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Bank robbers wreaked havoc in the Sunflower State. After robbing the Chautauqua State Bank in 1911, outlaw Elmer McCurdy was killed by lawmen but wasn't buried for sixty-six years. His afterlife can be described only as bizarre. Belle Starr's nephew Henry Starr claimed to have robbed twenty-one banks. The Dalton gang failed in their attempt to rob two banks simultaneously, but others accomplished this in Waterville in 1911. Nearly four thousand known vigilantes patrolled the Sunflower State during the 1920s and 1930s to combat the criminal menace. One group even had an airplane with a .50-caliber machine gun. Join author Rod Beemer for a wild ride into Kansas's tumultuous bank heist history.

On July 1, 1895, under the direction of warden James French, the first federal prison was born. That same year, St. Louis architects Eames and Young went to work drawing up plans for an institution that would house the most notorious offenders in the nation's history. At sunrise on March 1, 1897, 300 inmates and 30 guards marched three miles to the construction site located on the southwest corner of the military reservation. From sunup to sundown seven days a week in the hot Kansas summer to the harsh prairie winters, inmates labored building their new home. Leavenworth's rich history as a gateway to the Old West is second to none. Name a famous figure such as George Armstrong Custer, John Joseph Pershing, Dwight D. Eisenhower, or Colin Powell. They have all graced the streets of this historic community. Equally pick a name of the most notorious criminals. George "Machine Gun" Kelly, Robert F. Stroud, Frank Nash, Frank "the Enforcer" Nitti, and George "Buggs" Moran--they all stopped by to "spend time in Leavenworth."

Early Wichita earned a wicked reputation from newspapers across Kansas thanks to a bevy of madams and murderers, bootleggers and bank robbers, con men and crooked cops. Gambler and saloonkeeper "Rowdy Joe" Lowe was the toast of the town before shooting down his rival, "Red" Beard, and skipping town. Robber and cop killer "Clever Eddie" Adams spread a wave of terror until the police evened the score. Dixie Lee ran the city's classiest brothel with little interference from authorities. Notorious quack "Professor" H. Samuels made a fortune selling worthless eye drops. And county attorney Willard Boone was chased out of town when he was caught with his hand in the bootlegger's cookie jar. Local author Joe Stumpe tells the real stories of the city's best-known and least-known criminals and misfits.