Stevens County: 1969 Hutch News interview with Claude French about Bonnie and Clyde

French held a variety of jobs

outside the gas field. He came out

in 1928 to work wheat harvest

before returning to southeast

Kansas to graduate from high

school. In 1929, he returned to the

area for good.

French was in downtown

Hugoton the night City Marshal

Charlie Newman was fatally shot

by Fred McBee: McBee had a few

alcoholic drinks before the incident

in the Jewell Cafe owned by Bonnie

Parker and Clyde Barrow — known

locally as Blackie and Jewell

Underwood or Blackie and Jewell

Sutherland.

I was us close to the city marshal

as 1 am to you (within arm's reach)

when he got shot out here. He was

Charlie Newman. Fred McBee shot

him. They are both dead now.

I think that somebody had given

Fred a shot in this cafe. He just wa»

a little over inebriated up on Main

Street and was causing a problem

and .the city marshal was going to

take him to jail. It was '31 or '32,

right in there.

They (Bonnie and Clyde) left that

night.

I run down there to see this fight

this old boy had with a colored boy.

Of course, that's why I was down

there. After it was all over about

two hours later, here come •

(Langdon) Morgan. He was county

attorney and come up to this

service station where I was at. I

took to the back room.

He said, "Who of you fellows was

that saw that fight down there."

And they (others at the station)

said, "Old Frenchie. He's in the

back room."

The old judge said "Come on.

You've got to go with me."

I said, "I don't know nothing

about it."

And he said, "I know you do. And

they say you do. So you got to go

down."

The fellow that did the shooting

had the fight with a colored man.

That's of course disturbing the

peace. They never did anything to

the colored man at all because he

wasn't to blame in any way, shape

or form.

Newman started taking McBee

to jail and he wasn't going to go.

That old boy, of course, it was Mr.

Newman's gun he shot him with;

This other fellow took the gun

away from him.

While the nation later would

read daily updates on Bonnie and"

Clyde in the same fashion

soap-opera loyalists watch their

shows today, the deadly duo were

relative unknowns when they lived

in Stevens County in the late 1920s

and early 1930s. Most folks knew

them simply as the hard-working

couple of "Blackie and Jewell."

Others knew them to serve up good

moonshine during the dry '30s.

I drank Cokes in that place. Of

course 1 heard of them before I

even got out here. I couldn't tell

you to this day what either one of

them looked like.

I was a real good friend of the ice

man and they (Bonnie and Clyde)

wouldn't even let him put the ice in

the icebox. They'd set it on the

floor on paper and they'd put it in.

They lived up northeast of here

and worked for farmers. She was a

good housekeeper and a good cook.

Clyde, he worked for a farmer out

there. It was about seven miles out

there where they lived.

They come out here; I supposed

they were hiding somewhere and

went into that cafe.