Before the headlines of Al Capone, before the rise of the Mafia, and before prohibition turned crime into an empire, America already had men who lived by the gun and died in the crossfire. Some robbed trains, some murdered lawmen, some vanished into legend. Tonight, we’re looking at five forgotten public enemies of the 1910s, names once feared across the Midwest and the frontier, now nearly erased by history.
William Christian, later known across the Southwest as Blackjack Christian, was born on September 5th, 1871, in Fort Griffin, Texas. He entered a world where frontier settlements grew fast, law enforcement remained thin, and cattle money often moved beside rustling money. He had a brother, Bob Christian, and the two would build their reputations together.
Reliable records of his early years are limited. What is known places the Christian brothers moving into the Southwest where they both lawful and criminal trades. Like many men of that period, they drifted through ranch country taking whatever money came fastest. Cattle rustling became one of those sources. By the late 1880s, William Christian appeared in reports tied to outlaw activity.
He first carried the nickname 202, said to come from his large physical build. Another name soon replaced it. His violent temper and readiness for confrontation earned him the title Blackjack. During the late 1880s and early 1890s, he and Bob Christian organized a crew remembered as the High Fives gang. The gang operated mainly in New Mexico territory where long distances, isolated roads, and scattered settlements created ideal ground for robbery crews.
Their crimes were tied to theft, rustling, and armed raids across the region. In 1895, the Christian brothers were in Guthrie when they shot and killed a lawman. Authorities arrested them, but jail walls rarely guaranteed safety in that era. Members of their gang helped engineer an escape, and the brothers fled west into Arizona territory.
The following year brought one of their boldest crimes. On August 6th, 1896, aided by a wealthy rancher associate, the gang robbed the International Bank in Nogales. Bank robberies required speed, nerve, and luck. During the escape, luck turned. Gang member Jess Williams was shot and wounded by newspaperman Frank King.
Williams dropped the stolen money and even lost a single gun-shaped earring he wore in his left ear, a detail that survived longer than many official reports. Even with the chaos, Blackjack Christian, Bob Christian, Jess Williams, and Bob Hayes managed to break out of town. Once clear of immediate pursuit, Blackjack separated from the others, a common move among outlaws trying to confuse posses.
The response came quickly. Sheriff Bob Leatherwood of Tucson assembled a posse and pursued the gang towards Skeleton Canyon. As the lawmen approached, hidden gunmen opened fire. Special Deputy Frank Robson, riding at the front, was killed immediately. A gun battle followed at distance with the posse unable to close in on the concealed attackers.
The outlaws escaped into Mexico hoping the border would cool the hunt. For a time, Mexico offered breathing room. Then, in 1897, members of the gang returned to Arizona and Blackjack rejoined them. They resumed robbery targeting stagecoaches moving through remote country. Stage lines still carried passengers, payroll, mail, and valuables, making them attractive targets for men already marked by the law. That return ended in blood.
A posse tracked four gang members traveling together into a small canyon and set an ambush. The gunfight killed all four outlaws. Among the dead was Blackjack Christian, killed on April the 28th, 1897, at only 25 years old. Their bodies were loaded onto a lumber wagon, hauled back to town, and displayed publicly, a frontier warning meant for anyone considering the same path.
The canyon where Blackjack died took his name and became known locally as Blackjack Canyon. His life was short, violent, and built on movement from one hiding place to the next. He never reached the lasting fame of larger outlaw legends, but in the borderlands of the 1890s, men like Blackjack Christian helped define the hard and lawless final years of the Old West.
After reviewing the confirmed crimes, reputation, influence, and historical record, Blackjack Christian receives a level three serious enforcer. Blackjack Christian’s story belongs to the fading years of the Old West when stagecoach roads, border hideouts, and canyon ambushes still gave outlaws room to survive.
But, as the century turned, crime was becoming more organized, more mobile, and more dangerous. One of the men standing at that crossroads was George Flatnose Curry. George Sutherland Curry, remembered across frontier history as Flatnose Curry, was born on March the 20th, 1871, in West Point, Prince Edward Island, Canada.
