Texas Still Remembers Bonnie and Clyde

What comes to mind when you hear Bonnie and Clyde? A love story with a tragic end? Or cold-blooded killers?

Nearly 90 years after their bloody end on a Louisiana road, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow remain American icons, not for their virtues, but for the blend of romance and rebellion they stirred up during the Great Depression. Their names have become shorthand for outlaw love, echoing through pop culture in films, Broadway musicals, roadside folklore, and even rap lyrics.

Although vintage imagery paints a picture of stylish rebels, OG influencers before their time, Bonnie and Clyde were credited with 13 confirmed murders, nine of those being law enforcement officials, plus numerous robberies and burglaries, before their killing spree was squashed by law enforcement in 1934, when the pair were killed in a police ambush in Louisiana, leaving behind sensational headlines and many a legend.

While their deaths occurred in Louisiana, and their crime sprees spanned the Midwest, Bonnie and Clyde are most often associated with Texas, the state where both were born and where many of their crimes took place.

Here are three spots across the Lone Star State where you can step into the shadows they left behind and explore beyond Bonnie and Clyde.

Grapevine

Grapevine was a frequent stop for Bonnie and Clyde, who both had family in the area. They were barely adults — both were in their early twenties when they died — and maintained close family ties while on their crime sprees, often using codes to alert relatives when they’d be passing through.

Bermuda Gold and Silver on Grapevine’s Main Street will give you a surprise Bonnie and Clyde education you may not expect from a small-town jewelry store. The building, the former Grapevine Home Bank, was robbed by two members of Bonnie and Clyde’s gang in 1932. Owner Debi Meek, a wealth of Bonnie and Clyde lore, will tell you the history of the framed newspaper from the 1932 Fort Worth Star-Telegram on display in the store, which describes the robbers’ eventual capture and their part in helping the police locate Bonnie and Clyde.

Even though Bonnie and Clyde weren’t involved with the robbery, the events set in motion that day would play an important role in how law enforcement pursued them. Meek shares that early local sentiment about Bonnie and Clyde leaned toward “Not so bad.” Public opinion of banks during the Depression was poor, and millions of people were out of work. When Bonnie and Clyde first gained notoriety for robbing gas stations and grocery stores, they had a Robin Hood-esque reputation. Then, Barrow shot two state troopers on Easter Sunday on Dove Road outside Grapevine, a year after the robbery, which turned the tide against them. Barrow and other members of the gang opened fire on the troopers as they approached Bonnie and Clyde’s car, believing they had car trouble and needed help. They were found dead in the road with their weapons holstered.

Godon Tate, the father of longtime current mayor Andrew D. Tate, was the mayor during the robbery and was involved in the capture of the members of the Barrow Gang as they fled the scene. The gun used to apprehend the robbers is on display in Grapevine’s City Hall.

It would be another five months after the officers were slain before Bonnie and Clyde met their end in Louisiana. According to Meek, Andrew Tate was told by his father, “That was the end of Bonnie and Clyde, out on Dove Road,” meaning those two killings were what strengthened law enforcement’s resolve to bring them to justice.

Grapevine is a city worth visiting in its own right. There’s a walkable main street with fun shops and galleries, a boutique hotel with not one but two speakeasies, vintage train rides, and an urban wine trail. It’s also home to two mega-resorts, the Gaylord Texan and Great Wolf Lodge. Grapevine is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and it’s easy to navigate, especially if you’re flying. The mammoth DFW Airport is actually in Grapevine, so you can easily zip from the airport to downtown Grapevine and avoid the notoriously congested Dallas traffic.

Gonzales

Although Bonnie and Clyde haven’t been credited with committing any crimes in Gonzales, they did use the central Texas town as a hideout, and the legend of their dramatic exit from the Alcalde Hotel lives on.

While staying at the Alcalde Hotel, a nine-year-old boy recognized them from a wanted poster and turned them in. When police showed up at the hotel, Bonnie and Clyde narrowly escaped by jumping into the alley from a second-story window, evading capture.

