Tough Towns by Col Robert Barr Smith

Tough Towns by Col Robert Barr Smith

The only people tougher than the bank and train robbers of the Old West were the citizens who banded together to create law and order on the streets of their towns. Shoemakers and storekeepers, bank men and local lawmen, barbers and liverymen--they all fought to defend their homes and to defend their lives against the outlaws who threatened them. Tough towns faced down famous gangs like the Daltons and the James-Youngers, drove off Mexican bandits, killed Pretty Boy Floyd's chief lieutenant, and helped put an end to the nineteenth-century rash of bank robbing in the West. Ordinary-people-turned-heroes joined their neighbors and fought--and sometimes died--because they wouldn't run away or turn a blind eye to crime. Their stories, told by historian and writer Robert Barr Smith, are a fascinating part of the legend of the Old West.

Smith, the assistant cashier, had been in the middle of waiting on Joe Rooney when he felt a “heavy hand on his shoulder,” and looked around to see one of the bandits stick the muzzle of his revolver through the bars on the teller’s cageShirley—or Law, depending on which account you read—demanded money, and told Smith to be quick about it. Looking down the ugly end of the pistol, Smith perceived that he had very little option but to deliver. So far, things had gone according to plan for Shirley and his cohorts, but big trouble was coming for the bandits, and coming quickly.

Robert Barr Smith is a law professor at the University of Oklahoma and a retired colonel, U.S. Army. He is the author of four books and nearly 100 articles of western and military history. A senior parachutist, he served in Vietnam, Germany, and all across the United States. He is a frequent lecturer on the West.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780762740048
ISBN 10	0762740043
Title	Tough Towns
Author	Col Robert Barr Smith
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Twodot
Year published	2006-11-01
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.