He would become one of the cross-border outlaws who drifted south into the American West where cattle theft, train robbery, and open country hideouts created opportunity for men willing to live outside the law. He was the second of six children born to John and Nancy Ann Curry. During his youth, the family moved to Chadron. Nebraska cattle country offered work, but it also offered easy access to horses, herds, and remote country where rustling could flourish.
As a young man, Curry moved into livestock theft and frontier crime. At some point, he gained the nickname Flatnose Curry, the name by which he became widely known. He later took refuge in the Hole-in-the-Wall, the rugged outlaw sanctuary in Wyoming used by robbers, rustlers, and fugitives. There, he met Harvey Logan, a young outlaw who adopted Curry’s surname and became Kid Curry.
Logan’s brothers, Lonny and Johnny, also used the Curry name. What began as an alias became one of the most feared names in Western crime. George Curry acted as mentor and running partner to Harvey Logan during the early years. He helped form a gang that included Kid Curry and others operating across Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas.
In June 1897, the gang robbed the Butte County Bank in Belle Fourche. Most of the crew escaped with the money, though associate Tom O’Day was left behind after his horse bolted without him. Soon after, while preparing another robbery, a posse caught up with the gang in Fergus County, Montana. George Curry, Kid Curry, and Walt Putney were captured.
They were jailed in Deadwood, South Dakota, but prison rarely held determined frontier outlaws for long. In November, they overpowered the jailer and escaped. The fugitives stole horses, moved back toward Montana, and took supplies along the route. Another posse confronted them in the Bearpaw Mountains. Gunfire followed, and the three men escaped on foot abandoning horses and stolen goods behind them.
They made their way back toward Hole-in-the-Wall robbing two post offices as they traveled. That pattern defined many outlaw crews of the period, constant movement, opportunistic theft, and reliance on harsh terrain for survival. By the late 1890s, Curry had become associated with the Wild Bunch, the loose outlaw alliance centered around Butch Cassidy and other well-known robbers.
On June 2nd, 1899, Curry took part in the famous robbery of the Union Pacific Overland Flyer near Wilcox, Wyoming. The raid triggered one of the major manhunts of the era. Converse County Sheriff Josiah Hazen recognized descriptions of the robbers and organized a pursuit. During that chase, George Curry and Kid Curry were linked to the shooting death of Hazen.
The killing slowed the posse and gave the gang time to escape by moving through streams and rough country before replacing lost horses and supplies farther north. Pinkerton Detective Charlie Siringo and hired operative Tom Horn pursued leads against the Wild Bunch. Even so, the outlaws repeatedly slipped back into strongholds such as Hole-in-the-Wall and Robbers’ Roost in Utah.
By 1900, pressure on the gang had intensified. Lawmen were closing in, rail companies were funding investigations, and rustling drew sharper responses from county sheriffs. On April the 17th, 1900, George Curry was in Grand County involved in cattle rustling when Sheriff Jesse Tyler confronted him. Tyler shot and killed Flatnose Curry, ending his outlaw career at 29 years old.
News of his death hit Harvey Logan hard. Kid Curry had recently lost his brother Lonny as well. Fueled by grief and vengeance, Kid Curry rode into Utah the following month and killed Sheriff Jesse Tyler and Deputy Sam Jenkins in retaliation. George Curry never achieved the public fame later attached to Butch Cassidy or Sundance.
Inside outlaw history, however, his influence ran deeper. He mentored Kid Curry, helped shape one of the deadliest gunmen of the era, and played a direct role in the robber networks that defined the final years of the Old West. After reviewing the confirmed crimes, reputation, influence, and historical record, George Sutherland Curry receives a level four ruthless killer.
George Curry helped carry outlaw crime from cattle rustling into the age of train robberies and coordinated gangs. He trained younger gunmen, built crews, and rode beside men who would become legends. One of those men would outlive him for a time and meet a far more savage end, Ben Kilpatrick. Ben Kilpatrick entered the world on January the 5th, 1874 in Coleman County, Texas.
