Abstract
Allen and Martha Burrow named their second son and fourth child Reuben Huston. Born in northwest Alabama’s Lamar County sometime in 1854 or 1855, Rube, as he came to be called, grew up working on the family farm. He loved to hunt and fish, and reportedly had a quick wit about him. Burrow was not enthusiastic about attending school, and, for reasons unknown, about 1874 left for Texas. Besides the legitimate avocation of farming and the less respectable occupation of bartending, Burrow adopted another more dangerous way of making a livelihood-train robbing. When he returned to Alabama late in 1887, the record he and his brother James Buchanan, who had followed Rube west, left behind was hardly exemplary. The Burrow brothers were wanted in Texas for four train robberies and in Genoa, Arkansas, for another. Rube became Alabama’s most famous and notorious outlaw. He carved a record that spawned nine “dime novels” and many legends and folk tales. One of his most notorious adventures took place in Florida.
Recommended Citation
Rogers, Jr., William Warren
(1980)
"Rube Burrow, "King of Outlaws," and his Florida Adventures,"
Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 59:
No.
2, Article 6.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol59/iss2/6
