"I wouldn't have minded it so much if a man had shot me," Starr reportedly said after being wounded.

The boy, Paul Curry, heard gunfire from the bandits as they marched several hostages from both banks toward the livery stable after the March 26, 1915, robbery. He borrowed a .44-caliber octagon-barreled rifle and ammunition and hid behind his father's grocery store, waiting for a good shot.

As Starr, whose identity Curry didn't know but who appeared to be the leader, approached, the boy shot him in the hip. Starr fell, Curry ran up to him, pointed the rifle at him and ordered, "Drop your gun or I'll kill you." Starr followed the order.

Curry was 19, although some newspapers listed his age as 17 or 18, but looked to be 14. He picked up Starr's gun and turned his attention to Lewis Estes, another bandit, who had mounted his horse and returned to help his fallen leader. Curry shot him in the neck but Estes was able to ride out of town, leaving a trail of blood and silver dollars, which he had stuffed into his pockets during the robbery. He was found leaning against a tree near the town cemetery.

While Starr and Estes were being treated at a doctor's office, Starr said, "I've never killed a woman or a boy and I don't intend to start now," a statement that probably explained why the robber hadn't shot Curry after being wounded.

He freely admitted robbing the banks and both he and Estes were sentenced to prison -- but Starr, as in past prison terms, became a model prisoner and was pardoned after serving less than four years of his 25-year term.

After his release, he told a World reporter, "I'm 45 years old and 17 of my years have been spent in prison."

Starr was given the "king of the bank robbers" title by Deputy Marshal Bill Tilghman because of the large number of banks he had robbed. The bandit confirmed his record six years later when he told a doctor as he was dying after being shot in a Harrison, Ark., bank robbery, "I've robbed more banks than any man in the United States."

Born in Fort Gibson, Starr's bandit career was interspersed with periods when he claimed to have gone straight and he frequently advised others that "crime doesn't pay," as he did after the Stroud capers.

He pleaded guilty to a robbery charge and was sentenced to 25 years in the state penitentiary at McAlester but was paroled four years later after he began urging young people to earn their livings instead of turning to a life of crime.

It was the second time he had been released from prison early and the second time he had tried to go straight. His first release came in 1903 after President Theodore Roosevelt cut the length of his prison sentence in gratitude for Starr's help in disarming badman Crawford Goldsby, alias Cherokee Bill, who was trying to break out of jail and was later hanged at Fort Smith.

Starr was in the Fort Smith jail serving a term on his plea of guilty to manslaughter for killing a deputy U.S. marshal for which he had twice been convicted and sentenced to hang, both convictions being overturned by the Supreme Court.

After being treated following the Stroud robberies, the two injured bandits were taken to the basement of the county jail at Chandler, where people flocked to see them. Among the curious was John J. Davis, later a Tulsa furniture store co-owner, whose uncle was the Lincoln County attorney.

"Boy, don't ever get in any scrapes like I have. It just doesn't pay. Always be honest and upright," the bandit told Davis, who was allowed to go into the cell with Starr.

Davis, who died in 1993, related that story frequently during his latter days and always said, "I've never forgotten that good advice." But it was advice he probably didn't need, friends say.

After serving about four years, Starr received a pardon but his robbery days weren't over, despite his claim that he was going straight and his new position as a movie actor.

He returned to Stroud to star as himself in a movie about the double bank robbery and became known as the "Evening Starr" for his roles in that and other films. But during the filming, he left Stroud for a day or two, times that corresponded with bank robberies in Chandler and Davenport.

And then he was mortally wounded Feb. 18, 1921, while he and others were robbing the People's National Bank in Harrison, Ark.

An officer of the bank shot Starr from the vault where he and several other bank officials had been forced by the bandits.

The bank robber lingered for four days in a hospital in Harrison and told the doctor treating him that he turned bank robber again because he was in debt.

"I am sorry but the deed is done," Starr said.

Photograph research by Rachele Vaughan

Gene Curtis 581-8304
gene.curtis@tulsaworld.com

Gene Curtis is a former managing editor of the Tulsa World.

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