Sowers is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

located approximately 11 miles northwest of

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

in Dallas County. Today, the once rural community is located entirely within the boundaries of Irving, Texas. Of the original townsite, only the cemetery remains.

History

Sowers was settled in the late 1840s and by 1884 had a population of seventy-five and possessed several businesses including a blacksmith, a church, a doctor, a druggist, a school, and two steam gristmill-cotton gins. A

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

was established in 1881, it and the town were named after early

pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a person who is among the first at something that is new to a community. A pioneer as a settler is among the first settling at a place that is new to the settler community. A historic example are American pioneers, perso ...

E. D. Sowers. The population was listed at 121 residents in 1905 and remained at or near that figure until the 1950s, when the community's last reported population was a mere thirty residents in 1956. Sowers was annexed by Irving soon thereafter.

Attempted Capture of Bonnie and Clyde

Sowers gained notoriety on November 21, 1933, when renowned criminals

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut "Champion" Barrow (March 24, 1909May 23, 1934) were American outlaws who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression, committing a ser ...

met family members at dusk near what is now Texas Highway 183 approximately one and a quarter miles northwest of the community, where Barrow had arranged a clandestine picnic to celebrate his mother's fifty-ninth birthday. Since Barrow had not had a gift to present his mother, the pair planned to return the following evening for an extended visit at which time he planned to give her a gift. On November 22, 1933, as Parker and Barrow approached the previous evening's family meeting spot, law enforcement officers Smoot Schmidt, Ted Hinton, Ed Caster, and Bob Alcorn; armed with

Thompson submachine gun The Thompson submachine gun (also known as the "Tommy gun", "Chicago typewriter", or "trench broom") is a blowback-operated, selective-fire submachine gun, invented and developed by Brigadier General John T. Thompson, a United States Arm ...

s, .351 "Bullhead" repeating rifle, and BAR (Browning Automatic Rifles) opened a

fusillade A fusillade is the simultaneous and continuous firing of a group of firearms on command. It stems from the French word ''fusil'', meaning firearm, and ''fusiller'' meaning to shoot. In the context of military tactics, the term is generally used ...

of gunfire from a ditch about seventy-five feet away. Upon their accelerated escape, several .30 caliber rounds from Bob Alcorn's BAR pierced the driver side door of Clyde's stolen 1933 Ford V-8 five-window coupe wounding both Parker and Barrow with shots to the knees. The pair subsequently abandoned the car and fled. Hinton and Alcorn later participated in the fatal ambush that halted Barrow and Parker's spree on May 23, 1934, near

Gibsland, Louisiana Gibsland is a town in Bienville Parish in northern Louisiana, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 773. The town is best known for its connecting railroads, as the birthplace of the defunct historically black Coleman Colleg ...

References

;Bibliography * Guinn, Jeff. ''Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde''. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.) 480 pp. .

External links

* * 1933 Sowers Community Ambush Site * Sowers Cemetery. Sowers Cemetery, 3115 Pioneer Drive Irving, Texas : Texas marker #6887
Texas Historical Commission
Geography of Dallas County, Texas Ghost towns in North Texas Irving, Texas 1848 establishments in Texas {{DallasCountyTX-geo-stub