During the final hard years of the frontier. He was the third of nine children born to George Washington Kilpatrick, a farmer originally from Tennessee, and Mary Kilpatrick, who came from South Carolina. In those years, Texas still carried the rough edges of open range life, and young men often learned early that cattle work paid little, moved often, and carried danger with every season.
As he grew older, Kilpatrick worked as a cowboy. That life placed him around drifting ranch hands, gamblers, and men who lived one step outside the law. During that period, he became associated with Tom Ketchum, Sam Ketchum, and Bill Carver, names already tied to rustling and armed robbery. The line between cowhand and outlaw could be thin in the West, especially for men willing to risk prison for faster money.
By the late 1890s, Ben Kilpatrick had moved into criminal circles linked to the Wild Bunch, the loose gang built around Butch Cassidy and Elzy Lay. The Wild Bunch operated with planning, mobility, and discipline that made them one of the most effective robbery crews of the era. They struck banks and trains, then scattered across several states before regrouping at remote hideouts such as the Hole-in-the-Wall in Wyoming.
Kilpatrick was believed to be closer to Elzy Lay than to Cassidy himself. Some historians place him on the outer edge of the gang rather than at its center. His stronger ties appear to have been with Harvey Logan, better known as Kid Curry, one of the most violent men connected to the Wild Bunch. Exact records of how Kilpatrick and Curry first met remain uncertain, which is common in outlaw history where aliases, false trails, and missing records were routine.
After robberies, gang members often vanished in different directions. Kilpatrick traveled east with Laura Bullion, another Wild Bunch associate, eventually reaching Nashville, Tennessee. There, they met Kid Curry and Curry’s companion, Della Moore. Moore was later arrested for passing currency traced to one of the gang’s robberies, a reminder that stolen money often carried investigators straight to anyone careless enough to spend it openly.
The law finally caught Kilpatrick on November the 5th, 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri. He was convicted of robbery and sentenced to 15 years in prison. For a man raised in motion, prison was a hard landing. He served about 10 years before release in June 1911. Many former outlaws tried to disappear after prison.
Kilpatrick returned to crime. By then, the Old West had changed. Railroads were stronger, communication was faster, and law enforcement was more coordinated. The age that once sheltered roaming bandits was closing. Authorities suspected Kilpatrick and an outlaw named Ole Hoback in several train robberies near Memphis during late 1911 and early 1912, along with smaller robberies in West Texas.
Then came the final job. In March 1912, Kilpatrick boarded a Southern Pacific Express train near Sanderson, Texas. With him was a former inmate he had known in prison. During the robbery, Kilpatrick entered the Wells Fargo baggage and mail car and forced express messenger David Trousdale to open valuables and surrender property from the safe.
Trousdale stayed calm. While Kilpatrick searched the car, Trousdale concealed an ice mallet beneath his coat. He then pointed out what he claimed was a valuable package on the floor. Kilpatrick leaned forward to grab it and rested his rifle against his leg for a moment. That pause ended his career. Trousdale pulled the mallet free and struck Kilpatrick repeatedly in the back of the head and neck.
The blows crushed his skull and broke his neck. Ben Kilpatrick died inside the rail car on March 12th, 1912 at age 38. Ole Hoback was also killed during the failed robbery. Kilpatrick’s story followed a familiar pattern of the frontier underworld. Hard beginnings, outlaw opportunity, prison years, one last return, and a violent end.
He lived during the moment when train robbers could still become legends, but he died in a baggage car, beaten down by the very man he meant to terrorize. After reviewing the confirmed crimes, reputation, influence, and historical record, Ben Kilpatrick receives a level three serious enforcer. Ben Kilpatrick came from the Wild Bunch world of railroad money, desert escapes, and men chasing one last score.
By the time his life ended, the frontier was closing fast, and the old methods no longer worked. Then came a criminal shaped by a newer America, where engines replaced horses and city streets replaced open plains, Ed Adams. Edward James Adams was born on April the 23rd, 1887 near Hutchinson, Kansas. Though he entered the world as William Joseph Wallace, he would later become one of the most feared criminals in the Midwest during the early prohibition years.
