The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

Joplin Metro

Discussion

February 13, 2009

Council nominates Bonnie and Clyde apartment for national designation

By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

The Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation on Friday approved the nomination of the Bonnie and Clyde garage apartment at 34th Street and Oak Ridge Drive for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

The vote was 9-0.

The nomination will be forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register in Washington, D.C., for final approval.

Allen Shirley, a Joplin resident who is vice chairman of the state council, said the nomination culminates a two-year effort to get the site listed. Shirley abstained from the vote Friday because of his local connection to the nomination.

“It’s on the way to the feds for approval. They usually have about a 45-day window to approve, reject or send back the nomination for revision,” he said. “We’ll get a relatively quick federal approval on this.”

Roger Maserang, who prepared the nomination for the historic preservation office, in a telephone interview on Friday said no one attending the council meeting spoke in opposition to the nomination. He said the council received no letters opposing the nomination.

“One of the hardest nominations to write is one where there’s not much information available,” he said. “This one was the opposite of that. There was so much information it was hard to get your head around it.”

The encounter with the “Barrow gang” at the garage apartment represents “a defining moment in the saga of Bonnie and Clyde, and it is Missouri’s most intact and best preserved structure with a strong and clear association with the notorious outlaw lovers,” according to the document nominating the structure for the National Register of Historic Places.

The structure, he said, is the only free-standing location associated with the outlaws’ reign of terror in 1933 that exists in the country today. The Bank of Oronogo, which the gang robbed, has been altered to such an extent that it no longer can qualify for nomination to the list.

The structure also will serve as a permanent memorial for the fallen lawmen — Newton County Constable John Wesley Harryman and Joplin police Detective Harry McGinnis. A plaque bearing their names is to be placed on the exterior of the apartment.

The apartment is owned by Phillip and Jackie McClendon, of Joplin, who acquired the property in 2005. They have painstakingly recreated the look of an apartment in the 1930s.

Shirley said, “Our board is not there to judge the good or bad of what happened. We’re there to value the historical aspect. Is this site historic? Does it have relevance.”



New films

“Bonnie and Clyde,” the romanticized 1967 movie starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, was nominated for 10 Academy Awards. It won two. A new movie version of the story is in the works and will feature Hilary Duff in the role of Bonnie.

A new Bonnie and Clyde documentary by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the National Geographic Society is set to air this spring. Part of the documentary was filmed at the apartment late last year.

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