George B. Kelley - Cottondale Cemetery - Cottondale, TX - Homemade Tombstones on Waymarking.com

History knows him best as "Machine Gun Kelly," a notorious Depression-era gangster whose activities included bank robberies, bootlegging of alcohol, and kidnapping. Born George Celino Barnes, he changed his name to George R. Kelly to evade authorities during his bootlegging days. After he married Kathryn Thorne, she purchased him a Thompson submachine gun and created an image of "Machine Gun Kelly" in crime circles.

The crime that ultimately led to Kelly's arrest was the kidnapping of oilman, Charles F. Urschel, who was held at a farmhouse in nearby Paradise, TX. Though blindfolded, Urschel was careful to memorize numbers of footsteps and other details that could help authorities (including the sound of overhead planes, with Kelly's gang telling Urschel the time of day when he asked), and after he was ransomed, this information was invaluable to the FBI's tracking down Kelly and his wife in Memphis, TN. They were caught unaware, and Kelly yelled "Don't shoot, G-Men!", giving the [G]overnment's FBI agents a nickname that stuck.

Both were convicted and given life sentences, although Kathryn was released in 1958. Kelly spent seventeen of his remaining twenty-one years at Alcatraz before being transferred to Leavenworth, where he died of a heart attack in 1954.

Interestingly, Kelly's name is "Kelley" on his stone, and despite his birth name's being "Barnes," there are numerous burials of people named "Kelley" (and Barnes) in this cemetery.

Date of Birth: July 18, 1897 Date of Death: July 18, 1954 Material: Concrete Web Site: Not listed

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