You can lean into the Bonnie and Clyde experience by booking the very room they stayed in at the Alcalde Hotel. The room isn’t advertised as such on the hotel’s website, but you can book it by reserving a double queen room and putting “Bonnie and Clyde” in the notes. The room features some Bonnie and Clyde decor and information. Just make sure you use the front door when you want to leave!

Gonzales is an easy day trip from both San Antonio and Austin, about an hour’s drive from either city, and there’s enough to do to fill a weekend. Although Gonzales’s place in the history of Texas’s independence from Mexico is not as well-known as the Alamo, the Battle of Gonzales is nevertheless just as significant because it was the first military engagement of the Texas Revolution. The battle began when Mexico attempted to reclaim a cannon previously given to Texas settlers. The settlers, known as Texicans, didn’t want to relinquish the cannon. That’s where the famous words “Come and Take It” come from. Mexico wasn’t successful in getting its cannon back, and it is on display in the Gonzales Memorial Museum today.

Other things to do in Gonzales include exploring a walkable downtown, visiting the Gonzales County Jail Museum, and hiking in Palmetto State Park.

Waco

Waco is part of Clyde Barrow’s early criminal career. He was arrested and convicted of theft and burglary, unluckily choosing to steal the car of W.W. Cameron, a businessman from one of Waco’s most influential families. Bonnie Parker smuggled a gun in during one of her visits to the Waco jail, which Barrow used to help him escape, although he was subsequently recaptured and served his time outside of Waco.

There’s also a great deal of Bonnie and Clyde history in Waco’s Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum), although most of that focuses on law enforcement’s journey to hunt down the elusive pair. Although the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, heightened public interest in the duo, 2019’s The Highwayman, starring Kevin Costner, tells the story from the perspective of the officers who sought to put them out of commission.

Thanks to HGTV’s success with Chip and Joanna Gaines’s Fixer Upper and their Magnolia media brand, Waco is quite the hotspot. While the main draw is visiting the Gaines’s flagship store, Magnolia Market at the Silos, the restaurant, Magnolia Table, and touring the renovated homes that appeared on the show, there are other things to keep you busy in this growing city.

Cameron Park Zoo (name sound familiar?), the Dr Pepper Museum, and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame are all fun activities unique to the area. Catch a college ballgame or check out the Mayborn Museum Complex on the Baylor University campus.

More Bonnie and Clyde History Throughout Texas

Several commercial tour operators in the Dallas area offer guided tours to Parker and Barrow’s birthplaces and landmarks from their early years, as well as sites of known safe houses used as the fugitives wove in and out of Texas. Since their time as a couple was spent on the run as they evaded frustrated law enforcement officers, there are dozens of obscure and unconfirmed Bonnie and Clyde stories that crop up where you least expect them. After all, they were trying to fly under the radar and could have been anywhere.

Fredericksburg, a Texas Hill Country city renowned for its German heritage and home to one of the state’s most robust wine regions, boasts a Bonnie and Clyde footprint that you won’t find online, according to Meek (the jewelry store owner from Grapevine). She visited the James Avery jewelry store while on a trip to Fredericksburg and saw a photograph of Bonnie and Clyde on the wall, dated 1932, and was told they were rumored to have robbed a nearby hardware store to replenish their cache of guns and ammunition, and had been hiding out in the Hill Country.

You can also book a stay in the “Bonnie and Clyde Junior Suite” at the Stockyards Hotel in Fort Worth, where Parker and Barrow were rumored to have stayed. The room contains Bonnie and Clyde memorabilia, including a reproduction of a poem written by Parker, but there’s no scandalous backstory about their attempted escape.

You can visit the pair’s respective gravesites to fully realize how well-remembered Bonnie and Clyde are to this day. Parker is buried in Crown Memorial Cemetery in Dallas, and Barrow is buried at Western Heights Cemetery, also in Dallas. Don’t be surprised to find fresh flowers or other visitors at these modest graves. Bonnie and Clyde had expressed their wish to be buried side by side, but Bonnie’s mother, who blamed Clyde for her daughter’s tragic end, would not hear of it.