SAM & BELLE STARR BARNWOOD FRAME SET
Classic Western Antiqued "REWARD" poster for this famous husband and wife outlaws is tacked to a 17.5" x 14.5" frame. Set comes with full-sized replica, non firing USA M1873 pistol Calibre .45 single action revolver with 4.75" barrel. Action works! Spin the cylinders, cock the hammer and pull the trigger. Complete with wood grips and blued finish. Barnwood Frame measures 17.5" x 14.5". Total Weight: 5 lbs.

BELLE AND SAM STARR
Belle Starr, was one of the most notorious outlaws of the Old West. Her exploits were fictionalized in accounts in newspapers, magazines, and books. This makes it extremely difficult to separate fact from legend. The legendary Belle Starr was certainly exciting, but the real events were probably more interesting. Belle Starr, according to the legend, was the "Bandit Queen"--a lovely lady who ruled outlaw gangs with her guns, her will and her personal favors. This amoral, amorous adventuress associated with the James boys and the Youngers. She was alleged to have borne Cole Younger's illegitimate child. Her marriage to bandit Jim Reed was said to have been performed on horseback, not by a man of the cloth, but by another member of the gang.

Her maiden name was Myra Belle Shirley, then 1st marriage to Jim Reed (killed), then 2 marriage to Bruce Younger (killed, he was a brother of Cole Younger), then 3rd and final marriage to Sam Starr.

According to the fiction that grew up around her after her death she was briefly married to Bruce Younger in 1878, but again, this was entirely unsubstantiated by any primary evidence. But she did marry a Cherokee Indian in 1880 named Sam Starr and settled on Starr family land in Indian Territory. In 1883, she and Sam were charged with horse theft and went to trial in "Hanging" Judge Isaac Parker's Federal District Court in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Found guilty, she served six months at the Detroit House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan. In 1886, she escaped conviction on another theft charge, but Sam Starr was shot and killed in December, possibly in a drunken brawl. He killed Officer Frank West December 17, 1886.

After Sam died, the legend has her associated with several men (almost all of whom died violently and some on Judge Parker's gallows at Fort Smith), but again, without foundation. In fact, in order to hang on to her interests in her residence on Indian land she very quickly married a member of Sam's extended family, Jim July Starr. Later, in 1889, she was, herself, killed; although her murder was (briefly) investigated, it is considered "unsolved".