Pretty Boy Floyd’s Tulsa Home

by Lee Roy Chapman

03/20/2011

On February 11, 1932, a Tulsa Police Department armored truck pulled up to the house at 513 East Young Street in Tulsa. Twenty officers raided the place. They were in search of Charles Arthur “Choc” Floyd, a.k.a Pretty Boy Floyd. The day before, Floyd had evaded capture following a shootout that began near 5th and Harvard. During the conflict, Pretty Boy had abandoned his vehicle, which, police soon learned, had been registered to a Jack Hamilton who resided on Young Street. Jack Hamilton, it turns out, was Pretty Boy Floyd.

In a 1941 interview with Alan Lomax, Woody Guthrie claimed that more people attended Pretty Boy Floyd’s funeral than that of any governors’ in Oklahoma’s history. The crowd estimates for Choc’s funeral was estimated at 20,000 and 40,000. He was laid to rest in Akins, Oklahoma.