ArizonaRealCountry.com 39 June 2018 Bank Robber continued from page 37 Starr then gave the lawmen his played out horse and took the fresh mount the lawman had ridden a short distance from Ochelata on. Starr then went to the tent where a man named Wyatt had been ordered by the bandits to cook them breakfast, had the breakfast wrapped and rode off, carrying the food with him. That was the last Henry Starr and Kid Wilson were seen in Oklahoma. They showed up next in the bank at Amity, Colorado, where they were relieving the tellers of the bank's money. Bandits Split After Amity Henry rode from Amity into Arizona Territory and was captured and sent back to Colorado. What happened to Kid Wilson after the Amity holdup is a mystery to this day. There is some speculation but no evidence that Starr killed Wilson on the trail and took all of the money. If he did, he never admitted it. Nor did Starr ever give authorities any information on where Wilson had gone when the pair split up. Authorities in Oklahoma in 1914 were unaware that Starr had been pardoned in Colorado and released in the fall of 1913. But they were very aware that in the fall of 1914, and into the first weeks of January 1915, Oklahoma had the worst series of bank robberies ever, 14 banks robbed in some three months. Lawmen had no idea who was robbing banks at this rate until one of the witnesses to a robbery identified a mug shot of Henry Starr. Oklahoma’s governor immediately posted a $1000 reward for Starr, “dead or alive. Lawmen were combing Henry’s old hideouts in the Osage Hills hoping to catch him. But Starr was not in Osage Hill country. Henry had rented a place in the heart of Tulsa, at 1534 East Second Street and was enjoying the amenities of the city. The address was just two blocks from the County Sheriff’s home and four blocks from where the Mayor of Tulsa lived. Nice neighborhood then, a lot nicer than the brush of the Osage Hills, which could get downright uncomfortable in the winter months. Two Banks & A Shootout Henry lived unnoticed in the warmth of Tulsa until March 27, 1915, when he went back to work. That was the day Starr and a gang of six men rode into Stroud, Oklahoma, a two bank town. The Starr bank robbed both of them. Word of this unfriendly action spread through downtown Stroud almost as it was happening and before the Starr gang knew what happened, they were in a gun battle with the citizens of the town who had rushed home to get their guns to protect their banks. In the shooting that followed before the gang had a chance to escape town, Starr and a sidekick named Lewis Estes were wounded and captured. The Starr gang attempted to make a little history that day, robbing two banks at once in broad daylight. It didn’t quite go as planned and Henry Starr pleaded guilty to the Stroud bank robberies and was sentenced the first week of August 1915 to 25 years in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester. He was released on parole in less than four years, on March 15, 1919. Starr, who by now was gaining national attention for his bank robbing career, moved back to Tulsa. There, friends and supporters urged Starr to get into the motion picture business. Starr produced a silent movie called A Debtor to the Law which portrayed the double bank robbery in Stroud. The movie was an immediate success and Henry reportedly earned $15,000 from it. Henry starred in a couple other movies and had an offer from Hollywood to do a movie in the nation’s emerging film capital. Starr rejected the Hollywood offer, figuring that if he went to California, Arkansas authorities would try to extradite him for a bank job he did in Bentonville. Henry stayed in Oklahoma and the movie business, where he met his second wife Hulda, who was from Sallisaw. The couple married and moved to Claremore, Oklahoma on February 20, 1920. Took a Year Off A high powered touring car pulled up in front of the People’s State Bank in Harrison, Arkansas, on the morning of February 12, 1921. Henry and three pals rushed into the bank and robbed it of $6000. The former President of the bank opened fire on the bandits, hitting Starr in the back. Starr’s three pals fled, leaving the wounded Starr to face capture and robbery charges alone. The severely wounded Starr was taken to jail in Harrison. Henry’s wife Hulda, his mother and his 17-year-old son rushed to the downed bandit’s side. On Tuesday morning, February 22, 1921, Henry Starr died of his wounds. His death came one year to the day after he married Hulda. There was no doubt Henry Starr was a little proud of his accomplishments in the field of bank robbery. He boasted to his doctors while they were treating him for his wound, “I’ve robbed more banks than any man in America.” He didn’t mention to his doctors that he had published a book and had made several movies based on his career. Just robbing more banks than anyone seemed to be what satisfied him most about his life. Henry Starr was 20 when he started out robbing banks on horseback in 1893. He ended his career using an automobile to rob his last bank in 1921. In fact, he was the first bank robber on record to use an automobile in carrying out his crime. Henry was ¼ Cherokee but became known as “The Cherokee Badman.”