In a span of roughly 14 months, he left behind murders, robberies, prison escapes, and gun battles that stretched across several states. His early life carried instability. His father died while he was still young, and his mother remarried. Accounts describe Adams as deeply resentful of his stepfather and resistant to farm labor.
He learned the barber trade instead, a skill that gave him a cleaner route into city life. In the early 20th century, he moved to Wichita, where he met John Callahan. Through Callahan, Adams entered bootlegging, petty theft, and automobile crime. He was described as handsome, confident, and socially magnetic. Those traits helped him gather followers, girlfriends, and criminal associates.
His marriage eventually collapsed under the weight of infidelity and constant lawbreaking. By the early prohibition era, Adams had moved beyond small crimes and built his own crew. He committed bank and train robberies across Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa, earning a reputation as one of the most active bandits in the region.
In 1920, Adams partnered with outlaw brothers Ray and Walter Majors. On September 5th, they attempted a daylight robbery of a gambling den on Grand Avenue in Kansas City owned by Harry Trusdail. Illegal casinos often employed armed men, and this target fought back. A gun battle erupted, killing gambler and gunman Frank Gardner.
Police eventually captured the gang. In February 1921, Adams received a life sentence. The Majors brothers accepted lesser robbery pleas and received five-year terms. Even a life sentence failed to hold him. While being transported to the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Adams escaped by jumping from the train.
Days later, on February 11th, 1921, he joined Julius Finney in robbing a bank and general store in Collison. Authorities captured him again near Garden Plain after he wrecked a stolen car beneath a bridge. Kansas courts then added a sentence of 10 to 30 years on top of the Missouri life term. Prison walls still did not stop him.
On August 13th, 1921, Adams sabotaged the power plant at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, and escaped during the night with Frank Foster, George Weisberger, and D.C. Brown. Waiting outside was Billy Fintelmann, a World War I veteran turned criminal. Brown was recaptured quickly. The others disappeared and rebuilt the Adams gang.
Within weeks, they were robbing banks again. In September, the gang stole around $10,000 from banks in Rose Hill and Haysville, Kansas. During the Haysville robbery, Adams brutally pistol-whipped 82-year-old James Crevel, who later died from a fractured skull. The act showed that violence for Adams often exceeded practical criminal purpose.
On October 8th, police tried to trap the gang near Anoly, Kansas. A shootout followed, and Deputy Benjamin Fisher was wounded while the gang escaped. 11 days later, the crew stole silver from a bank near Osceola. Another posse confronted them south of Murray. Farmer Charles William Jones alerted Sheriff Ed West after spotting the suspicious vehicle.
When officers approached, a revolver was shoved into Sheriff West’s face at point-blank range, but it failed to fire. Gunfire exploded across the roadside. Several members of the posse were badly injured. Jones ran in with a shotgun to help. As the gang fled, they exchanged fire with him and mortally wounded the farmer.
The spree continued back in Kansas. Adams and his crew robbed 11 stores in Muscotah, abducted two motorcycle officers outside Wichita, robbed them, and burned their motorcycles. Then on November 5th, 1921, Adams shot and killed Patrolman A.L. Young while Young was on duty in Wichita. Reports link the killing to a personal rivalry over a woman.
Soon after, the gang scored one of its biggest robberies, taking $35,000 from a Santa Fe Express train near Ottawa. The final collapse began on November 20th, 1921. Adams was riding through Wichita with Frank Foster, Nellie Miles, George J. McFarland, and two women. Another car behind them carried Billy Fintelmann, his wife, George Weisberger, P.D. Orcutt, and companions.
Two motorcycle officers stopped Adams’ vehicle. A shot came from inside the car. Whether fired by Adams or Foster remains uncertain. But Patrolman Robert Fitzpatrick was killed. The gang sped away, released the women, and fled south into Cowley County. Later that night they ran out of fuel at a farm.
