Montgomery County commissioner plans to restore Conroe’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ bridge

CONROE — Along the banks of the San Jacinto River in Montgomery County, a dilapidated bridge sits parallel to its modern cousin. The once-elegant, one-lane iron truss bridge formerly connected Conroe to Montgomery along old Texas State Highway 105 for decades before the concrete and asphalt-based stretch of FM 2854 was built.

It also provided sanctuary in the 1930s to a pair of America’s most infamous criminals — Bonnie and Clyde.

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut “Champion” Barrow were a couple of notorious bandits who captured the imaginations of Great Depression-era Americans, committed a string of high-profile robberies and murders, and inspired the hit 1967 film “Bonnie and Clyde.”

The duo frequented Montgomery County to visit Clyde’s older cousin, Ellis “Dude” Barrow, often reuniting under the bridge.

In late January, the older bridge collapsed into the flooded depths of the southeast Texas river. Montgomery County Commissioner Charlie Riley plans to save the bridge’s twisted beams from its watery grave. With help from the Texas Department of Transportation, the county will remove the bridge from the shallow shores of the San Jacinto and repurpose it in the soon-to-be-developed 391-acre Fish Creek Regional Park in Riley’s precinct.

While the bridge will include some historical reference to its role in Bonnie and Clyde’s exploits, the commissioner clarified he would not glorify the couple, who are believed to have killed at least nine police officers and four civilians, according to the FBI .

“I wanna make it a memorial to the nine police officers that were killed by Bonnie and Clyde,” Riley said. “I’ll have to mention Bonnie and Clyde somewhere on the bridge, but they won’t be memorialized.”

A pair of outlaws in Conroe

Before the FBI’s “ Ten Most Wanted Fugitives ” there was “Public Enemy Number One.”

Bonnie and Clyde earned that classification and more as their escapades occupied federal law enforcement’s attention during the early 20th century.

During the height of the couple’s five-state, two-year crime spree, they visited Dude Barrow about 10 times as they traveled through Texas, the elder cousin told the Conroe Courier in 1974.

“The ranger and all them fellows was watching my house,” Dude said.

That said, the elder Barrow recalled his cousin was rarely afraid of the local “law.”

“‘Dude, I can let them have three pistols and can kill all three of them before they pull the trigger,’” he remembered Clyde saying.

But Clyde was always careful.

Instead of luring “the law” to Dude’s home in town, Clyde would catch up with his cousin under the iron truss bridge — visiting with him about two weeks before the outlaws met their final chase from the police near Sailes, Louisiana.

It was during that last visit when Clyde offered Dude around $22,000, over half a million in today’s dollars. Dude turned down the offer but wished he had taken it 40 years later, according to the Courier article from 1974.

“Clyde was always a favorite of Dude’s and according to Dude, Clyde was well-liked by many,” the newspaper reported.

In 2019, Larry Foerster, chair of the Montgomery County Historical Commission , interviewed 87-year-old Carl Madeley — who died in 2022 — a longtime Conroe resident whose father repaired the carburetor in Clyde’s stolen V-8 Ford sedan in April 1934.

Foerster shared Madeley’s account with the Landing, which details how his father warned his son not to stare after pointing out the infamous couple in Conroe’s town square.

The elder Madeley was the only mechanic in town capable of fixing this particular V-8 Ford engine, which was a brand-new model at the time, his son told Foerster.

Weeks later, on May 23, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde were speeding past a secluded patch of dirt road on Louisiana State Highway 154 when they were ambushed by 130 rounds of ammunition. Both met a grisly death courtesy of former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, who instructed six officers to crouch in the bushes for hours in the hopes they would catch, and kill, the outlaws.

The duo was obliterated in the hail of gunfire that left the recently repaired sedan riddled with 112 bullet holes.

Bridge’s future

Riley estimates the bridge’s restoration is still a few years away.

He plans to renovate the iron trusses and place the bridge across a pond located within the Fish Creek Regional Park, which will begin construction in Montgomery’s Woodforest community later this year.

The nearly 400-acre project will feature multiple sports fields and courts, a dog park, a playground, a splash park, hiking and equestrian trials, interpretive gardens, and a nature and community center, Riley said.

Foerster, the county historical commission chair, agrees that the bridge’s best bet for salvation is a new location, and told the Landing he hopes its legacy will live on in another part of the county.

According to the Courier article from 1974, longtime residents swore the final chase after Bonnie and Clyde began in the Montgomery County seat, possibly even across the old bridge, when police officers searched the license plates of out-of-state vehicles.

On a foggy Tuesday in mid-February, as the sun began to peer through the morning mist, the bridge was still partially submerged in the San Jacinto River. The half of its iron frame that remains intact was careening toward the water, while another portion was fully sunk into the muck.

Although Bonnie and Clyde met their fate nearly 90 years ago, their legend still lingers in Conroe.

“I just don’t want the bridge to go away,” the commissioner said.