The Red Crown Tavern and Red Crown Tourist Court in Platte County, Missouri, was the site of a July 20, 1933, gun battle between lawmen and outlaws Bonnie and Clyde and three members of their gang. The outlaws made their escape, and were tracked down and cornered four days later near Dexter, Iowa, and engaged by another posse. The shootout was depicted in Arthur Penn's 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, though the sign on the motel in the movie reads "Platte City, Iowa", not Missouri.
Built in 1931 by Parkville, Missouri, banker and developer Emmett Breen at the junction of US 71 and Missouri State Route 35, now Cookingham Drive - Former Missouri Route 291, the red brick and tile tavern included a popular restaurant and ballroom. Back behind the tavern was the tourist court— two small cabins connected by two garages. The site is just northeast of the main Kansas City International Airport exit off I-29. Today it is within the city limits of Kansas City. An Interstate entrance ramp runs almost squarely through the property.Ramsey, Winston G., ed (2003). On The Trail of Bonnie and Clyde, Then and Now. London: After The Battle Books. . p. 159
The gang seeks refuge
Clyde Barrow was uncharacteristically looking for a place for the gang to hole up in for several nights. It was his usual practice to keep moving and never spend more than one night in any given spot,Guinn, Jeff (2009). Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde. New York: Simon & Schuster. , p 207 but the previous weeks had been difficult. On June 10, a one-car wreck at Wellington, Texas, had left Bonnie Parker critically burned and near death. While the gang hid and tried to nurse Parker in a Ft. Smith, Arkansas, tourist court, Buck Barrow and W.D. Jones were sent to raise funds. They bungled the robbery and killed the town marshal of Alma, Arkansas.Town Marshal Henry D. Humphrey. The Officer Down Memorial Page Knight, James R. and Jonathan Davis (2003). Bonnie and Clyde: A Twenty-First-Century Update. Austin, TX: Eakin Press. . pp 93 The resultant police attention forced the gang to move on despite Parker's dire condition, and by mid-July, Barrow hoped they could put their feet up for several days in the same place.Guinn, p 208
To bankroll their stay, on July 18 the outlaws staged a freewheeling—if rather minor-league—crime rampage through the quiet streets of Fort Dodge, Iowa, stopping at one gas station after another, ransacking the cash registers and robbing and kidnapping the attendants, shoving them onto the backseat. They broke open the vending and gumball machines and scooped out all the change, a move which had unexpected consequences for them several days later. After three such robberies in fifteen minutes they realized they had no more room for hostages, released everybody, and with another $150 headed for Kansas City.Knight and Davis, p 100 It was distant over 1933 roads, yet they were there in under four hours.
Buck agreed in principle with the idea of a long rest, but disagreed with the choice of Kansas City because the bloody Kansas City Massacre of some weeks earlier meant that numerous federal, state, and local police officers were seeking gangsters in the area. The brothers fought bitterly about the plan before lapsing into a toxic silence that enveloped the car.Barrow, Blanche Caldwell and John Neal Phillips (2004). My Life with Bonnie and Clyde. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. . p 110 Late that night they pulled in to refuel at Slim's Castle, a service station, café, and convenience store at the busy Platte City intersection known locally as "The Junction", and the Red Crown Tourist Court across the street caught Clyde Barrow's eye. What attracted him initially was the sturdy brick construction of the place, which made him feel secure, he told his family later.Guinn, p 212 He told his hot, dirty, agitated passengers, "This is where we stay the rest of the night, even if we all get killed before morning."Barrow with Phillips, p 110
At the Red Crown
The Slim's Castle attendant directed Barrow to the Red Crown office in the tavern building. Before they drove over, they covered Buck and Jones with blankets in the backseat so that when Blanche Barrow went in to book the room, she could claim they were a party of three. This was not to save money off the room tab but was Clyde's attempt to disguise the size and makeup of the party if any prying officers inquired about them.Barrow with Phillips, p 272n18 What he didn't know was that the Red Crown was a favorite gathering spot of the Missouri Highway Patrol, in the days before two-way radio in patrol cars, when "officers and supervisors would often meet somewhere at mealtimes to exchange messages and receive orders".Guinn, pp 212-213
The Red Crown manager, Neal Houser, was immediately suspicious when Blanche entered the office in tight, provocative jodhpurs (riding breeches), an outfit unheard of in Platte City and one much discussed at the time and still remembered by eyewitnesses forty years later.Guinn, p 211 She booked both rooms out back for three guests, one night, then paid the $4 with a fistful of small change. Houser watched out his rear window as the driver of the car carefully backed it—nose out, "gangster style"—into the left garage and closed up the doors.Guinn, p 213. As with so much Bonnie and Clyde history, accounts disagree diametrically about this. Most researchers write that he backed the car in, but John Neal Phillips, editing Blanche Barrow's memoir, says pointedly that he did not.
A short time later, the young woman reappeared at the tavern's restaurant and bought five chicken dinners and five beers for the party of three. She paid for them with more small change. Houser insisted on following Blanche back to the cabins to record the car's license plate number but had to content himself with just peering into the garage for it when Clyde wouldn't let him into the cabin. After he left, the five settled in for supper. Since the two brothers were still not speaking to each other, it was a silent, somber repast.