Adams tried to steal a vehicle from farmer George Oldham. When Oldham resisted, Adams shot and killed him. Adams and Foster took the car while McFarland fled on foot. The next day Adams and Billy Fintelmann went to McFarland’s house looking for him. Two officers were waiting. Adams shot and wounded Officer Ray Casner, while another policeman hid beneath the bed. Once again, he escaped.
By November 22nd, Adams believed most of Wichita’s police force would be attending Fitzpatrick’s funeral. He planned to rent a car and leave town. The garage owner recognized him and alerted police. Three officers responded. When they moved in, Adams opened fire. Detective Charles Hoffman wrestled him to the ground and was fatally wounded.
Officer Charles Bowman was also hit. Officer D.C. Stuckey, firing from cover behind a pillar, shot Adams three times and killed him. Edward James Adams died at age 34, ending one of the Midwest’s most violent short-lived crime waves. His body was publicly displayed at the city undertaking parlor, where more than 9,000 people came to view the dead outlaw.
Authorities arrested 18 suspected associates afterward. Frank Foster received a life sentence. Adams thrived in an era of fast cars, weak coordination between jurisdictions, and growing black market money. He combined charisma, mobility, and extreme violence. In the end, the same city he terrorized closed the circle around him.
After reviewing the confirmed crimes, reputation, influence, and historical record, Edward James Adams receives a level five underworld nightmare. Ed Adams was a different kind of outlaw. He used fast cars, prison breaks, bank raids, and street gunfights in an era moving toward modern organized crime. His violence shocked the Midwest and showed how criminal tactics were changing.
Yet even Adams never matched the reputation of one gunman whose name terrified lawmen across the West, Harvey Logan. Harvey Alexander Logan was born in 1867 in Richland Township, Tama County, Iowa. History remembers him by another name, Kid Curry, one of the most feared gunmen of the outlaw era. While figures like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid became legends in popular culture, Kid Curry built a darker reputation through violence, revenge, and relentless escape.
His childhood carried early loss. His mother died in 1876, and the Logan brothers were scattered among relatives. Harvey eventually spent time in Texas, working ranch jobs and breaking horses near Rising Star. During those years, he met a man known as George Curry, sometimes called Flatnose George.
Harvey adopted the surname Curry, and several of his brothers followed. In cattle country, a man could change names easier than he could change his past. Those who knew him described two sides of the same man. Sober, he was often called loyal, calm, and likable. Drunk, he became reckless and dangerous. That split would define much of his life.
By the 1880s, he worked cattle drives through Colorado and Wyoming. In Pueblo, Colorado, he became involved in a saloon fight and fled before arrest. He moved into Wyoming ranch country, where frontier law remained thin and grudges often lasted longer than court records. The turning point came in Montana. His brother Hank and associate Jim Thornhill had interests near Rock Creek.
There, local lawman and miner Powell Landusky became involved in a dispute with Curry connected to personal tensions and accusations. Curry was arrested after the conflict and reportedly beaten. Resentment hardened into bloodshed. On December 27th, 1894, Curry encountered Landusky in a saloon. A fight broke out.
Witness accounts say Landusky drew a pistol that jammed during the confrontation. Thornhill handed Curry a weapon, and Curry shot Landusky dead. Authorities initially accepted a self-defense claim, but Curry believed a later trial would go against him. He left town and stepped fully into outlaw life. He soon rode with Tom Ketchum, whose gang specialized in robberies across the Southwest.
Pinkerton detectives began tracking Curry early, and violence followed him quickly. In 1896, Curry and his brothers confronted rancher James Winters, who they believed had informed on them for reward money. A gunfight erupted. Harvey’s brother Johnny was killed. Harvey escaped, carrying another reason for revenge. After a falling out over robbery proceeds, Curry split from Ketchum and helped form his own crew with Lonny Curry, Walt Putnum, and George Curry.
In April 1897, he was linked to the killing of Deputy Sheriff William Deane in Wyoming during a confrontation over horses. Soon after, the gang robbed a bank in Belle Fourche, South Dakota. Resistance came fast. Posses chased them across state lines. Curry was wounded in the wrist, captured, jailed, then escaped after overpowering the jailer.
