In 1931, Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd shot a federal agent in Kansas City. Within four months in 1933, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow made it through two police shootouts in Joplin and Platte City. Explore our area's storied criminal past at
They're Not Going to Get Me: Crime in the 1930s at the National Archives (400 West Pershing Road, 816-268-8000). This tidy interactive exhibit features court documents, Department of Justice records, photos and stories of the unsavory and dangerous characters who defined Depression-era crime, and the men who spent their careers trying to outwit them. It's full of usable tidbits of information (the 1933 "massacre" at Union Station cost five lives) and imagery of what might have been one of America's most distinctive periods of lawlessness. The exhibit is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, see
archives.gov/central-plains/kansas-city.
— Berry Anderson
