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85th Anniversary of the Barrow Shootout in Joplin


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About three weeks late posting this, but I finally got enough of the "have to do" stuff done that I am working on a bit of "want to do" this morning...

 

Spent the 85th anniversary of the Joplln shootout in the apartment. Cooked a pot of "Barrow beans" using Cumie's recipe provided by Sandy Jones, he having acquired it from Marie Barrow. Sure do miss Sandy. Thought some of the other folks here would enjoy the photos.

 

 

The apartment is an "Air BnB" location and the owners are wonderful folks. Highly recommend booking the place if you are traveling through the Midwest and can make it happen.

 

 

 

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You bet; I should have posted that in the initial photo set. Sandy said it was written by Marie on her kitchen note pad, and he added his comments below.

 

I have a feeling my pot probably had a bit more pork in it than the Barrows might have been used to...it turned out pretty good.

Cumie Barrow Red Beans recipe.jpg

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Jim C,

 

Still researching that one, it deserves its own post here on the forum when I get more of the story put together. Need to get a FOIA on the original registration, but have "unofficial" confirmation that it was registered by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office in 1934...so they got it sometime before that. Same outfit that took down the Ashley Gang, and there's a chance it's connected. I hear Ashley used BARs in the raid on West End in 1924.

 

Manufacturer markings and serial are ground off, so at the very least I think it's safe to say it's a legitimate underworld BAR.

 

If anyone has some Barney-style step-by-step NFA FOIA submission instructions, send me a message. Been meaning to address this for a while and just haven't had the time to sit down and try and figure it out.

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  • 1 month later...

Here is the 1921 Thompson sold in Kansas City in January 2012. It was recovered at the Barrow hideout in Joplin andter Bonnie and Clyde fled. I don't know the exact provenance they had. They were very nice and let me get close to take these three photos. The Thompson sold for $130,000. Only $129,000 more than I could pay :wub: . I don't think Clyde was ever photographed with a Thompson, I think if he was photographed with this one it would have sold for even more.

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Edited by Enforcer
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The "provenance" they claimed for that gun was questionable AT BEST. I believe that a claim by Officer Persell that they had one is the only insinuation the Barrow Gang ever laid hands on a Thompson.

 

The photos recovered in Joplin show Persell's revolver, but no Thompson - awfully strong evidence they didn't have one at that time.

 

For my part I believe the gun sold at the KC auction was never owned by the Barrows.

 

All it takes at an auction for sky high prices are two suckers with deep pockets who don't perform due diligence on a story put out by a seller.

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Agreed. There's a Colt 1902 that sold for something around $100,000 which was supposedly found hidden on Bonnie by a morturary staff member with a letter from the 1970s standing for "provenance". A pistol that large and heavy, unnoticed while moving a 90lb shot to hell woman's body from the car onto a gurney and then onto a table in the funeral parlor? Give me a break.

 

Still, bidding drove it to six figures.

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Looking through some old info on this Thompson - funny how in the 1970s the story was that the owner's grandfather had received these guns from "an officer who took part in gunning them down" - another well documented event that made no mention of Thompsons or Winchester 1897s - but by the time we get to the auction the story is that they came out of Joplin...

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Interesting note of trivia - nearly everyone references the Remington 11s, but in both the Joplin photos and the guns taken from the death car, the "whip it" guns are Browning Auto-Fives. Giveaway is the magazine cut off, visible in both photos.

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Still researching that one, it deserves its own post here on the forum when I get more of the story put together. Need to get a FOIA on the original registration, but have "unofficial" confirmation that it was registered by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office in 1934...so they got it sometime before that. Same outfit that took down the Ashley Gang, and there's a chance it's connected. I hear Ashley used BARs in the raid on West End in 1924.

 

Manufacturer markings and serial are ground off, so at the very least I think it's safe to say it's a legitimate underworld BAR.

 

 

IIRC, the Palm Beach BAR is referenced in the FBI files on the Barker-Karpis Gang. As you might remember, the FBI seized three BARs when they took down Russell Gibson in 1935, all three of them rather interesting. They found a fourth in Miami with some shady character connected to the hotel in which they were staying. Consequently, they were searching high and low for BARs. For a time, they suspected one of them might have been the one from Palm Beach (which had an obliterated serial), but as it turned out that was still at hand. However, Palm Beach apparently acquired it in 1932, not 1924.

 

Cheers

 

HANS

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Interesting note of trivia - nearly everyone references the Remington 11s, but in both the Joplin photos and the guns taken from the death car, the "whip it" guns are Browning Auto-Fives. Giveaway is the magazine cut off, visible in both photos.

 

Can you elaborate? The serial number of at least one of the two semiautomatic shotguns from the Death Car is well-reported and belongs to a 20-gauge Remington Model 11A.

 

Cheers

 

HANS

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Hi Hans,

 

I'll send you a PM on the BAR - very interesting stuff.

 

The Joplin shotgun in the photos is an Auto-Five, given that the magazine cut off is visible in the photos of the guns leaning against the car with W.D. and Clyde. The death car shotgun I was referencing is the one shown in this picture:

 

 

 

What's the serial of the Remington 11? I do not have a complete list of the stuff taken from the car, but would very much enjoy a copy if one exists. Love this stuff. :)

763722.jpg

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The Joplin shotgun in the photos is an Auto-Five, given that the magazine cut off is visible in the photos of the guns leaning against the car with W.D. and Clyde. The death car shotgun I was referencing is the one shown in this picture:

 

 

 

What's the serial of the Remington 11? I do not have a complete list of the stuff taken from the car, but would very much enjoy a copy if one exists. Love this stuff. :)

 

 

PM sent. I have to check my files for the serial number. I've never thought about the magazine cut-off, great detail.

 

However, now that you mention the Browning, the gun depicted after they were killed certainly looks like a Browning; I've not seen this style of full pistol grip on period Remingtons.

 

Cheers

 

HANS

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The "provenance" they claimed for that gun was questionable AT BEST. I believe that a claim by Officer Persell that they had one is the only insinuation the Barrow Gang ever laid hands on a Thompson.

 

The photos recovered in Joplin show Persell's revolver, but no Thompson - awfully strong evidence they didn't have one at that time.

 

For my part I believe the gun sold at the KC auction was never owned by the Barrows.

 

All it takes at an auction for sky high prices are two suckers with deep pockets who don't perform due diligence on a story put out by a seller.

 

Agree. As I recall, we debunked the Thompson in the TSMG forum just prior to the auction.

 

BTW...Great post! I enjoyed the photos from the 85th anniversary. For some reason, I didn't check it out until today.

 

David Albert

dalbert@sturmgewehr.com

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Thanks David! I had fun staging those photos, and sleeping in Clyde and Bonnie's bedroom the night before the anniversary of the shootout was an odd feeling. We had a great weekend down there and I highly recommend booking a stay if anyone reading this is traveling through that part of the country.

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