Gangs and Outlaws of Western Pennsylvania

Thomas White, Michael Hassett

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781609495503
• eBook ISBN:
  9781614236092
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Paul Jaworski and the Flathead Gang
• The Cooley Gang—Fayette County’s Notorious Outlaws
• Pittsburgh’s Earliest Bank Heist
• The Maug “Mob”
• A Violent End to a Crime Spree
• Glenn and Irene—Western Pennsylvania’s Bonnie and Clyde
• Robbery on the Tracks
• The Biddle Boys Escape
• Selected Bibliography
• About the Authors