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AR:Eureka Springs Gunfight Showed Marksmanship of Armed Citizens
Gun Watch ^ | 27 March, 2014 | Dean Weingarten

Posted on 03/28/2014 5:10:59 AM PDT by marktwain

Spring Street, where the citizens shot up the gang in 1922

Recently, a video of a Eureka Springs, Arkansas City Council meeting showed them to be a little hostile to armed citizens.  It was not always so.   Because of that article, I became aware of one of the great examples of armed citizens stopping a criminal gang in the commission of a bank robbery.

No, I am not talking about the  James-Younger Gang and how they were shot to pieces in Northfield Minnesota in 1876.  One bank clerk was murdered, and one townsman, an immigrant who was believed not to understand shouted warnings, was exposed in the street and killed in the crossfire.   Two outlaws were killed in that robbery attempt, and two others seriously wounded.  

I am talking about a famous attempted bank robbery that occurred 46 years later, in 1922, in Eureka Springs itself.  Here is a contemporary account from the Wichita Eagle that was printed a couple of days after the event:

The Wichita Eagle September 30, 1922
  Five bandits robbed the bank the other day and thought things were going about as usual.  But just as they headed for their car at the curb, in the customary manner, they suddenly realized that they had made a mistake.  They were in Arkansas!  No helpless crowd of hopeless citizens stood agape while the dashing bandits sailed right out of their ken like a meteor on a starry night.  That's not the way they do it in Arkansas.  Two pedestrians on the way to visit a sick friend saw what was going on and stepped inside the hank door in time to open the battle with a few well directed bullets toward the bandit's vital organs.  A lawyer in an office overhead said to his earnest client, "excuse me a moment please," stepped to a front window and put a half dozen bullets where they would do the most good.  A dentist asked his patient to keep open wide please just one moment, and rested his rifle on the window sill long enough to make sure that at least one of the bandits would fail to leave town that day.  A school boy hustling home to lunch whipped out his automatic and joined the attack." 
 
  Now the merchants began issuing from the lunch counters and their kitchens.  Each individual had his pistol spitting fire and steel as soon as he came within range.  And not an innocent bystander was scratched.  No wild shooting down at Eureka Springs.  Needless to add, not one of the five bandits got away, and all the money, $70,000, was carried back into the bank.
Later accounts differ a little in the details.    A silent alarm was pressed. Alert citizens saw what was happening and disabled the get away car with gunfire.  The town constable, exercising tactics, flanked the robbers and took one out with a head shot.  One citizen grabbed his .38, assumed a supported kneeling position, and took out the robber who was providing covering fire for the retreating outlaws.  Hostages dropped flat in the street as the robbers tried to run to cover.

 It is worth noting, that in this more modern version of the Northfield raid, in spite of dozens of shots being fired by numerous townspeople, not one innocent person was hit.  One hostage suffered some powder burns.  The bank robbers were hit numerous times.  Two of them died in a few minutes, one took four days to expire, with over a dozen bullet wounds.  The remaining two outlaws survived serious wounds and were sentenced to the state penitentiary.    
 
The shootout in Eureka Springs puts the lie to the idea that armed citizens simply fire wildly in a shootout.   Dozens of shots were fired.   The only people hit were the outlaws.
 
 ©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Link to Gun Watch


TOPICS: Education; History; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: ar; banglist; eurekasprings; gunfight
This bank robbery/spontaneous citizen defense should be every bit as famous as the Northfield bank robbery.
1 posted on 03/28/2014 5:10:59 AM PDT by marktwain
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To: marktwain

Sounds more worthy of a movie than 99% of them made these days...


2 posted on 03/28/2014 5:16:03 AM PDT by PreciousLiberty
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To: marktwain

I wish to thank you, marktwain, for posting material by Dean Weingarten. His articles are is always interesting.


3 posted on 03/28/2014 5:16:35 AM PDT by OldPossum ("It's" is the contraction of "it" and "is"; think about ITS implications.)
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To: marktwain

I use to visit Eureka Springs back in the 70s. It is/was a great little town for a weekend, or even vacation. It was like a different world from Arkansas in general.


4 posted on 03/28/2014 5:16:59 AM PDT by AlexW
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To: marktwain

A similar event happened to the Dalton Gang in their attempt to rob two banks in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1890. The armed citizens of that town killed all but one of them and he was arrested and served 15 years in prison.


5 posted on 03/28/2014 5:21:00 AM PDT by OldPossum ("It's" is the contraction of "it" and "is"; think about ITS implications.)
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To: marktwain

A school boy hustling home to lunch whipped out his automatic and joined the attack.


6 posted on 03/28/2014 5:34:14 AM PDT by TangoLimaSierra (To win the country back, we need to be as mean as the libs say we are.)
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To: TangoLimaSierra

bttt


7 posted on 03/28/2014 5:48:03 AM PDT by ConservativeMan55 (In America, we don't do pin pricks. But sometimes we elect them.)
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To: AlexW

They try to keep it that way. They now have tours for the “underground city”. It seems a portion of the town was buried in a mudslide and they built over it. Now parts of it are open for tours.


8 posted on 03/28/2014 5:59:46 AM PDT by BipolarBob
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To: marktwain

The Magic Blue-Costumed Donut Blimps would have massacred the innocent bystanders after showing up an hour later...


