In 1872 Rube Burrow left his home in Alabama for the “Eldorado of the Southern emigrant, Texas.” He settled with his uncle, Joel Burrow between Alexander and Dublin this fall. Not adjusting well to farmwork, he made a living gathering unbranded cattle and driving them to market in Fort Worth. In 1888, Jim Burrow joined his brother on Cottonwood Creek, after a few years as cowboys, the brothers became train robbers. On October 5, Jim was captured during a robbery and died in a Texarkana jail. In 1890, Rube Burrow left his hat at a train robbery, the hat was traced to Stephenville and then to Rube. He left for Alabama until things cooled down. (There is a legend that he tried to spend the night on the ghost cabin at McDow Hole, on Green Creek.) He was captured in Linden, Alabama, on October 7, he escaped by asking for his bag of ginger snaps which contained a pistol. Instead of leaving town immediately, Burrow searched for an hour trying to find his favorite rifle. Before he could leave town he was shot and killed. Word reached Erath County later in October that the desperado Rube Burrow had been thrown from a train and killed by “many mysterious wounds.” But it was later discovered that this was another man named Burrow.

George W. Agee, Rube Burrow, King of Outlaws, and His Band of Train Robbers. Cincinnati: C.J. Krehbel & Company, 1890; and Ed Bartholomew, Album of Western Gunfighters. Houston: The Frontier Press, 1958.