Charles Arthur Floyd, the Oklahoma outlaw known to the world as Pretty Boy Floyd, was shot and killed by law enforcement on October 22nd, 1934, in a cornfield near East Liverpool, Ohio. His death came just months after the FBI had named him Public Enemy Number One, a title he assumed in the wake of John Dillinger’s death in July of that year. He was thirty years old. Floyd’s criminal career had begun more than a decade earlier.
Born on February 3rd, 1904, near Deersville, Georgia, he was the second son and fourth surviving child of Walter Lee and Helena Eckles Floyd. His family left the hills of northwestern Georgia in 1911, moving to the Sequoyah County area near the Arkansas border in eastern Oklahoma, seeking better opportunities out west. As a teenager, Floyd learned to make corn liquor, earning the nickname “Chuck” from his fondness for chock beer, a local home brew. He quickly became involved in bootlegging and other illegal ventures.
At sixteen, he fell under the influence of a criminal mentor in Witchah and John Callahan, a shadowy figure who ran one of the Midwest’s largest fencing operations. In 1924, Floyd married Ruby Hardgraves, the daughter of a tenant farmer. The couple had a son, Jack Dempsey Floyd, named after the world champion boxer. That same year, dissatisfied with his life as a dirt farmer, Floyd traded five gallons of corn whiskey for a pearl-handled pistol.
In 1925, he and a friend hopped a freight train heading east, leaving his life in Oklahoma behind. On September 11th, 1925, in St. Louis, Floyd participated in a payroll robbery that netted $11,929. He was caught and sentenced to five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City.
He was released in March 1929, and immediately moved to Kansas City, where he was fresh out of prison and ready to put the criminal education he had received from veteran convicts to use. It was in Kansas City that Floyd met his future girlfriend, Bula Baird, during a card game at Mother Ash’s boarding house. It was she who gave him his colorful nickname, Pretty Boy Floyd. He went on to commit over thirty successful bank robberies across the Midwest, primarily in Ohio and Oklahoma, usually with one or more accomplices.
Authorities also charged him with several murders that resulted from gun battles with law enforcement or rival criminals, though many of the crimes attributed to him were later proven to be false. One such false accusation was his involvement in the Kansas City Massacre. On June 17th, 1933, Floyd and his partner Adam Richetti were named as prime suspects when a group of men launched an attack on lawmen escorting robber Frank Jelly Nash to a car parked at Kansas City’s Union Station. Kansas City detectives William Grooms and Frank Hermanson were killed, as were Oklahoma police chief Otto Reed and Special Agent Ray Caffrey.
Nash was also shot in the head by his would-be rescuers while sitting in the car. Two other Kansas City cops survived by slumping forward in the back seat and pretending to be dead. The massacre was originally attributed to Floyd and Richetti, but according to new evidence, neither man was involved. One of Floyd’s most famous crimes occurred later in 1932, in his hometown.
He and his partner George Birdwell robbed the Sallisaw State Bank in broad daylight, in front of friends and family. Despite his criminal record, Floyd was well-liked by the general public. He was frequently protected by Oklahoma residents who referred to him as the “Robin Hood of the Cooks and Hills. ” He allegedly destroyed mortgage documents when he robbed banks, though this has never been confirmed and may be a myth.
Floyd’s death came after a fatal ambush in Oklahoma. On April 9th, 1932, he shot and killed Irv Kelly, an Oklahoma lawman turned bounty hunter, during a botched ambush near Bixby. Following the death of John Dillinger, the FBI designated Floyd as Public Enemy Number One. There are many theories about who shot Floyd and how he was killed, but the official account states that local law enforcement and FBI agents led by Melvin Purvis shot and killed him in a cornfield near East Liverpool, Ohio.
After Floyd’s death, his body was returned to the Oklahoma Hills and he was laid to rest on October 28th, 1934, at Akin Cemetery. A crowd estimated at more than 20,000 made it the largest funeral in Oklahoma history.