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Frank Hamer, Legendary Texas Lawman Who Bagged Bonnie and Clyde

Khalid Elhassan December 27, 2024 12 min

Hamer - Frank Hamer — Frank Hamer. Free Range America

16. A Boom in Banditry and Crime

Wild West outlaws, left to right, John Wesley Hardin, Belle Starr, and Billie the Kid. K-Pics

Throughout the Wild West, banditry and crime in general, from violent assaults to brazen fraud on an epic scale, boomed. Many criminals frequently transitioned from outlaws to lawmen and back again, and crossed and re-crossed that line multiple times during their lifetimes. Quite a few gave in to the temptation of easy riches in a region abounding with readily portable wealth, be it cash, gold, cattle or horses. Stagecoaches became a primary target for outlaws before the arrival of the railroad, because they frequently transported valuables and payrolls in their strongboxes, and required relatively little effort to rob aside from the robber’s audacity. More importantly, they could be halted in isolated locales, which gave the robbers time to flee before law enforcement arrived and attempted to track down the culprits.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.