Charles Floyd: America's Robin Hood, or Ruthless Criminal?

“If you'll gather round me, children,

A story I will tell

'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw,

Oklahoma knew him well.

…

Yes, he took to the trees and timber

To live a life of shame;

Every crime in Oklahoma

Was added to his name.

But many a starvin' farmer

The same old story told

How the outlaw paid their mortgage

And saved their little homes.

Others tell you 'bout a stranger

That come to beg a meal,

Underneath his napkin

Left a thousand-dollar bill.”

Those words come from “The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd,” a song by American folk icon Woody Guthrie. And it perfectly encapsulates the complex and controversial legacy left behind by one of America’s most notorious outlaws. Pretty Boy Floyd was a robber and a killer, no doubt about that. He became the country’s new “Public Enemy #1” after the death of John Dillinger.

And yet, many people remember him as the so-called “Robin Hood of the Cookson Hills” for his generosity towards the needy and, most famously, for allegedly burning mortgage documents whenever he robbed a bank to get people out of debt. But was this reputation deserved or did Floyd simply benefit from good post-mortem PR?

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Further Reading:
Jeffery S. King - The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd

Crime Library

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/kansas-city-massacre-pretty-boy-floyd

https://www.carnegie.lib.oh.us/Floyd

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pretty-boy-floyd-is-killed-by-the-fbi

https://www.odmp.org/officer/2512-special-agent-curtis-c-burks

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29508242/ervin-andrew-kelley

https://www.biography.com/crime/charles-pretty-boy-floyd

Видео Charles Floyd: America's Robin Hood, or Ruthless Criminal? канала Biographics