Notorious outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were known to frequent Shreveport between crime sprees. The last visit was days before the pair were killed.
The Beginning Of The End for Bonnie and Clyde in Shreveport
Bonnie and Clyde’s last trip to Shreveport was in late May 1934, when they stopped for lunch at the Majestic Cafe. According to the late Eric Brock, the local authorities and the FBI were tracking their movements in Shreveport. Clyde was seen in Shreveport in early 1934 but the newspapers didn’t report it because they didn’t want to tip the couple off.
That last day in Shreveport, as usual, Clyde had an accomplice go in and get their food since they feared being recognized. This time, their accomplice was Henry Methvin. While parked in front waiting in the stolen tannish grey Ford V-8 “Fordor Deluxe,” a Shreveport Police car pulled up beside them. The two officers in the car were unaware that they were just a few feet from the infamous outlaws. This spooked Clyde, who quickly drove off. Henry saw them leave and ran out without paying for the food.
Some reports say Henry was arrested on the spot, while others say he got away and went to his family’s farm in Bienville Parish outside of Gibsland. This is where the gang had previously arranged to meet if they were separated. (This happened two days before the ambush.)
As everyone probably knows, this is when Hamer and his men met with Ivy Methvin and set up the ambush. Ivy agreed with the stipulation that his son, Henry, would not be in the car when it happened. Hamer then set up the ambush on the road outside of Gibsland, leading to Methvin’s property, where Hamer and his men ended Bonnie and Clyde’s crime spree with a hail of bullets.
If you want to see a really good movie about the tracking and eventual end to Bonnie and Clyde, we highly recommend watching The Highwaymen with Kevin Costner. Part of that movie was filmed in Shreveport.
The Majestic Cafe and Bonnie and Clyde
As we stated before, that cafe was the Majestic Café located at 422 Milam in downtown Shreveport. It would later become Dehan’s then Panos. The building still stands today! Even though the building is mostly gutted inside, you can still see the letters Panos’ on the front window!
The search is on
For years, we’ve heard about the Majestic Cafe but never seen pictures of it (or so we thought). The other day, while we were on 710 KEEL, Mike Martindale brought up Panos Diner and talked about it once being the Majestic Cafe and about the Bonnie and Clyde story.
After we left, we wondered if we had accidentally come across a picture of it during our research and never realized it. We remembered that some photos from the Winston Conway Link collection he had loaned us years ago might show it. As we were flipping through those photos, we saw a picture of the Johnson building that photographer Max Autrey took.
It was taken in the 1920s at 10:45 a.m. (we know the exact time because a clock is visible in the window of the Boss and Sprouse Office on the right). The Majestic Cafe sign on the bottom left-hand side of the photo didn’t stick out at first, but when we looked closely, we were shocked. There it was in black-and-white, the Majestic Café, and what is a bonus is seeing all of the old vehicles parked around it.
Another Majestic Cafe photo found
We knew we just had to have at least one more photo of it, so we typed in “Milam Street” on our computer, and it pulled up all the photos that we had named Milam Street that we had found over the years (naming each photo helps us greatly when we are putting posts together).
One of the many photos it pulled was from the Grabill collection at the NWLA. It was a photo taken around the same place where Max Autrey’s photo was taken, but Grabill took his picture in the 1920s. In his image, you can also see the Majestic Café
We had looked at this photo hundreds of times over the years and never noticed the café. These are the only two photos that we have ever seen of the Majestic Café! Both photos were taken years before Bonnie and Clyde’s last visit, but it’s cool that we found what has to be rare photos of the cafe. If there are others out there, we haven’t been able to find them!
Bonnie and Clyde were two blocks from hundreds of law enforcement in Shreveport.
We had to add this. We have walked all over downtown Shreveport during our research in the past eight years, so we feel like we know it like the back of our hands. While putting together this story, it hit us! Of all the places in town for Bonnie and Clyde to stop to grab something to eat, they pick a cafe that’s 1/2 a block from the Caddo Parish Courthouse, two blocks from the Municipal City Courthouse on Cotton at McNeil (which housed the Police Station) and two blocks away from the Shreveport Municipal City Hall that was on the same street (Milam).
That area would have been swarming with law enforcement and city employees! That’s why it’s totally believable that two Shreveport police officers pulled up beside Clyde‘s car at the café, thus spooking Clyde to leave Methvin. This started the chain of events that led to the outlaw’s eventual demise.
Coincidentally, when Texas Ranger Frank Hamer came to Shreveport in late May (around the time of the café incident) to track the outlaws, he stayed at the Inn Hotel which also was on the same street (Milam) and was only two blocks from the Majestic Café. Hamer could have stood in the street in front of the Inn Hotel and seen the Majestic Café. That two-block area of downtown Shreveport was probably the worst place for them to stop that day! Bonnie and Clyde were either very bold or not too bright!
The photographer who took the photos of the Johnson Building (and the Majestic Cafe) in the 1920s was none other than Max Autrey who was from Shreveport and at one time was the Hollywood photographer to the stars. He was the chief photographer for Fox Studios back in the day among many other studios.
History Corner is produced in partnership with Mark and Mike Mangham of Twin Blends: Northwest Louisiana History Hunters
This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Where Bonnie and Clyde’s last days in Shreveport.
