In 1886 the southeast Kansas town of Tyro was laid out in southern Montgomery County. The first post office, known as Fawn, transferred to Tyro in 1893. The town was not incorporated until 1906.

The afternoon of March 13, 1908, Miss Grace Dobson was at her desk in the back of the main room of the Tyro State Bank working on the books. The regular cashier was away for the day, requiring President Lenhart to see to patrons. Mr. Alexander, the agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, was also in the bank transacting business.

Miss Dobson barely noticed when the door opened. Two men stepped in. One man remained near the door. The other walked toward Lenhart and Alexander. Miss Dobson heard him say, “Hold up your hands.” Alexander immediately complied but Lenhart was an older man and may not have heard him. Suddenly the barrel of a revolver was shoved through the iron bars of the cashier window and placed under Lenhart’s nose. The demand was repeated, and Lenhart raised his hands. Alexander and Lenhart were compelled to get down on their knees. One of the robbers grabbed Miss Dobson by the shoulder and said: “Little girl, you put you hands up and d what I tell you or you’ll get hurt.”

She was told to kneel next to the others and “look at the floor.” Once they had cleaned out the money from the cashier’ drawer and the safe, the money ($2,561) was placed in a sack.

“Little girl ... If you move, we will shoot you like a dog. You are being watched, so don’t move.”

Lenhart and Alexander were marched out the front door. Lenhart was an old man and somewhat crippled.

“I told him that I was old and could not go as fast as I once could, but he kept trying to hurry me.”

Alexander was already kneeling in the road when Lenhart and his captor arrived. As the men kneeled in the street an overcoat was spread on the ground. The money sack was wrapped in the overcoat and tied to a saddle.

In the meantime, the druggist, M. A. Spaulding, walked in the bank and found the frightened Miss Dobson kneeling on the floor. Taking her by the arm, the two ran into the street to see three men mounting horses near the south edge of town. Lenhart and Alexander were kneeling below them.

Spaulding shouted the alarm. The editor of the Tyro Weekly Herald, D. A. Dabney, answered the call and wrote of the citizen response to the robbery in the March 13, 1908, edition.

“The citizens of the town secured horses and guns as quick as possible and went in pursuit, but owing to the fact that there are very few saddle horses in town and not many guns it took quite a while to get many men started.”

After all it was 1908. Most folks considered the frontier a thing of the past in Kansas. Guns were no longer something carried on a regular basis, and the introduction of the automobile had supplanted a good many saddle horses for transportation.

The robbers stopped to rest their horses at the state line three miles south of town. The posse of four men, including editor Dabney, was only a quarter mile behind the robbers at the state line. The posse continued to close in until the robbers dismounted and opened fire about two miles south of the border. Dave Rattlingourd’s house was nearby. Hearing the gunfire, he came out and fired several shots with a Winchester rifle, forcing the fugitives to move on. By that time some posse horses had played out, leaving only Dabney and Neut Amick to continue the pursuit.

The robbers stopped again to make a stand behind a dam. First, Amick’s horse was shot and killed, then Dabney’s horse was mortally wounded Dabney’s mount was his son’s pet pony, The pet died that evening. “... it seemed like losing one of the family ...”

The fugitives returned to their horses just befor several posse-men arrived, two of the posse-men gave up their horses to Dabney and Amick. With renewed vigor, they followed the fleeing robbers until darkness brought the chase to a halt about seven miles southwest of Wann, Okla.

The infamous Henry Starr was soon identified as the leader of the gang. He was well-known in the area. Starr’s grandfather, Tom Starr, was known as “the Devil’s own.” Uncle Sam Starr was married to Belle Starr, but Henry shunned the relationship, calling her crude and reprehensible.

Coffeyville, Bartlesville, Caney, Wann, and other border towns were involved having been alerted through modern telephone communications. However, Starr’s gang was able to elude the scattered citizen bands and disappeared into the Osage Hills of Oklahoma.

That was the last of the epic Tyro search for Henry Starr. A few months later he was captured by authorities in Arizona. He was sentenced to spend time in prison where he whiled away his time thinking of his bank robbing escapades on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperat Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans. com.