Volume 17 , Issue 12

"Bad Ben" Cravens, Outlaws (1912)

Anyone ever heard of "Ben the Bad'un" (a.k.a. "Bad Ben" Cravens) the last of wild west outlaws? At left, Ben Crede Cravens was starting out for prison with guard. The picture inset in the lower right shows a picture of carves' attorney, "Al" Jennings.

In an Illinois newspaper, The Day Book dated 1 of March 1912, out of Chicago, Illinois, the following story on page 11 concerning "Ben the Bad'un," the last of wild west outlaws sent to federal pen for rest of his life.

Guthrie, Okla., Mar. 1 (1912) -- The last of the professional outlaws that infested these parts in early days had been taken to the federal penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He would stay there the rest of his days if Taft didn't commute the sentence. The commitment papers refer to him as Benjamin Crede Cravens.

"Bad Ben" Cravens' life story involves more blood, murder, robbery and general all-round cussedness than most fiction. cranes rode the country robbing trains, banks, postfixes and stores.

Between battles with sheriffs, death at the end of the gallows rope and life terms in prisons the gang had passed into history. "Bad Ben" was the last to get his. He was born near Lineville, Iowa, and there his parents lived respected bother neighbors. Bad Ben was the black sheep.

On March 18, 1901, Bad Ben and his pal, Bert Welty, held up, robbed and killed Alvin Bateman, postmaster at Red Rock Oklahoma. Welty was caught and given a life term. bad Ben escaped and next day killed Deputy Sheriff Tom Johnson. Then he dropped out of sight.

In 1911 Charles Maust was handed a four year term for stealing a horse in Andrews County, Missouri. At the Missouri penitentiary Maust was Bertillioned and discovered to be a dead ringer for Bad Ben Cravens' Bertillon record made in the Kansas prison in 1895, when he was serving a 20 year term for highway robbery.

Bad Ben had not finished that term, for in the early days of his time he overpowered his guards and escaped from the prison mines, killing an officer in his line of escape.

Kansas waived its claim on the outlaw to Oklahoma, and he was brought to Oklahoma for trial. His attorney, "Al" Jennings, once a leader of train robbers, was at one time a guest (on life term) in the federal prison at Columbus, Ohio, but was pardoned a few years ago by President Roosevelt.

The defense claimed that Maust was not Bad Ben Cravens, but a hard working horse thief. The jury held that while he might be a horse thief, he was also a murderer and to Fort Leavenworth with him. As Charles Maust, Bad Ben had married at Mound City, Missouri, and became the father of two boys,now in the state orphanage at Fargo, North Dakota.
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