Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Here's your Channel nine.
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(00:44):
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fifty five kr SE the talk station.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Just I have seven thirty here fifty five kr C
detalk station are very happy Tuesday to side scoop with
bright part at the top of the our news one
hour from now. The Daniel Davis Deep Dive and right now,
please to welcome back to the fifty five Carsy Morning Show,
The Wild Wild West. He Knows, Tom Clay and a
number one New York Times best selling authors. Worked as
a newspaper editor, magazine writer, TV and radio commentator report
(01:15):
for The New York Times. Numerous awards he's received from
the Society Professional Journalist, Marine Corps, Heritage Foundation, National Newspaper Associations.
His books including the best selling Frontier Lowman trilogy, Wild Bill,
Dodge City and Tombstone, and Blood and Treasure, The Last
Till and Throne of Grace with Bob Drury. His next book,
talked About It Today, Bandit Heaven, The Hole in the Wall,
(01:39):
Gangs and the final chapter of the Wild West. Welcome
back to the fifty five Carcy Morning Show, Tom Clay,
and it's a pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Well, thank you for having me back. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And the obviously the title indicates the final chapter of
the Wild West before we get into the specifics of
the Hole in the Wall Gang's plural something I did
not know. Can you set this stage for this period
in history you're talking about, because you know, I, when
I think of the Wild West, and you go back
in time. You know that the settlers are moving out there,
(02:09):
we have the incursions and interactions with the Native Americans
and uh, you know, the cattle people moving in and
shephard all that. But I always kind of keep in mind,
or try to keep in mind, that there is no
formal local law enforcement that you did did did you know?
People really were kind of on their own and that
(02:29):
people did regularly take the law into their own hands.
There was a sense of, uh, you know, I don't
want to call it rugged individualism for for sort of
making it sound good, but uh, you know, it wasn't
like you could call nine to one one back then.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Now that you couldn't then a local law enforcement were
often overwhelmed. They a lot of times these fellows were
and they were all menu. But yeah, I think you
have to look far and wide to find a female
law enforcement person in the West, and you know, the
eighteen nineties, let's say, but they had they were poorly trained,
if trained at all. They weren't paid that much. A
lot of times they were part timers because they had
(03:06):
to make a real living as shopkeepers or you know,
ranchers and everything like that. So a lot of times
when when there was there was trouble, the perpetrators, the
bandits got away with it. That's partly what Bandit Heaven
is about that for years they were these hideouts that
they used, a hole in the wall in Wyoming. There's
also a place called Robber's Rooster, another place called Brown's Hole,
(03:26):
and these were like safe havens for bandits. They rob
a stagecoach, rob a train, Robert Bank, and then make
make their high tail their way to one of these hideouts.
And they were safe there because the lowman at the
times they were not going anywhere near that. Those places
they're too there's too many bandits, they're too hard to
get to. The terrain is really rough. So that's a
lot of what the book is about about is the
banded gangs that used these hideouts, and the most famous
(03:49):
ones were led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, and you pulled out. It's the fifty fifth anniversary
of the film butchecasting in The Sundance Kid. I've seen
it a whole bunch of times. But you know, and
this is the important thing. It's not just Butch casting
the Sundance Kid as the hole in the Wall gang.
This is a whole bunch of different folks that sort
of interacted with this wild bunch.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, that's a really good point because now the movie
is a really good movie, does hold up some people
who do want to rewatch it, they'll still be enjoy it.
And you understand that it's from the director's point of view,
and the audience point of view is you got Paul Newman,
you know, Robert Redford and Katherine Ross. You want to
keep the camera on. Now, who cares about anybody else? Right,
But the fact was the real full story, which is
(04:32):
you know in Band in Heaven is about there. The
gangs were pretty were large gangs. There were a bunch
of gangs. Their members shifted from one to the other.
But sometimes Sundance k would branch off and have his
own gang for a while, Puts casting his own gang.
Kid Curry would have his own gang, and gun Play
Maxwell with have his own gang, Blackjack Catching would have
his own gang. It's amazing how not only just into
the eighteen nineties, but into the early you know, nineteen hundreds,
(04:54):
so only of these gangs are still active and still
you know, driving the railroad's crazy, especially by robbing their trains.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, I suppose that segues into the what twenties and depression,
eary gangs with Tommy guns and bank robbers.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
And preme boy Floyd Nelson exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
You got to move on into the next century and
uh and take yourself out of the wild West. But
these guys would there. They were certainly romanticized. If you
look at butchcasting the Sundance Kids, they were anti here is.
You wanted to root for him in many ways. But
these were not good people.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
They were not good people. One of the interesting things
I found out about researching but Cassidy is though he
was he was the leader of leaders. He was like
the coppo of these these Western gangs, but he himself
was not. He always avoided violence as much as he could.
