Heroes & Outlaws

THE KIMES BOYS—GEORGE, Matthew, and Roy—were known far and wide for their “outside the law” ways. Singer and composer Royal Kimes once told me something about his ancestors who rode the outlaw trail in Arkansas.

While some people are reluctant to open the family closet and reveal a few skeletons, Royal is eager to talk about his distant kin. “George and Matthew Kimes once shot it out with the Sallisaw sheriff, killed him and got away. They were famous outlaws and very smart. They were men that wouldn't bend to the government and laws of the day.” He goes on to call them flamboyant, and adds, “If I was born back then, I might've done the same. I don't believe in compromise. I don't believe in giving up half of something to get something else.”

He paused to gather his thoughts, then went on. “They had a mean streak in ‘em, but Uncle Roy was an awesome guy who'd do anything for you if he liked you. If he didn't, well….” A shrug finished the tale. “They were men and women living in tough times taking on tough ways. The Great Depression made them that way. But they respected lawmen and to a certain degree the law respected them.”

Arkansas bred some other locally famous Great Depression outlaws, men of this breed who saw no other recourse except breaking the law to feed their families. After January 16, 1920, when the Volstead Act was enacted making the entire country "dry," the accepted money-making crop soon became moonshine. This occupation often turned these successful businessmen into outlaws in the eyes of the sheriff and his deputies. But it was a moneymaking proposition on both sides. The law would arrest them, lay on a big fine and break up their stills. Within a week or two, the boys were back in business with a new still in a new location. After a while, the law would raid them once more, smash the stills, drag them to court and the endless circle would continue.

The Kimes Boys, Matt and George, actually began their crime sprees west of Arkansas in Oklahoma during this time. And bank robbing was in fashion during the Roaring Twenties. But they weren't alone, for it was the age of bootleggers, corrupt politicians and gangsters. Even cops and professional men like doctors and lawyers were corrupt. Morals were at an all-time low all over America. In the Ozarks, where poverty ran rampant, many young men turned into outlaws.

Automobiles and machine guns made it possible to hit a bank, speed away, gunning down anyone who got in the way. It is written that the Kimes boys’ outlaw days began when they were young and they stole candy from a little country store in Arkansas. It seems Matthew was seven and George a bit older. Worse, the matter was settled by harried parents who offered the kindly storekeeper a case of eggs, and he gave each of the boys a package of gum.

According to Michael Koch, author of The Kimes Gang, available on Kindle, the boys were brought up to become outlaws. Their father ran a still, their mother grew corn. George shoveled mash and peddled white lightning for his dad. The boys went to school at the old “88” school and to church at Kenner Chapel near Rudy, Arkansas. They were both baptized by Rev. Ben Pixley.

Obviously, taking to the waters didn't help. The family moved across the border into Oklahoma, where their wild ways continued. In his book, Koch doesn't mention Roy Kimes, who obviously came from another branch of this extensive family and remained in Arkansas where this derring-do continued. By 1926 Matthew and George were notorious outlaws in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and they were eventually sent off to prison for their dirty deeds.

Matt died Dec 14, 1945, at the age of forty. George continued his life of crime until he went to prison. He was paroled from McAlester in May of 1957, claiming to be a changed man. He said his wife helped him find religion and that changed his life. After one more scrape with the law for which he was found innocent, he died Jan. 3, 1970 in Carmichael, California. The Kimes family cemetery is located in Van Buren, Arkansas.

It was nothing for local residents to protect these outlaws, from Jesse and Frank James and Belle Starr and her gang in the 1800s to the Kimes boys, Bonnie and Clyde and Pretty Boy Floyd during the Depression. All would eagerly be hidden out in someone's barn or a cave, or at the least, not spoken of out loud when the deputies were around. In return some of the loot was shared with locals who kept quiet. That was just the way it was in those days, in the Ozarks of Arkansas.

—Velda Brotherton is an award-winning nonfiction author, novelist, and a founding partner of Saddlebag Dispatches. She lives on a mountainside in Winslow, Arkansas, where she writes everyday and talks at length with her cat.