Rhea Leen Linder, the niece of Bonnie Parker, and Buddy Barrow, nephew of Clyde Barrow, at the Barrow filling station in March 2020. Photo courtesy of Bill Yates
A piece of West Dallas’ infamous past is headed to the landfill.
The Barrow filling station, the family home of the outlaw Clyde Barrow on Singleton Boulevard, was demolished Wednesday. Owner Brent Jackson of Oaxaca Interests told the Dallas Landmark Commission in March 2020 that he planned to tear it down.
The commission voted at that time to initiate landmark status for the building, a process which takes two years. There’s been a whole pandemic since then, and it’s unclear what happened with the landmark initiation.
Henry Barrow, Clyde’s father, used a mule team to move his three-room shotgun house from Muncie Avenue to a lot on what was then Eagle Ford Road. He added on to the building and opened Star Service Station at what is now 1221 Singleton Boulevard, sometime in the early 1930s.
Clyde Barrow never lived at this address, but he would’ve lived in the original house when it was on Muncie.
His parents, Henry and Cumie, were running the filling station during the 21 months that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were on their multi-state crime spree.
Photo of the Barrow filling station courtesy of the Dallas Public Library History and Archives Division
After Bonnie and Clyde were killed in an ambush at Gibsland, Louisiana in 1934, the family continued running the service station, and it was the site of retribution on behalf of former Barrow gang members.
It caught fire in June 1938, in what the Barrow family believed was an attack on their business. That September, Cumie Barrow and her nephew, Lewis Francis, were shot and wounded while standing outside the filling station. She was shot in the face and shoulder and eventually lost sight in one eye. Former Barrow gang member Baldy Whatley was arrested in the shooting.
The following month, while Whatley was out on bond, the filling station was fire bombed twice.
That history should not be celebrated, the property owner said in 2020.
“He did murder a number of first responders,” Jackson told the Landmark Commission. “The guy murdered multiple multiple multiple people.”
Bonnie and Clyde were accused of 13 murders, including two Texas highway patrolmen, two police officers in Missouri, a sheriff in Oklahoma and a deputy in New Mexico.
Site of the Barrow filling station on April 21, 2022
Several West Dallas residents spoke in favor of landmark initiation back in 2020.
“There are those who say we should not glorify criminals and poverty, but this is part of our history,” West Dallas native Elsa Cadena said at the time.
“Why doesn’t West Dallas have more historical landmarks? Because West Dallas was where the poorest of the poor lived. These were the forgotten ones. The immigrants. And yes, even the criminals.”
Jackson, the property owner, hasn’t yet responded to a phone message left at his office. He also owns the adjacent West Dallas Pharmacy, which is still standing.
George Castro grew up in West Dallas and spoke to the Landmark Commission two years ago.
“With all the gentrification going on in 75212, they’re wiping away the little bit of history we have left,” he said.
