True Crime Chronicles: Henry Starr left a legacy of bank robberies in the wake of his lengthy criminal career

Henry Starr

Henry Starr, born in 1873 near Fort Gibson in Indian Territory, grew up in a Cherokee family amid the rough edges of the American frontier. By his late teens, he had turned to crime after a disputed arrest for horse theft. He robbed train depots and, in December 1892, shot and killed Deputy U.S. Marshal Floyd Wilson during an attempted arrest. That killing set the stage for his escalating outlaw career.

In early 1893, Starr assembled a gang for bigger targets. The group included Kid Wilson, who went by the alias Floyd Wilson, Link Cumplin, Frank Cheney, Bud Tyler, Hank Watt, and a man known as Happy Jack. They targeted the People's Bank in Bentonville, Arkansas, a small town in Benton County. On June 5, 1893, around 2:30 p.m., the plan unfolded

.The gang met in an alley between a lumberyard and E.E. Brock's music store. As they prepared, three locals walked by: E.E. Brock, his brother William Brock, and F.F. Dumont. The outlaws detained them, adding to two earlier captives, Tom Barr and Ed Holowell. Happy Jack stayed behind to guard the prisoners and horses. The rest, armed with Winchesters, marched single file to the bank.

Passing the Benton County Sun newspaper office, they caught the eye of editor H.L. Cross. He spotted their rifles and realized a robbery was imminent, but his sons held him back, and an employee locked the door. Inside the bank, Starr and his men confronted cashier F.S. Root and assistant J.C. McKinney. They forced the employees to open the safe and stuffed about $11,000 into bags, equivalent to over $350,000 today.

Word spread quickly through the town. As the robbers exited, armed citizens gathered. A chaotic shootout erupted on the streets. Starr had ordered his men to avoid harming civilians, firing mostly warning shots into the air or ground to intimidate. The townspeople returned fire from doorways and windows. Amid the chaos, gang member Link Cumplin was hit and fell dead from his horse, shot by a local resident

.No Bentonville residents were killed in the exchange. Historical accounts emphasize that the town's defenders escaped without fatalities, though some may have sustained minor wounds from stray bullets or ricochets. The names of any wounded civilians remain unrecorded in surviving reports, but the focus was on the outlaws' losses. The surviving robbers mounted their horses and fled east with the loot, leaving Cumplin's body behind.

The escape was short-lived for some. In July 1893, authorities arrested Starr and Kid Wilson in Colorado Springs, Colorado. They had only $2,000 of the stolen money left. Extradited to Fort Smith, Arkansas, Starr faced trial before Judge Isaac Parker for the unrelated murder of Deputy Wilson. Parker sentenced him to hang, but appeals reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

After two death sentences were overturned, a third trial ended with Starr pleading guilty to manslaughter and several robberies, including the Bentonville heist. He received 15 years: three for the manslaughter and the rest for the thefts. He served time in the federal penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio.

Kid Wilson was tried separately for his role in the robberies and received a lengthy sentence, reportedly around 24 years, though details are sparse. The bank recovered only a fraction of the money after legal battles.

Starr proved a model prisoner and earned a pardon from President Theodore Roosevelt on January 16, 1903. He briefly went straight, even starring in silent films like "A Debtor to the Law," where he portrayed himself in reenactments of his crimes. But the pull of banditry returned. In 1915, he orchestrated a double bank robbery in Stroud, Oklahoma, got captured, and served time until paroled in 1919.

His end came in Arkansas. On February 18, 1921, Starr and accomplices hit the People's State Bank in Harrison. Former bank president W.J. Meyers grabbed a rifle from the vault and shot Starr in the side. Abandoned by his partners, Starr died in custody on February 23, 1921, at age 47.

Benton County officials had planned to prosecute him for the 1893 robbery, but his death closed the case.

The Bentonville heist marked Starr as a notorious figure, claiming over 20 bank robberies in his lifetime. It also highlighted the resolve of a small Arkansas town that stood up to outlaws without losing a single resident.