Famous robbers now a festival

GIBSLAND, La. - The day after police gunned down Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in north central Louisiana, 20,000 gawkers and souvenir hunters overran the nearest town.

Seventy years after that ambush in rural Bienville Parish, "the Southwest's most notorious bandit and his gun moll," as the News-Star of Monroe described them, are again packing them in - at the annual Bonnie & Clyde Festival.

Arcadia had about 700 residents when four Texas lawmen and Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan and his deputy, Prentiss Oakley, set up an ambush on May 23, 1934, alongside state Highway 154 just outside the town.

Arcadia was the first to cash in on the area's one well-known bit of history, organizing a flea market called Bonnie and Clyde Trade Days in 1990.

It's now Louisiana's biggest outdoor flea market, held one weekend a month. Locals say it brought eight antique shops, a Day's Inn and a dozen restaurants to Arcadia, where the Hot Biscuit was the only eatery.

Trade Days organizer Kathie Jones said townspeople are not trying to glorify Barrow and Parker. "But it is something that Bienville Parish has been famous for," she said.

The festival is held each year on the Saturday closest to May 23. This year's included an outdoor gospel concert and a re-enactment of the ambush.

Shreveport resident Greg Givens said research into his family genealogy piqued his interest in Barrow and Parker. He started and participated in the re-enactments, and coproduced a documentary, Death of Bonnie & Clyde, which includes interviews with some local people who came in contact with the duo, and a large number of photographs from people across the country.

"All they did was take pictures of themselves and guns," Givens said. "They were always showing off, because they knew eventually they would get caught. They were living fast."

The gangsters arrived in Bienville Parish in 1934 driving a new Ford stolen in Kansas City and hoping to hide out at a gang member's family home.

But farmer Ivey Methvin offered to set up an arrest if Texas authorities would drop charges against his son Henry, who ran with Bonnie and Clyde.

The six lawmen hid by the side of what was then the Jamestown-Sailes Highway near Methvin's farm. When the outlaws' car came by, they fired more than 100 rounds. Parker was 23, Barrow 25. Parker was eating a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich just bought at Ma Canfield's Cafe in Gibsland.

"So thorough was the riddling of the bandit and his woman, that portions of their flesh were buried in the sides and back of the car. The woman also had one hand virtually shot off," the News-Star reported that afternoon.

"You couldn't hear any one shot," one officer said that day. "It was just a roar, a continuous roar, and it kept up for several minutes. We emptied our guns, reloaded and kept shooting."

A beatup, graffiti-covered monument marks the spot on Louisiana 154.

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