Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd
by Krysta CardinaleThe infamous gangster, Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd, was not romanticized by the press like his contemporaries. Instead, he was portrayed as a cold-hearted ruthless criminal, who in reality did not commit many of the crimes attributed to him.
Charles Arthur Floyd was born on February 3, 1904 in rural Georgia. His family remained in Georgia until Floyd was ten years old, then they moved to Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd worked on his family’s dirt farm. They struggled for years through drought and hardship until the area became part of the great dustbowl. He married at the age of seventeen to Wilma Hargrove.
1930s “Pretty Boy” Floyd Info
In the 1930s, “Pretty Boy” Floyd information changed to a life of crime. At eighteen years old he committed his first robbery. Floyd held up a post office taking about $350 in pennies. Three years later, he obtained a pistol and drove down to St. Louis. In St. Louis Floyd committed a quick payroll robbery, but was caught and sentenced to three years in jail.
Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd was released and quickly picked up where he left off. This time around, Charles partnered with big names in the crime world of Kansas City. During the next couple of years he was linked to a serious of bank robberies. During this string of robberies, he was given the nickname “Pretty Boy” and hated it.
During his crime spree, Floyd hit a bump in the road. He was caught at a bank robbery in Sylvania, Ohio and sentenced to serve fifteen years in prison. However, on his way to jail, Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd escaped and rebuilt what he had. In the following years, Floyd and his gang was said to be involved in every robbery that took place. However, many of these crimes did not include him at all. An example of this was June 17, 1933 when five men were machine gunned to death in a Kansas City train station. It was done by three men, and Floyd and his new partner Adam Richetti were identified as two of them. Till his dying day, Floyd insisted that he had not been apart of the Kansas City Massacre. The FBI classified Floyd as a “Public Enemy.”
Bank robberies that Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd did commit included Earlsboro, Konawa, Maud, Morris, Shamrock, and Tahlequahtwo. He also performed two robberies on the same day, holding up banks in Castle and Paden, Oklahoma. Due to the actions of Floyd and other bank robbers of the time, bank insurance rates doubled. The governor of Oklahoma also put a $56,000 reward on Floyd. In between his crimes, Floyd would supposedly hide in towns protected by locals. Some say people voluntarily hid up because they hated the banks. This was during the time when American farms cumulated large amounts of debt and banks were foreclosing on them. Others say that Floyd paid people bribes to keep quiet.
The End of Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd
Charles Floyd had several very close encounters with capture or death from the FBI. Somehow he managed to nearly escape them on almost all of them. However on October 22, 1934 time ran out. Floyd tried to escape the FBI once again, but this time he was shot down by sharpshooter Chester Smith. As he lay dying, FBI agent Melvin Purvis asked him, “are you Pretty Boy Floyd?” He only answered as he died, “I am Charles Arthur Floyd.”
Floyd’s funeral was held in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, and was buried in Akins, Oklahoma. There were about 40,000 people that attended his service. This remains to be the largest funeral in Oklahoma history.
