In the meantime the alarm had caused a furor of excitement in town, and
C. E. Burson of the Bank of Eureka Springs had sent a bullet from his
pistol that punctured a rear tire of the bandit’s car. Young Hendrix,
getting excited, started the car slowly down Spring Street but a bullet
struck him as he reached the junction with Center Street and he turned
the car into a railing at the head of a stairway. He was captured
without offering resistance.
By this time the four bandits had left the bank with the money in a
sack, taking two of the bank employees as hostages. They knew they would
have to fight their way out and sought to escape down the stairway by
the Times-Echo office which leads to Center Street. Guns were popping
and bullets flying everywhere. Si Wilson was killed instantly, George
Price died a few minutes after being taken to Dr. R. H. Huntington’s
hospital, Charlie Price died from his wounds a few days later.
Cowan was wounded. He and Hendrix were sentenced to terms in the state
penitentiary.
Eureka Springs citizens who battled with the outlaws were: Ernie Jordan,
Joe McKimmey, Jess Littrell, Robert Bowman, Homer Brittan and Sam
Harmon. The story of their courage in defeating this desperate gang
without loss of a man was told in newspapers throughout the country.
None of them were wounded except Ernie Jordan who received a powder burn
in the face. F. O. Butt, Eureka Springs attorney, was president of the
First National Bank at that time. He had his office over the bank
building. He was glad to see the sack of money and bonds returned
without loss. It had been dropped on the Center Street stairway during
the fight.
XXI
INSPIRATION POINT
The Ozarks is a land of dreams. Some of them succeed, some fail.
Traveling through the hill country we find numerous ruins of partially
built projects, that reveal the urge of man to build and perpetuate.
“Coin” Harvey’s Pyramid at Monte Ne, the Kingston Project in Madison
County, the old Chautauqua Assembly at Sulphur Springs, the numerous old
hotels at once-popular watering places, ghosts of a past era when the
water cure was a national fad, social and cultural colonies, the
lengthened shadows of promoters or reformers, that existed for a few
years and then passed into oblivion. These are monuments to dreams that
failed or prospered for a season and then passed out.
On the other hand there are numerous active enterprises in the hills
such as Ted Richmond’s Wilderness Library in Newton County, and the
famed “School of the Ozarks” near Hollister, Missouri. Other projects
have been built with broad business perspective such as the town of Bull
Shoals. Churches have been successful in establishing permanent
institutions such as the Sequoyah Assembly at Fayetteville and the
Subiaco Academy in Logan County. Some projects with more than local
interest were started by one person and completed by others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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