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First on the forecasts, got a mostly sunny day going up to seventy eight, clear skies over night, fifty six for the low seventy eight again in them all with partley, cloudy skies, clear over night forty four and on Thursday, sunny skies and sixty seven for a high. Right now it's forty five degrees. Let's see what Chuck has on traffic conditions.
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minute delay out of Erlanger into town. Chuck Ingram on fifty five kr SE the talk station.
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
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,
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.
Well, thank you for having me back. I appreciate it.
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, 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 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.
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 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,
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 ones were led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
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.
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 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, so only of these gangs are still active and still you know, driving the railroad's crazy, especially by robbing their trains.
Well, I suppose that segues into the what twenties and depression, eary gangs with Tommy guns and bank robbers.
And preme boy Floyd Nelson exactly.
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.
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 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.
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?
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.
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.
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, 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.
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 the wall and getting gunned down. How did this all come to play?
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. 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
Yeah, that would be good. Where we're going to retire and do what? Write a book? There?
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.
Tom.
It's been a real pleasure having me back on. Keep up the great work.
Thank you for having me back on. I appreciate it.
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