9 posted on 03/28/2014 6:13:55 AM PDT by kiryandil (turning Americans into felons, one obnoxious drunk at a time (Zero Tolerance!!!))
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To: kiryandil

> The Magic Blue-Costumed Donut Blimps would have massacred the innocent bystanders after showing up an hour later...

Think again. I was in a convenience store during an armed robbery a few years back. The cops were called a couple of minutes into the robbery at about 10:00pm. The cops didn’t show up until a little after 1am. That’s 3 hours from notification to arrival. Why bother?


10 posted on 03/28/2014 6:49:10 AM PDT by BuffaloJack (Freedom isn't free; nor is it easy. END ALL TOTALITARIAN ACTIVITY NOW.)
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To: marktwain
For later...

Thanks for posting.

11 posted on 03/28/2014 7:10:17 AM PDT by Envisioning (It's the Jihad, stupid......)
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To: marktwain

Sounds like what happened to Oklahoma outlaw Henry Starr when he tried to rob the Harrison Arkansas bank a year before.

He was the first to use an automobile for a getaway car, but he didn’t get away.

When a local bank was robbed in 1923 by the Al Spencer gang, the robbers used a stolen Cadillac to get away, but a quick telephone call to the town West and the robbers were shot to pieces. Once they were in Oklahoma, they ditched the car and took off on horses but were later captured.


12 posted on 03/28/2014 7:31:30 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Sometimes you need 7+ more ammo. LOTS MORE.)
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To: marktwain

The context of the times is also important. Eureka Springs is just northeast of Fort Smith, where judge Issac Parker brought justice to a large chunk of land and the Indian Territories, which only ceased to be just 27 years before this gunfight.

When Parker became judge, the territories were known as a safe haven for violent criminals, and during his tenure some 109 deputies were killed in the line of duty. Notable lawmen served as deputy marshals, including Old West gunman Frank Canton, Zeke Proctor, Frank Eaton, Bass Reeves and Heck Thomas.

Of these Bass Reeves was a freed slave who was credited with arresting some 3,000 felons, as well as shooting to death some 14 others.

In any event, it should be no surprise that the good people of Eureka Springs understood the importance of being armed, and it mattered when it needed to matter.


13 posted on 03/28/2014 7:41:38 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (WoT News: Rantburg.com)
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To: kiryandil

And then they would have investigated, found their performance wanting, covered up the report and claimed they needed more money for nicer guns and “more training,” which of course would not have led to any improvement in their performance.

I’m now at a point where I think cops should be fired. Just have a county sheriff and a sheriff’s posse for searches and pursuits. The “professional” police forces are bankrupting municipalities and states, and they’re nothing more or less than the standing army the Founders warned us of.


14 posted on 03/28/2014 8:09:03 AM PDT by NVDave
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

***Notable lawmen served as deputy marshals, including Old West gunman Frank Canton, Zeke Proctor, Frank Eaton, Bass Reeves and Heck Thomas.***

Let’s not forget Bill Tilghman who was later murdered in Cromwell OK (the town burned down not long after) and Chris Madsen, the only man who has his name on the Custer memorial at the Little Big Horn, but was not there as he had been transferred just before. He saw Bill Cody kill Yellow Hand (Yellow Hair) in man to man combat. The knife Cody used to scalp Yellow Hand (or Hair) is in the Saunders Gun Museum in Berryville Arkansas, not far from Eureka Springs.

Bill Tilghman, Heck Thomas and Chris Madsen were referred to as THE THREE GUARDSMEN of OKLAHOMA.


15 posted on 03/28/2014 9:35:45 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Sometimes you need 7+ more ammo. LOTS MORE.)
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To: NVDave
...they’re nothing more or less than the standing army the Founders warned us of.

"...and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance."

King George coulda had a V-8:

"Hey! I'll just tax the crap out of the colonists, and pay a bunch of police officers $30 an hour with the tax money, so the officers can afford to buy their own cozy upscale houses, instead of quartering them in the colonists' houses!

We'll use the new invasive monitoring technology, so that the officers don't even have to be in the houses of the rebels!

Sweet!"

I maintain that the current Police State is a MASSIVE violation of the Third Amendment.

16 posted on 03/28/2014 11:38:12 AM PDT by kiryandil (turning Americans into felons, one obnoxious drunk at a time (Zero Tolerance!!!))
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To: kiryandil

“A school boy hustling home to lunch whipped out his automatic and joined the attack.” “

And shot all dogs within sight.


17 posted on 03/28/2014 12:03:33 PM PDT by Rebelbase (Tagline: optional, printed after your name on post)
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To: kiryandil

Crap, #17 out of context.

It was in response to this:

“The Magic Blue-Costumed Donut Blimps would have massacred the innocent bystanders after showing up an hour later...”


18 posted on 03/28/2014 12:07:02 PM PDT by Rebelbase (Tagline: optional, printed after your name on post)
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To: OldPossum

I wish to thank you, marktwain, for posting material by Dean Weingarten. His articles are is always interesting.
-=0=-
Smiles +


19 posted on 03/28/2014 3:19:00 PM PDT by S.O.S121.500 (Had Enough Yet ? ........................ Enforce the Bill of Rights ......... It's the LAW !!!)
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