He was not there. There were some Connars characters the
band that Han't kick Curry as one for example, goundn't
play Maxwell as the name implies. Their first option was
(05:49):
to go for their guns. But Butch Cassidy was I'm
not trying to romanticize them at all. But he was
a criminal. He was a crook. He robbed trains and
he robbed banks. But his last resort was any kind
of violence. In fact, he was to his whole career
until twenty the very end of his career without killing
a single person.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
No kidding, Well, what of I love the nicknames these
guys said. If you mentioned gun play, Maxwell, that tells
the story. But what of Dirty Dave run a ball?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah, you know he didn't. It wasn't that he said
bad words. That's why he's called dirty Day. He was
just HIGI challenge and that's how he got That's how
he got his nickname Big. He didn't see a bath.
You didn't see a bat he ever liked and uh
he was he was so he was.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
He was a stinker in all wayson one Wow and
you'll let you'll meet other folks like Blackjack catch him
and uh mentioned gun playing Maxwell Tall Texan Kilpatrick and
George Flattenose Curry. But what of they weren't just guys
hanging out with guys. Apparently a lot of women played
a part in this story that you tell in band
in Heaven as well.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, I'm glad I could do that with Banded Hammer
to include this with the women who were involved. You
know this, there's the Bassett sisters that that you know,
kind of swaths of the wild Bunch. There's Andy Rodgers
of the kid Curry's girl friend as the bandit Queen
bell Star, and of course there's there's Ethel Place in
the movie. They call her at a played by Katherine Ross.
But Ethel Place, it's a really interesting to me because
we don't we know very little where she came from,
(07:11):
and suddenly she appears as the paramore of a sundance kid.
They eventually got married, and so they were a husband
and wife for a while. And then she when she
when she left the story, she just disappears. She apparently
went to San Francisco and nobody ever heard from her again.
She's one of the most interesting and intriguing and mysterious
characters in the book.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Well, you do talk about law enforcement agencies and the
legendary lawmen that ultimately put a stop to this the
Allan Pinkerton being of the Pinkerton Agency. Now did they
get involved? Was the federal government integral in hiring them?
Did local communities hire these folks out to do the
jobs that their local guys wouldn't do out of fear
of showing up in a place like the hole in
(07:51):
the wall and getting gunned down. How did this all
come to play?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Well, The Pinkerton Agency first was got noticed because they
the allan thinker to stop an assassination attempt on Abraham
Lincoln when he was on his way to Washington to
be inaugurated as president, and that got them pretty well
known among federal government sources, and then they famous spread
to state government. They were usually the ones who hired
the Pinkerton Agency, and it was really like a precursor.
(08:14):
As they pointed out and banded in Heaven, they were
like the FBI before there's the FBI. They were pioneering
the new detecting methods. They were tracking people down, and
they're kind of they introduced the professionalism into law enforcement
that wasn't there before, which made them more effective. As
we started discussing these part time lawmen that were untrained
and for the most part was saying that's too dangerous
of stay at home.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Well, I suppose the mindset within the Pinkertons and the
others who were tracking down these guys they didn't really
probably have due process in mind. Weren't they just really
out to just gun these guys down and put an
end of their criminal behavior.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
You know, yes, what you said is true. There were sometimes,
you know a lot of times they wanted these dead
or alive mandates, saying, you know, if you have to,
if you kill them and bring them in, it's just
as good as you bring them alive. But every so
often that there were there were criminals who gave themselves
up and smartly. And I mean there's there's several characters
in banded him and then had a criminal career. But
(09:10):
they gave themselves up, spent some time in prison, and
had the rest of their life as model citizens, which
is very which is kind of unusual. But you know,
the landscape of the Wildwest was changing. There was no
wild West to go back to. By the early middle
of eighteen nineties, it was changing drastically well.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
And I'm sure folks I had never heard of Charlie
Serringo apparently refer to the cowboy detective, most successful of
the late century lawman. How come his name's fallen below
most everyone's radar. I guess that's a.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
That's a really good question. I think part of it
is because there's probably never been a movie made about him.
One of the characters in the book in my book
is Tom Horne. There was a movie made about him
with Steve McQueen. He was not Charlie Serringo was not
included in the Pascassing a Sun Dance Kid movie. He's
spent thousands of miles in the saddle, going from all
of the United States to track down criminals. Very successful.
(10:00):
I had a long career as a think it's the
detective at the Cowboy. Here's the best selling author's here.
He wrote several books about his adventures. And it's a
really good question that I don't like an answer other
than to say there's never been a presentation of him
on screen. Well.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
New York Times best selling author Tom Claven, author of Bandit, Heaven,
The Hole in the Wall, Gangs in the final chapter
of The Wild Wild West, how about you write a screenplay.
Seems like you can sell that to someone in Hollywood,
make millions of dollars in retire.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, that would be good. Where we're going to retire
and do what? Write a book? There?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
You are, retire from your book writing and write books
in your retirement. Tom Claven, you always do a fabulous
job filling in all the blanks and revealing these wonderful characters.
And telling America's history. I know my listeners are going
to love it. It's on my blog page fifty five
Carsey dot com the link to where they get the book,
and I'll encourage him to get a copy.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Tom.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
It's been a real pleasure having me back on. Keep
up the great work.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Thank you for having me back on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
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Speaker 2 (12:26):
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