The Bonnie and Clyde Ambush — Highway 154, Gibsland RoadyGoat
1932On Louisiana Highway 154, a few miles south of Gibsland in Bienville Parish, a stone marker stands where the story of Bonnie and Clyde came to its end. From nineteen thirty-two to nineteen thirty-four, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker led the Barrow Gang on a two-year crime wave across the central United States — robbing small stores and rural gas stations more often than banks, and escaping in stolen Ford V-Eights. By the end they had killed at least nine law officers and several civilians, and become the most famous outlaws in America. A former Texas Ranger named Frank Hamer was hired to stop them. He studied the gang's movements and predicted they would travel this road to visit the family of gang member Henry Methvin. On the morning of May twenty-third, nineteen thirty-four, six lawmen concealed themselves in the brush along the highway and had Methvin's father park his truck on the shoulder, as if broken down, to make Clyde slow. When the Ford approached, the posse fired roughly one hundred and thirty rounds in seconds. The car was left with one hundred and twelve bullet holes. Within hours, thousands of people descended on the scene, cutting away souvenirs from the car and the bodies. Clyde was twenty-five. Bonnie was twenty-three.