The Park City Museum’s new exhibit gives the public a chance to meet some unsavory characters.
“Wanted: Dead or Alive” is a collection of 38 black-and-white photographs, including mug shots, professional portraits and group images of infamous and the not-so-famous criminals from Oklahoma’s history.
It also features pictures of buildings and newspaper articles that are connected with these “unsavory characters,” said Courtney Titus, Park City Museum’s curator of collections and exhibits.
“These photographs and stories from Oklahoma cover a 70-year time period that starts before Oklahoma’s statehood in 1907 and runs through the late 1950s,” she said. “They were curated and paneled by the Oklahoma History Center, and this is the first time we’ve gotten an exhibit from them. We’re excited to partner with them and post their exhibit.”
The Oklahoma History Center is a division of the Oklahoma Historical Society and is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, Titus said.
While this exhibit features people who have some connection with Oklahoma, some of these outlaws, including Ma Barker and her sons Lloyd, Herman, Arthur and Fred, were well known around the country, she said.
“Many committed crimes in Arizona, California and Texas and in our general area,” she said.
Some of these images, like the altered fingertips of Alvin Karpis, who teamed up with Barker to form the Barker-Karpis gang, may creep out some visitors, Titus said.
The photos show Karpis’ fingerprints that were surgically altered by Chicago physician Joseph Moran, who worked for criminals during Prohibition, she said.
“Alvin did that so his fingerprints wouldn’t be so detectable, and it did work until he was arrested in 1936,” Titus said. “If you examine the photograph, you can see just how much of his fingerprints were missing.”
The practice of fingertip removal started in the 1800s, and CNN reported that the FBI found an increase in the practice as recently as 2010.
“This exhibit really makes you look at his photographs a little differently,” Titus said..
The exhibit also includes stories of prison breaks, including the famous one about Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe, who escaped Alcatraz in December 1937.
“This is an unsolved mystery because the prisoners just disappeared in the fog and were never heard from again,” Titus said. “So, did they drown? Or did they make it?”
One of the exhibit elements that attracted Titus and Park City Museum Executive Director Morgan Pierce was the connections these outlaws had with bars and saloons.
“We thought it would be a perfect fit to show in the Tozer Gallery because the gallery features our very own historic bar that came from a saloon in Park City,” Titus said. “So it’s fun to compare and contrast some of the images in this exhibit with our own images and stories and things that were going on in the West.”
The exhibit also ties in with the museum’s territorial prison exhibit that is just down the stairs from the Tozer Gallery, according to Titus.
“The (‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’) exhibit includes (a) photograph of a pre-Oklahoma statehood prison, so I would like to encourage people to take a look at that photograph and compare what we had here at the same time,” she said.
True crime, especially historical crime, is a fascinating topic, Titus said.
“I think a lot of people are interested in it, so we liked the idea of bringing this exhibit to town, so people could see what was happening around us in the broader region when we were an active mining town,” she said.
‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’ Exhibit
- When: Through Sept. 29
- Where: Park City Museum, 528 Main St
- Phone: 435-649-7457
- Web: parkcityhistory.org