Sowers, Texas
Sowers, Texas is a ghost town located approximately 11 miles northwest of Dallas, Texas in Dallas County. Today, the once rural community is located entirely within the boundaries of Irving, Texas.
Of the original townsite, only the cemetery remains.
- Sowers Cemetery 32°49′43″N 96°59′16″W / 32.82856°N 96.98790°W
[edit] History
Sowers, Texas was settled approximately 1848 by E. D. Sowers. By 1884, the town had a population of seventy-five which consisted of a blacksmith, a church, a doctor, a druggist, a school, and two steam gristmill-cotton gins. The post office established in 1881 and town were named after early pioneer E. D. Sowers.[1]
Site of Botch Public Enemy Ambush
On November 21, 1933, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow met family members at dusk for a picnic off Texas Highway 10 approximately one and a quarter miles northwest of Sowers, Texas. Clyde Barrow was planning to celebrate his mother's fifty-ninth birthday. Bonnie and Clyde planned to return the following evening for an extended family get together as Clyde didn't have a birthday gift for his mother Cumie Barrow. On November 22, 1933, as Parker and Barrow approached the previous evening's family meeting spot, Smoot Schmidt, Ted Hinton, Ed Caster, and Bob Alcorn armed with Thompson submachine guns, .351 "Bullhead" repeating rifle, and a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) opened a fusillade of gunfire from a ditch about seventy-five feet away. Upon their accelerated escape, several .30 caliber rounds from Bob Alcorn's BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) pierced the driver side door of the black 1933 Ford V-8 sedan wounding the knees of the Depression-era outlaws.[2]
- 1933 Sowers Community Ambush Site 32°50′14″N 97°00′34″W / 32.837111°N 97.009556°W
On Wednesday, May 23, 1934, Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn would participate in the fatal ambush eight miles southwest of Gibsland, Louisiana on Highway 154 south toward Sailes, Louisiana.
[edit] References
- ^ Sowers, Texas - TSHA Handbook of Texas
- ^ Guinn, Jeff: Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 238-241
- Bibliography
- Guinn, Jeff. Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.) ISBN 1-4165-5706-7.
[edit] External links
Coordinates: 32°49′42″N 96°59′36″W / 32.82833°N 96.99333°W
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