Although little remembered today, Robert Boatright was one of the greatest con men of the early 20^th century. With the assistance of a confederacy of crooks known as the Buckfoot Gang, he preyed upon the Midwest gentry and fixed athletic contests in the turn-of-the-century Ozarks. This led to one scholar calling Boatright “the dean of modern confidence men.”

In a discussion of her new book, Men of No Reputation: Robert Boatright, the Buckfoot Gang, and the Fleecing of Middle America, historian Kimberly Harper sheds light on Boatright’s elaborate swindles, as well as the string of missteps and subsequent court cases that brought his criminal enterprise to an end. She also details how Boatright’s swindles spurred other con artists after his death.

A seventh-generation Ozarker, Harper earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Arkansas. She received the Missouri Humanities Council’s Distinguished Achievement in Literature (nonfiction) Award for her book White Man’s Heaven: The Lynching and Expulsion of Blacks in the Southern Ozarks, 1894-1909.

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