On August 12th 1938, four years after the ambush of his former
partners in crime Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, Floyd Hamilton
along with Huron "Terrible Ted" Walters, walked into the Coca~Cola Bottling
Plant in Nashville, Arkansas (photo below) and robbed their office
at gunpoint under the noses of the workers.

 
The Coca~Cola robbery was reputed to be the last
robbery to have been committed by former Barrow
gang member Floyd Hamilton.

His accomplice Ted Walters, was to be killed 33
years later by a Texas Ranger near Dallas, Texas.

The following article was originally submitted
by Ramon Wilson, to a book on the history of
Howard County entitled, "Howard County Heritage".

 
According to a Nashville News article, among the `defining moments"
in the bottling company's history, was the Aug. 12, 1938, robbery of
the bottling plant, when during a crime spree from Chicago to Dallas,
Floyd Hamilton, former driver and gunman for the legendary Bonnie and
Clyde gang, and Ted Walters made their way to Main Street in Nashville.
When their plans to rob First National Bank were unsuccessful, the pair
then decided to hit the local bottling plant. Water superintendent H.B.
Carruth and bottling company founder Forrest Wilson were in the plant's
office discussing a scout project when the two criminals pulled guns.
Hamilton held a gun to Wilson's head and ordered him to open up the safe.
Delivery trucks had not returned to the plant yet, so the robbers were
only able to get $64 in cash - minus the checks that the bottler had
convinced the pair to allow him to remove.
According to Wilson "They almost got them in Allene," Ramon had seen
an article about Hamilton and decided to visit him in Dallas. Wilson
said his father, who had heard the story from his father, had gotten
a unique perspective on the robbery from Hamilton's viewpoint.

World War II was another defining moment for the bottling company.
There was little sugar for use in making syrup for soft drinks plus
employees including Ramon Wilson and his brother, Ralph, were away
at war. Ramon, a Marine, fought at Iowa Jima, and Ralph was a navigator
in the Army Air Corps.