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See Also

See Also in
Notorious Lives

Apache Kid

Tom Bell

William H. Bonney

Curly Bill Brocius

Butch Cassidy

Bob Dalton

Emmett Dalton

Bill Doolin

John Wesley Hardin

Doc Holliday

Jesse James

Tom Ketchum

Harry Longabaugh

Bill Longley

Joaquín Murieta

Johnny Ringo

Belle Starr

Hank Vaughan

Cole Younger.

Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives

Henry Starr

by Sara Vidar

American Indian bank robber and bandit

Major offenses: Bank robbery, train robbery, and murder (later reduced to manslaughter)

Active: 1892-1921

Locale: Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) and Colorado

Sentence: More than sixty years in prison for highway robbery; three years for manslaughter

Early Life

Henry Starr (star) was born near Fort Gibson, in the rugged and dangerous Indian Territory, to George and Mary Scott Starr. His father was half Cherokee, and his mother was Irish and one-quarter Cherokee. Having grown up on Cherokee reservations, Starr was very proud of his heritage.

Henry also came from a long line of criminals and outlaws. His grandfather Tom Starr was a fighter and an outlaw known as the Devil’s Own. His uncle Sam Starr was married to Belle Starr, known as the Bandit Queen, who associated with the Younger Gang. Henry Starr found Belle crude and made it a point when the matter arose to explain that they were related by marriage.

In 1886, when Starr was sixteen, his father died. His mother, who was faced with raising her three children and running the family farm, quickly married C. J. Walker. Starr and Walker fought constantly, and Starr felt Walker was inferior to his family because he had no Cherokee blood. Shortly after his mother’s marriage, Starr left home. Relative to other outlaws and bandits of his day, Starr was well educated. He also avoided alcohol, claiming that he needed to be clear-headed and alert at all times.

Criminal Career

Starr’s criminal career began at age sixteen, when he was arrested for driving a wagon full of whiskey into a dry territory. Starr insisted he had borrowed the wagon and did not know about the whiskey, but he was sent to prison regardless. During this first stint in jail, he became resentful toward the criminal justice system. Upon his release he began committing small robberies and petty thefts.

In 1892, Starr, Ed Newcome, and Jesse Jackson targeted and robbed a train depot in Nowata, Indian Territory, the biggest crime with which Starr had thus far been involved. A warrant was issued for Starr’s arrest, and U.S. Marshall Floyd Wilson pursued him. Starr and Wilson exchanged gunfire during the attempted capture. Wilson was fatally injured.

After serving time for bank robberies and murder, Starr was released in January, 1903. Between September, 1914, and January, 1915, Starr and various partners held up at least fourteen banks in Oklahoma. Starr’s biggest criminal feat occurred on March 27, 1915, when he and his gang succeeded in robbing two banks simultaneously during broad daylight, something no other criminal gang had managed to do. During the Stroud National Bank and First National Bank heists, Starr was shot and left for dead in the street. He recovered and was sent to McAlester Prison, where he pleaded with outlaws to turn their lives around; these pleas won him favor with authorities and resulted in his parole.

On February 18, 1921, Starr, the first bank robber to use automobiles in committing robberies, attempted to rob the People’s National Bank in Harrison, Arkansas. Upon entering the vault, an employee recognized Starr and shot him point-blank with a Winchester rifle kept on hand for such emergencies. Starr died four days later, on February 22, 1921.

Legal Action and Outcome

Starr was constantly in and out of courtrooms and jail cells beginning July 3, 1893, when he was arrested in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on thirteen counts of highway robbery and one count of murder for the death of Floyd Wilson, for which Starr was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. He appealed the verdict and received a second trial. Starr was found guilty a second time and again appealed. Upon his third trial, Starr pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a three-year sentence for Wilson’s murder, seven years and seven days for seven counts of robbery, and five years for one count of train robbery.

When Starr applied for a pardon, an incident from his prison days, while he had been awaiting his second trial, reflected favorably upon him. Starr had aided guards in preventing Crawford Goldsby, also known as Cherokee Bill, from breaking out of jail after he had killed a warden. President Roosevelt was so impressed by Starr’s assistance in thwarting Cherokee Bill’s escape that he pardoned Starr, who was then released on January 16, 1903, after he had served five years.

Starr was again arrested in New Mexico on May 11, 1908, for robbing a bank in Amity, Colorado. He was found guilty and paroled after five years for exemplary behavior. During the Stroud bank robbery, Starr was shot and sent to McAlester Prison, only to be paroled once more in March, 1919.

Impact

After more than fourteen bank robberies were committed by Henry Starr within a four-month period, the Oklahoma state legislature passed the Bank Robber Bill, which set aside fifteen thousand dollars for the capture of bank robbers and enacted a one-thousand-dollar bounty for known outlaws.

Although a true criminal, Starr upheld the outlaw code by never revealing a partner’s name and never shooting anyone during the commission of a crime. Following his 1919 parole, Starr encouraged others to abide by the law by starring in the film A Debtor to the Law (1919), which illustrated the senseless violence of the Stroud bank robbery.

Further Reading

1 

Drago, Harry S. Outlaws on Horseback. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. Focuses on train and bank robbers and offers a well-written account of Henry Starr’s role as an outlaw and bank robber in the Wild West.

2 

O’Neal, Bill. Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. A factual look at the outlaws who roamed the Old West.

3 

Reasoner, James. Draw: The Greatest Gunfights of the American West. New York: Berkley, 2003. Paints a historically accurate picture of the bandits and gunfighters, rather than romanticizing Starr and other Wild West outlaws.

4 

Starr, Henry. Thrilling Events: Life of Henry Starr. College Station, Tex.: Creative, 1982. Starr’s autobiography gives a personal point of view of the events that shaped his life.

5 

Wellman, Paul I. A Dynasty of Western Outlaws. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Focusing on the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Wellman’s book provides a thorough examination of life in the Wild West. Includes maps and family trees.

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Vidar, Sara. "Henry Starr." Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives, edited by Carl L. Bankston III, Salem Press, 2007. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLN_1558.
APA 7th
Vidar, S. (2007). Henry Starr. In C. L. Bankston III (Ed.), Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Vidar, Sara. "Henry Starr." Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2007. Accessed September 17, 2026. online.salempress.com.