Bowie, Texas

Texas

Four men robbed the bank in Bowie in 1884, and the townspeople caught them and hanged them.

historicalpeople

In 1884, four men walked into the First National Bank of Bowie and left with what was said to be more than ten thousand dollars in gold coins. They did not get far. Townspeople gave chase, ran them down, and captured them. The robbers were hanged for their crimes. The bank stayed a target. In August of 1941, a man named Rex Beard, Junior, robbed the same First National Bank of Bowie. He was caught that December. By then the town had been settled for sixty years. It was incorporated in July of 1881, and it started growing in earnest when the Fort Worth and Denver Railway arrived the following year. By 1913 more than five thousand people lived there, and the town had its own business school, the Bowie Commercial College. The population today is roughly the same as it was then, a little under fifty-five hundred.

This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
In 1884, four men robbed the First National Bank of Bowie and allegedly left with over $10,000 in gold coins. Townspeople gave chase and eventually captured the robbers, who were hanged for their crimes.

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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