Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were two of America’s most famous outlaws during the Great Depression. Together with the Barrow Gang, they committed robberies across states and were responsible for 13 deaths, including nine police officers.
In July 1933, the Barrow Gang hid out in Dallas County, Iowa, and this was the beginning of their downfall. They were on the run from a recent shootout in Platte City, Missouri, where Clyde’s older brother, Buck, had been severely wounded.
Looking for a place where Buck could rest and recover, Bonnie, Clyde, Buck, his wife Blanche, and a teenager named W.D. Jones set up a hidden camp in a wooded area north of Dexter, located at the old Dexfield Amusement Park.
During that time they started interacting with locals. Clyde went into Dexter multiple times to buy food and medical supplies using cash, which Depression-era merchants welcomed without asking questions. A local officer named John Love, who worked at a clothing store, even sold Clyde shoes, shirts, and socks. The gang also surprised a group of 14 Girl Scouts led by Della Gowdey who stumbled into their campsite during an early morning hike.
The hideout was discovered after a local landowner, Henry Nye, found a bloody map and used bandages while hunting for wild blackberries. Nye alerted John Love, who spotted two cars at the camp with binoculars. Love then called Dallas County Sheriff Clint Knee, who put together a secret group of local citizens, with Des Moines officers, and a Des Moines dentist named Dr. Hershel Keller, who brought his own submachine gun.
Around 5:00 a.m. on July 24, 1933, this secret group surrounded the camp while the gang was eating breakfast and opened fire. The gang fought back using military Browning Automatic Rifles stolen from National Guard armories. Trying to escape, Clyde crashed their first car into a tree stump, and their second car was too damaged to run. Bonnie, Clyde, and Jones fled on foot, leaving Buck and Blanche behind. Buck was captured and died five days later from his wounds, while Blanche was arrested and later served six years in prison.
Bonnie, Clyde, and Jones crossed the river to the Feller family farm to stole their car and were able to escape, but that didn’t last long.
In less than a year later, Texas prison officials hired retired Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer to track them down. After a three-month search, Hamer traced the couple to Louisiana. Before dawn on May 23, 1934, Hamer and a group of Texas and Louisiana lawmen hid in the bushes along a country road near Sailes, Louisiana. When Bonnie and Clyde drove by, the officers opened fire and ended their life.
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