The gang slept late the following morning. Overnight, Clyde had taped newspapers up inside the windows of the left cabin,Again, there is typical disagreement about which couple settled in which cabin, east or west. Ramsey (p 169), Knight (p 101), and Phillips (pp 272-273n19) place Clyde, Parker, and Jones in the left (west) cabin; Guinn (p 211) puts them in the right revealing another flaw in his selection of the Red Crown: with only two units, there were no other guests with whom to blend in.Guinn, p 209 This was apparent to everyone but the outlaws: even The Platte County Landmark noted "Windows curtained with newspapers, continually peeping out of windows by the gang, refusing to admit any of the station [tavern] employees to the cabins, hiding from view all of the members except one woman, created a suspicion on the part of Neal Houser ..."The Platte County Landmark, July 21, 1933 Blanche appeared again, again in her jodhpurs, again buying five meals for her party of three, and once again paying in small change. This time, she felt the air of suspicion around her and when later she learned his identity, realized it had been the eyes of Platte County Sheriff Holt Coffey boring into her as she completed her transaction.
Clyde had instructed her to pay for another night's stay, but "to see how the people acted and what I thought about them, if I thought it would be safe to stay there another night".Barrow with Phillips, p 112 Blanche got a bad feeling from Houser as she handed more coins into his hands, but when she apprised Barrow of her fears, "Clyde said it was just my imagination, that everything would be all right. So I said no more."
It was not just her imagination. Red Crown manager Houser had lawman restaurant patrons other than Sheriff Coffey—namely Captain William Baxter of the state patrol.The Highway Patrol had been formed just two years earlier. Barrow with Phillips, p 274n24 Houser had a word with Baxter about his suspicions concerning his motel guests, and Baxter spoke with Coffey. When the hotelier mentioned the Oklahoma plates on their car, the officers began wondering who might be in the cabins with the taped-over windows, which limited visibility in both directions.Guinn, p 214
Later that afternoon, Sheriff Coffey got a call from Louis Bernstein, the druggist at Platte City Drugs, about a stranger who had just left his store: "a good-looking gal in a slinky riding habit",Ramsey, p 159 the eager pharmacist reported. Both drug stores and law enforcement agencies had been alerted by Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas officials to be on the lookout for strangers seeking certain medical supplies. The stranger was Blanche, buying bandages and atropine sulfate to treat Bonnie's leg burns.In her memoir, Blanche writes that it was Clyde and Jones who went to buy the supplies while she waited "in the swing" at the tourist court, but there were a half-dozen witnesses who remembered her in the store; even her editor John Neal Phillips believes she was part of the errand and misremembered sitting the swing. Barrow with Phillips, p 274n25
For Coffey and Baxter, Bernstein's call pushed the situation to high alert: if the guests had bought burn wound supplies, it may well be the scorched Bonnie Parker and the Barrows within the brick cabins. Although "[m]ost of the general public had never heard of them", that afternoon, Coffey's son Clarence was on the scene as it dawned on his dad whom he would be going up against: "The look on my father's face," he told the papers then and later, "I'll never forget that!" The Platte County Landmark, July 21, 1933, and The Kansas City Star, September 17, 1978.
Coffey's was just a county sheriff's operation—"no protective gear, no radios, no weapons to speak of other than 'squirrel rifles and a few pistols".Barrow with Phillips, p 274n24 Even with Baxter's help, both men knew they were seriously outgunned. Platte County prosecutor David Clevenger suggested they confer with Jackson County Sheriff Tom Bash in nearby Kansas City, a big-city jurisdiction "whose available armaments included machine guns, steel bulletproof shields, tear gas launchers, and armored cars".Guinn, p 213 Coffey headed over to Bash's Kansas City office, but did not get the response he had hoped for. "I'm getting pretty damn tired of every hick sheriff in the country coming in here and telling me they have a bunch of desperadoes holed up and wanting help. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you," Bash said.Barrow with Phillips, p274n24 Coffey was tenacious and eventually got Bash to agree to supply some men, some weaponry, bulletproof shields, and "a bulletproof car".
Word was getting around town that there might be a replay of the "Kansas City Depot job"Bonnie's description of the Kansas City Massacre in her poem "The Trail's End", a.k.a. "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde." out at The Junction. Participants and spectators began gravitating to the tavern and to Slim's Castle across the road as the sweltering July day led to a muggy July night. The assault force numbered twelve: five from Platte County (Sheriff Holt Coffey, Constable Byron Fisher, Constable Thomas Hullet, Deputy James Thorpe, and Deputy Clarence Coffey), four from Jackson County (Sheriff Thomas B. "Tom" Bash, Deputy George Highfill, Deputy George Borden, and Deputy Lincoln Baker), and three from the state patrol (Capt. William Baxter, Sgt. Thomas Whitecotton, Jr., and Trooper Leonard "L. A." Ellis).Barrow with Phillips, p275n29
Coffey and Baxter thought it best to wait until later to make their move, after the traffic of the intersection and its two busy establishments had thinned out. Everyone seemed to sense the impending action—except the outlaws, shrouded by their newspaper curtains.
After dark, Blanche emerged and covered the short distance to the tavern to get more soap and some fresh towels. As she entered,