Event – Friday September 30th (During Final Fridays) 6:30- 7:00-ish pm
Staged Robbery Re-enactment of Clyde Barrow’s First Robbery which took place in Lawrence, KS
· Hosts - The Eldridge Hotel and Teller’s Restaurant
· What is this event? A historical reenactment of the 1932 Clyde Barrow’s Lawrence bank robbery. Clyde Barrow was part of the infamous duo of Bonnie and Clyde. History books say that Clyde Barrow and two of his buddies (Ralph Fults and Raymond Hamilton) stayed at The Eldridge for three days to stake out the bank where Teller’s now sits (formerly First National Bank) (we are gathering detailed information about this story through several historic sources and will get you more information) (sources- Running with Bonnie and Clyde by John Neal Phillips (1996)-University of Oklahoma Press; and My Life with Bonnie & Clyde by Blanche Caldwell Barrow-Edited by John Neal Phillips (2004)-University of Oklahoma Press)
· On the Evening of the event on Sept 30, 2011
1. Teller’s will present a commemorative plaque honoring this 1932 event to the Eldridge before the re-enactment begins at The Eldridge hotel
2. Pre-Cocktail Party at Eldridge with guest re-enactors and special guests (inside hotel)
3. Bank robbery reenactment – Clyde and his buddies (re-enactors- we will be working with Theatre Lawrence) will walk out of the hotel and down the West side of Mass St.; cross the street and walk into Teller’s (the former First National Bank); the Bank President (we are going to request that our Lawrence Mayor Aron Cromwell play the Bank President) will be going into the bank; Clyde and his buddies will shuffle the Bank President and two bank Teller’s (to be cast) into the bank; the staged robbery will be re-enacted INSIDE Teller’s; guests will be sitting at tables watching this event and having dinner after the event. Two bags of “money” will be grabbed by Clyde and his buddies; they will run out of the Teller’s into a waiting 1932 car parked in front of Teller’s- the car will be parked at requested meters in front of Teller’s; they will then drive north on Mass St., across the bridge and out of town.
4. We need three parking spaces blocked directly in front of Teller’s to park a 1930/32 car from noon to 7pm on Sept 30th; this is the Clyde Barrow Getaway car. We will have signs on the Car talking about the re-enactment event that evening that will be taking place downtown.
5. The Getaway can be handled however works best for the LPD and city; scenario one: around 7p Clyde and his buddies jump in the car and make their way out of town in regular traffic; OR scenario two: they jump in their car and get a police escort out of town (which would only help them get through the Mass St. traffic on a Friday evening; It’s really not necessary or probably feasible to shut down Mass St. that evening, so we will work with the LPD on however they would like to handle this! A slow escorted getaway would work, because people could see the car and the actors inside the car
6. We want to notify the city and LPD that our re-enactors WILL have guns (not loaded, of course). Re-enactors will walk from Eldridge to where the 1932 car is parked in the parking spaces in front of Teller’s. They will be walking south on Mass St. toward Teller’s without guns (they will be dressed in 1930’s costumes and more than likely will be walking briskly down the street). Actors will not pick up these guns until they get to the staged car parked on Mass in front of Teller’s; NO GUNS WILL BE FIRED DURING THIS EVENT (no guns were fired in the original robbery)…
7. We could have a camera crew preceding them in a golf cart, so that when walkers encounter them, they know that they are being filmed and this is a staged event. We could be working with KU Film Dept. Is it possible to stage this on the sidewalk?
· In today’s terms approximately $550,000 was stolen from the Bank
· In 1932, the Lawrence Police were never involved because the Bank never called them. The Bank was so embarrassed about the robbery, they never reported the robbery to the police….word has it that the media never mentioned it either.
Until we are approved by the City and LPD, we will not proceed with this event or contact the media.
Please let me know if you need additional information. We hope to pull tourists and fans of “Bonnie & Clyde” into Lawrence for this event and, if all goes well, create a yearly re-enactment. Thank you for your consideration.
Patti McCormick
Director of Media, Special Events
Olivia Collection
785-766-4570
785-830-3944