salaries of $9,645, and 11 part-time employees, paid $8,826 each month.