Gangs and Outlaws of Western Pennsylvania

by Thomas White, Michael Hassett

Overview

Violent bank heists, bold train robberies and hardened gangs all tear across the history of the wild west--western Pennsylvania, that is.

The region played reluctant host to the likes of the infamous Biddle Boys, who escaped Allegheny County Jail by romancing the warden's wife, and the Cooley Gang, which held Fayette County in its violent grip at the close of the nineteenth century. Then there was Pennsylvania's own Bonnie and Clyde--Irene and Glenn--whose murderous misadventures earned the "trigger blonde" and her beau the electric chair in 1931. From the perilous train tracks of Erie to the gritty streets of Pittsburgh, authors Thomas White and Michael Hassett trace the dark history of the crooks, murderers and outlaws who both terrorized and fascinated the citizenry of western Pennsylvania.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614236092
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	07/24/2012
Series:	True Crime
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Thomas White is the university archivist and curator of special collections in the Gumberg Library at Duquesne University. He is also an adjunct lecturer in Duquesne's history department and an adjunct professor of history at La Roche College. White received a master's degree in public history from Duquesne University. He is the published author of eight books, all of which focus on Pennsylvania history.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 9

Introduction 13

Paul Jaworski and the Flathead Gang 17

The Cooley Gang-Fayette Country's Notorious Outlaws 27

Pittsburgh's Earliest Bank Heist 51

The Maug "Mob" 57

A Violent End to a Crime Spree 67

Glenn and Irene-Western Pennsylvania's Bonnie and Clyde 73

Robbery on the Tracks 89

The Biddle Boys Escape 95

Selected Bibliography 113

Index 121

About the Authors 127