The Red River Plunge of Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie Parker was burned in the crash, and the Handbook of Texas records that she was treated at a nearby farmhouse. She was twenty-two, born at Rowena, Texas, in 1910, an honor student who wrote poetry and stood four feet ten. She met Clyde Barrow in January 1930 and smuggled a pistol into his cell that March. After the crash the gang moved on to Arkansas and Missouri, where Clyde's brother Buck was killed in a later shoot-out. On May 23, 1934, the pair drove into a trap near their hide-out at Black Lake, Louisiana, and were killed.

What the plaque says

The Red River Plunge of Bonnie and Clyde On June 10, 1933, Mr. & Mrs. Sam Pritchard and family saw from their home on the bluff (west) the plunge of an auto into Red River. Rescuing the victims, unrecognized as Bonnie Parker and Clyde and Buck Barrow, they sent for help. Upon their arrival, the local sheriff and police chief were disarmed by Bonnie Parker. Buck Barrow shot Pritchard's daughter while crippling the family car to halt pursuit. Kidnapping the officers, the gangsters fled. Bonnie & Clyde were fated to meet death in 1934. In this quiet region, the escapade is now legend. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tower Station and U-Drop Inn — 19 mi
  Shamrock's 1936 Conoco station and cafe at the corner of Route 66 and US-83, sketched in the dirt with a nail, named by a schoolboy and saved by the town.
• Devil's Rope and Old Route 66 Museum — 28 mi
  Barbed wire and the Texas road in McLean's old brassiere factory: the fence that closed the open range, from the salesmen who sold it to the Panhandle ranches it divided.
• Phillips 66 Station, McLean — 29 mi
  A 1929 cottage-style Phillips 66 station on First Street in McLean, the town I-40 went around last and whose Route 66 business district stayed much as it was.

More markers nearby

• Rocking Chair "Ranche" (1883-1893) — steps away
• Site of Lutie School — 4.4 mi
• Collingsworth County — 4.7 mi
• Methodism in Collingsworth — 7.2 mi