That pattern became routine. By the end of the 1890s, Curry joined the Wild Bunch. Within that loose alliance, he became one of its most dangerous members. On June 2nd, 1899, the gang robbed the Union Pacific Overland Flyer near Wilcox, Wyoming, one of the most famous train robberies of the age. During the manhunt that followed, Curry and George Curry were tied to the killing of Converse County Sheriff Joe Hazen.
Pinkerton Detective Charlie Siringo was assigned to bring down the gang. He used disguises, aliases, and informants, but Curry kept moving through hideouts like Hole-in-the-Wall in Wyoming and Robbers’ Roost in Utah. That same summer, Curry joined Elzy Lay and Sam Ketchum in robbing a train near Folsom, New Mexico.
A posse cornered them near Turkey Creek. Gun battles stretched over several days. Lay and Ketchum were captured after heavy fighting. Curry escaped again. He then traveled to San Antonio, Texas, where he became involved with Della Moore, also known as Annie Rogers or Maud Williams. She worked in the orbit of Madam Fanny Porter, whose brothel often served as a refuge for Wild Bunch members moving through Texas.
The year 1900 turned even bloodier. His brother Lonny was killed during an attempted arrest in Montana. George Curry was later killed by lawmen in Utah. Harvey responded the way he always did, with vengeance. In Arizona, he and Bill Carver killed Deputies Andrew Gibbons and Frank LeSueur during a shootout.
In Moab, Utah, he killed Grand County Sheriff Jesse Tyler and Deputy Sam Jenkins. By then, lawmen across the West considered Kid Curry one of the deadliest fugitives alive. Later that year, the Wild Bunch robbed Union Pacific Train Number Three near Tipton, Wyoming. Reports claim the take exceeded $55,000, a huge sum for the era.
In July 1901, Curry helped rob a Great Northern train near Wagner, Montana, netting another massive haul. The gang began to collapse under pressure. Bill Carver was killed in Texas. Ben Kilpatrick and Laura Bullion were arrested in St. Louis. Della Moore was arrested for passing marked money. Curry answered pressure with more gunfire.
In December 1901, he shot Knoxville Policeman William Dinwiddie and Robert Saylor during an escape. He later tracked down James Winters and killed him, settling a vendetta that had burned for years. On November 30th, 1902, Curry was finally captured in Knoxville after a brutal physical struggle with officers inside a pool hall. Witnesses in earlier killings refused to testify, so he was convicted of robbery instead and sentenced to 20 years of hard labor with a heavy fine.
Prison held him briefly. On June 27th, 1903, he escaped. Rumors claimed bribery opened the door, though proof never surfaced. His final chapter came in Colorado. On June 7th, 1904, Curry and two others robbed a Denver and Rio Grande train near Parachute, Colorado. They stole fresh horses while fleeing. Rancher Roll Gardner and another owner joined the pursuit with a posse.
During the chase, gunfire dropped horses and scattered men across rough ground. Gardner fired and wounded Curry. Facing capture, Harvey Logan made the decision many fugitives of that era feared most. He used his own gun and shot himself in the head. He died on June 17th, 1904, according to many historical records tied to the event, though some accounts cite the shooting itself on June 7th.
Rumors later claimed he escaped and reached South America with Cassidy and Sundance, but no reliable evidence confirmed it. Kid Curry was buried in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. His name never reached the fame of some partners, yet among lawmen of the frontier years, his reputation carried a sharper edge. He robbed widely, escaped repeatedly, and left a trail of dead officers across multiple states.
After reviewing the confirmed crimes reputation, influence and historical record, Harvey Alexander Logan Kid Curry receives a level five underworld nightmare. Harvey Logan, better known as Kid Curry, was the storm at the center of the Wild Bunch years. He robbed trains, escaped prisons, hunted enemies and left a trail of dead officers behind him.
If the others were dangerous men of their time, Kid Curry became something more, the outlaw many feared most.
