2016     1″

“Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered,

I’ve seen lots of funny men,

Some’ll rob ya with a six gun,

and some with a fountain pen. 

And as through your life you travel,

Yes, as through your life you roam,

You won’t never see an outlaw,

Drive a family from their home.”

The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd, Woodie Guthrie

Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd (1904-1934) was a bank-robbing, Robin-Hood gangster during the Great Depression. Though Floyd is most often associated with his native Oklahoma, he got into trouble all over the Midwest: he was nabbed during a payroll robbery in St. Louis in 1925 and served 3 1/2 years in the Missouri State Penitentiary for it, was in a gang in Kansas City, and eventually was gunned down by lawmen in Ohio. Floyd was known for his generosity and has gone down in folklore as always helping those around him who needed: saving families from loosing their homes by paying off their debt and buying the necessities of life and some luxuries for others. Do to this and their hatred of banks, Floyd was hidden by his fellow Oklahomans for years in between bank robberies.

¢25-$2