Red Crown Tourist Court shootout

The Red Crown Tourist Court shootout (July 19–20, 1933) was a gun battle at a brick tourist-court complex just south of Platte City between lawmen led by Platte County Sheriff Holt Coffey and Missouri Highway Patrol Captain William Baxter and the Bonnie and Clyde gang (Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, Buck and Blanche Barrow, and W. D. Jones).¹ The outlaws escaped; they were cornered again days later near Dexter, Iowa.¹

Summary

Date	Night of July 19–20, 1933 (engagement often dated July 20 in summaries)1
Site	Red Crown Tavern and Red Crown Tourist Court, Platte County (junction of then-US 71 and Missouri Route 35 / later Cookingham–291 area; NE of present kci-airport approaches)1
Built	1931 by Parkville banker/developer Emmett Breen — tavern, restaurant, ballroom, and two cabins linked by garages1
Law enforcement	Sheriff Holt Coffey; Capt. William Baxter (Missouri Highway Patrol); others1
Outcome	Gang escaped under fire; later engaged near Dexter, Iowa (July 24, 1933)1
Film	Depicted in Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967), with the motel mislabeled “Platte City, Iowa”1

Context

The Red Crown complex sat at a busy Platte County highway junction (“The Junction”) opposite a service station known as Slim’s Castle and was a regular meeting place for highway patrol officers before car radios were common.¹ Clyde chose the sturdy brick cabins for a rest stop after internal gang argument about staying near Kansas City (still tense after the Kansas City Massacre weeks earlier).¹

Manager Neal Houser and local officers grew suspicious of Blanche Barrow’s appearance, cash payments in small change, newspaper-taped windows, and purchases of five meals for a claimed party of three; a drugstore call about burn-wound supplies (for Bonnie’s injuries) confirmed the identification for Coffey and Baxter.¹

Engagement and aftermath

Lawmen surrounded the cabins and exchanged fire with the gang, who escaped despite the armored firepower of Barrow’s weapons.¹ Blanche Barrow was later held at the Platte City jail adjoining the courthouse (see platte-city-mo).¹ Four days later the group was again engaged near Dexter, Iowa, with further casualties.¹

Sources

See also

• platte-city-mo
• parkville
• kci-airport
• Wiki

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia — “Red Crown Tourist Court.” — asserts: July 1933 gun battle with Bonnie and Clyde gang; built 1931 by Emmett Breen; US 71 / Route 35 junction; tavern + two cabin units; Houser suspicions; Coffey and Baxter; escape; Dexter Iowa follow-up July 24; Penn film depiction; site near modern KCI/Cookingham area; coordinates ~39.3124°N 94.6826°W. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