Author: William B. Secrest Publisher: Quill Driver Books ISBN: 9781884995194 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
Early outlaws tell their own raw tales of holdups, shootouts, and desperate flights from the law. Witness the cruel confessions of California bandits during the opening days of the Gold Rush, stage robbers, and California highwaymen. These tales of harrowing and sometimes hilarious antics are accompanied by many rare photographs.
Author: Jim Gregory Publisher: Arcadia Publishing ISBN: 1439663009 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 154
Book Description
California was a wild and lawless place in the 1850s, and San Luis Obispo County was no exception. Outlaws and bandits passed along the El Camino Real, now Highway 101, leaving a trail of victims. Despite attempts to stem the tide of crime with a vigilante committee and a string of executions, notorious men continued to be drawn to the central coast well into the next century. The James brothers, the Daltons and even Al Capone made their mark here, while lawmen worked to tame this piece of the western frontier. Author Jim Gregory details nefarious activities lost to time.
Author: Terry Smyth Publisher: Random House Australia ISBN: 014378238X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 334
Book Description
The Coves – San Francisco's first organised-crime gang – were Australians: men and women with criminal careers in Australia who had come to the US, mostly illegally, during the gold rush. The Coves had come not to dig for gold but to unleash a crime wave the likes of which America had never seen. Robbery, murder, arson and extortion were the Coves' stock-in-trade, and it was said that the leader of the gang, Jim Stewart, had killed more men than any man in California. The gang’s base, in the waterfront district, came to be known as Sydney Town. The area was a no-go zone for police – many of whom were in Stewart’s pocket anyway – so, just as Capone would one day rule Chicago, the Coves ruled San Francisco. And more than once, just to make sure there was no doubt that Frisco was their town, they burnt it down. The Coves were hated and feared by the respectable citizens of San Francisco – who derisively called them 'Sydney Ducks' but never to their faces – and, realising that the forces of the law could not, or would not, take them on, decided lynch law was the only solution, and formed a vigilante group. The streets of San Francisco became a battlefield as the Coves and the vigilantes fought for control of the city, with gunfights and lynchings almost daily spectacles as the police stood idly by. Jim Stewart was arrested in Sacramento for killing a sheriff, but escaped to be involved in one the most celebrated cases of mistaken identity in the annals of American crime. When the smoke cleared, the Coves' reign of terror was over. Some were strung up from storefronts in the street, some fell in a deadly gunfight with Jonathan R. Davis, one of the fastest guns in the west, others escaped capture and returned to Australia. The story of the Sydney Coves is little-known, fascinating and well worth telling.
Author: Ron Hansen Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 1480423874 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
DIVRon Hansen’s engrossing novel of the violent life and criminal exploits of the Dalton gang, as remembered by its last surviving member/divDIV From his home in Los Angeles, an aging Emmett Dalton reminisces about his glory days in America’s Wild West. Now sixty-five years old, and a Hollywood fixture, he makes a comfortable living selling stories of his earlier exploits to movie studios. But years before, he rode with his two brothers—charming, handsome, charismatic Bob, and the cold-eyed killer Grat, so wild and unpredictable that even his own family was afraid of him—committing brazen acts of robbery, bootlegging, and murder. As the last surviving member of the infamous Dalton gang, it’s Emmett’s responsibility to keep their legend alive. He has resolved to tell the full truth about the fabled career of the three criminal brothers and Eugenia Moore, the former schoolmarm who was an indispensable partner in their crimes, even if that truth turns out to be a darker, more painful, and less heroic picture than Hollywood’s moguls would make it out to be./divDIV /divDIVThe critically acclaimed debut novel by bestselling author Ron Hansen, Desperadoes is a masterwork of historical fiction that brings a fabled era of American outlaws and violence to breathtaking life./div
Author: William B. Secrest
Author: Carole Marsh
Author: Jim Gregory
Author: Carole Marsh
Author: Terry Smyth
Author: William B. Secrest
Author: Ron Hansen
Author: William B. Secrest
Author: Ruth E. Mather
Author: Patricia R. Foulk