Volume 17 , Issue 10

1889, February - Belle Starr Dead

The Butler Weekly Times, dated 13 February 1889, page 6, out of Butler Missouri, reported on the death of the infamous Belle Starr, the notorious female desperado. The terror of the Border Dead at Eufala, I. T., tells a sketch of the desperate woman's life and exploits.

Fort Smith, Ark., Feb. 4 (1889) -- John Starr, a United States witness, received a telegram from Eufala, I. T., that Belle Starr was killed there the night before. Belle was the wife of Cole Younger, and Jim Starr, her subsequent husband, was shot down by the side of Belle less than a year before. Belle then lived with John, a cousin of Jim Starr. Belle Starr had been recognized as a desperate woman and her exploits had been chronicled in the newspapers more than once. There was no other information than the above given.

Belle Starr was, without exception, the most desperate woman that ever figured on the American border, and her operations in connection with a strong band of outlaws had extended over a period of upward of dozen years' time and in territory covered the region from New Mexico into Arkansas. Belle was the wife originally of Cole Younger, and lived with him in Texas before that notorious bandit entered his desperate career in Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota. After Cole Younger's capture in Minnesota she became the wife of Jim Starr, of the Indian Territory, and for several years she, her husband and their outlaw band figured in man of the most desperate deeds of outlawry, such as robberies, murders, feudal affrays, shielding fugitives, etc.

Often Belle Starr went disguised as a man alone into the frontier towns on the Southwestern border, secured information and directed the subsequent operation of her bandit associates. In many of these exploits she acted as commander and her escapes from death or capture on several occasions were almost miraculous. She was wounded in a pitched battle near the Arkansas river about four year before (1885) in which several Federal soldiers were shot and two members of the Starr gang killed. A wounded companion was drowned and his body recovered several weeks later, about 50 miles from the scene, by the authorities.

Two years before (1887) Belle became a widow when Jim Starr being shot dead at her side in a pitched battle similar to the one just described. Since then Belle had lived on terms of illicit intimacy with John Starr, a cousin of her late husband. Her operations had not been of so bold a character or so frequent the past two years as previously, many of the worst men of the old gang having been "removed" in combats with State and Federal posses and the multiplying of railroads and other factors of civilization making operations on the old trails very dangerous.

Little was known of Belle star's early life before she went "on the road." She was of Western birth and had very few elements of culture or education in her mental makeup, but she was a terror with a knife, a rifle, a pistol or any other weapon of assault or defense. Belle possessed great physical endurance, and all the "tough" qualities of a border desperado of the male sex, cold swear like a sailor, ride a horse as good as a Texas ranger and shoot as quickly and accurately as a man from Arizona.
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