Bella Starr the Bandit Queen

In 1898 publisher Richard K. Knox started an empire by selling outlandish stories of the lives of Western outlaws and circulated thousands of volumes of the amply titled dime novel. Amongst the infamous characters of Jesse James and Billy the Kid was also a female outlaw, Bella Starr, The Bandit Queen, or The Female Jesse James. Marketed as a dashing female highwayman, the novels included copious extracts from her ‘journal’. 

While also being handsomely illustrated. (Juicy plus pictures, not bad for a dime.) The books, ballads, poems and even motion pictures spawned from the extraordinary tales seem to be only part of the actual truth.

Bella Starr was the daughter of John and Elizabeth Shirley. Elizabeth held the maiden name of Hatfield, and was a member of the famous family feud. A child tomboy Myra May ‘Bella’ Shirley was raised to be a genteel lady, studying Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, she could also daintily play the piano. A lover of books, her favorite author was William Gilmore Simms, whose dramatic depictions of the South often featured dramatic strong heroines. Also an accomplished rider, she was often seen riding side saddle wearing a tight black riding jacket. 

Now comes the interesting twist in the story. Myra aka Bella was also known for riding through the country side at break-neck speeds on her favorite horse, Venus. High atop the gorgeous mare, Bella was often sporting an ostrich plumed man's Stetson hat. If you were able to get close enough, you might catch a peak at the rawhide necklace of rattlesnake rattles dangling from her neck.

Those who didn’t take her seriously or give her the respect she deserved were threatened with the barrel of her six-shooter.

A teenager during the civil war, Bella volunteered to spy on the troops through her social circles and report back to the southern guerrillas. After the war, she moved her parents to Texas where she assisted in hiding the outlaw Cole Younger, who arrived with the James-Younger Gang, which included Jesse and Frank James, as well as Bob and John Younger. The gang was looking for a place to hide out following a recent robbery, and Bella, knowing the men were former confederate soldiers, agreed to help them. 

While it is said Cole Younger and Bella had a torrid affair, it was never confirmed by wither party but Bella seemed to have kept him in her heart, eventually giving her ranch in Indian Territory the name Younger’s Flats.

Bella later fell in love and married a man named Jim Reed, with whom she had a daughter and a son. Bella being the dutiful wife followed Reed all over the country as he ran from the law and gambling debts. Arriving in Missouri, Reed was restless and rarely at home, racing horses and gambling in Indian Territory, particularly with Tom Starr's clan. Starr was the leader of a Cherokee family involved in whiskey smuggling and cattle rustling, and a formidable and towering man with long black hair and gray eyes with the lashes plucked. He's said to have worn a necklace studded with the dried earlobes of men he had killed.

While Bella was said to support all of Reed’s misdeeds, there was one thing she would not stand and that was another woman. Reed became involved with a lady named Rosa McCommas, and Bella broke off their marriage. Reed continued robbing stagecoaches, stealing horses and cattle, and gambling, until he was shot and killed in Paris, Texas in August of 1874.

After leaving Reed, Bella spent much of her time in Dallas, a boomtown in the 1870s as a railroad center and portal for cattle herds, and even without Reed she still got into some trouble, being accused of horse stealing in 1878. After too many complaints were filed against her she was told by Collin County to leave the state. 

In a tribal ceremony in 1880, Bella married Sam Starr son of Tom Starr. The couple claimed a thousand acres of land west of Fort Smith, Arkansas. With their friends always getting into some sort of trouble with robbery or gunfights, Bella's home again became a hideout for such guests as Jesse James. She said in an interview with the Dallas Morning News that she was "a friend to any brave and gallant outlaw."

Things after that were far from quiet, and one day Sam went riding on Venus, and was confronted by a four man posse led by Sam’s old enemy Frank West. Venus was shot and killed, and a bullet grazed Sam’s head. Later that year, just before Christmas, Bella and Sam were at a dance at a neighbor’s house when Sam was told that Frank West was outside. He went out to meet him, and in their duel both men drew their guns at once and simultaneously killed each other.

Bella’s adventures continued with several more run-ins with the law, including Edgar A Watson, who is also suspected in Bella’s death. Myra “Bella” Shirley Reed Starr returned to Younger’s Bend on February 3, 1889, the story has been told that she was thrown from her horse by a shotgun blast to the back. "The Petticoat Terror of the Plains" was shot again while on the ground, with wounds discovered on her back, neck, shoulder, and face. Her horse galloped home riderless, and Bella was found bloody and dead on the wintry road.

Edgar M. Watson was never charged with the murder and the case has been left unsolved. 

Bella Starr was buried near Eufair Lake, southeast of Porum, Oklahoma, at Younger’s Bend. On her tombstone, commissioned by her daughter Pearl with her bordello earnings, was engraved a bell, a horse, and a star, along this epitaph: 

"Shed not for her the bitter tear,

Nor give the heart to vain regret;

'Tis but the casket that lies here,

The gem that filled it sparkles yet."