His father had been a captain in the Union Army during the Civil War and was a cabinet maker by trade. In 1900 the family of eight moved to Green City, Missouri.
Around 1905 Harvey, found work in Omaha, Nebraska working at the Armour & Co. Later he worked on the railroad for many years. By the time he was twenty he had married his boyhood sweetheart and later two sons were born.
Bailey's criminal career had it's mere beginnings 1918 when he started running whiskey.
In March of 1920 he was arrested for hijacking and burglary, put up a bond then skipped town. The ring leader was Tom Kelly, shot during their arrests. He had been a business owner and served as a deputy sheriff at one time in Omaha. In 1929, he had held up a jewerly saleman and was sentenced to twenty years in Nebraska.
Using explosives, Harvey robbed a North Dakota bank in November 1920. He was suspected of aiding in a Benson, Nebraska bank a year before that.
Between 1922 and 1923 there were several bank robberies, included was the Denver Mint, where the take was $200,000 in new five dollar bills. He supposedly had stolen over a $1,000,000 during the 1920's alone and worked with an assortment of fellows, including Frank Nash, who had worked with Al Spencer of the Henry Starr outlaw band. He also teamed with Eddie Bentz and Verne Miller. Later on he worked with Fred Barker, Alvin Karpis and "Machine Gun" Kelly.
In 1924 Harvey had opened two filling stations in Calumet City, Indiana with his ill-gotten gains with a fellow bank robber Alvin Johnston, an alias,) under the names Willliams and Brennan. There is some confusion to who Johnston actually was, he may have been Fred Burke, a part time hired killer for the syndicate, who's real name may have been Thomas Camp. Also a fellow researcher brought it to my attention he thought Johnston may have been Jim Clark.
The filling stations did so well, they invested in real estate. In 1929 Harvey bought two farms in Wisconsin, and was seriously considering going straight. But after the stock market crash and with losing all his investments, he went back on the road.
Young Harvey
{Courtesy: Brian Beerman}
Tom Kelly
{Courtesy: Brian Beerman}
Frank Nash
Young Alvin Karpis
Fred Barker
Henry Starr Roundup
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