St. Louis Cultural History Project—Summer 2022
Charles Arthur Floyd: The Pretty Boy in St. Louis
by Stephen A. Werner, Ph.D.
At the corner of Vista and Tiffany Avenues in St. Louis stood the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company building. It was the offices, bakery, and warehouse for the grocery chain. On Friday, 11 September 1925 three armed men entered the building, went to the second floor, and robbed the office of $12,000 of the company payroll. A witness described one robber as having a “pretty face.”
Several days later two of the robbers showed up in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, driving a new Studebaker. The Police Chief was suspicious of these local boys having such sudden wealth and pulled them over. One was carrying cash still in the yellow bank wrappers of Tower Grove Bank on South Grand Avenue at Juniata in St. Louis. The money was traced back to the Kroger Office robbery. In time all three robbers were convicted of the crime and sent to prison. In the process one of them picked up the moniker ‘Pretty Boy Floyd.’ He hated the name.
Charles Author Floyd was born in 1904 in Adairsville, Georgia. He grew up in Oklahoma. He spent three and a half years in prison for the Kroger office robbery. In the next years Floyd would be connected to numerous bank robberies and a number of killings. Yet he was popular with the general public.
With the death of John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd became Public Enemy No. 1. He was shot in a cornfield in Ohio in 1934. His funeral in Sallisaw, Oklahoma was the most attended funeral in Oklahoma history.
The Kroger Grocery and Baking Company building still stands on S. 39th Street a few blocks south of Chouteau at Vista. (Tiffany Avenue was renamed as S. 39th.) C.L. Smith, Co. occupies the building. The original Kroger sign can be seen on the building.
The King and I Thai Restaurant now occupies the original Tower Grove bank building. The original bank sign can still be seen. The bank later moved north on Grand and was eventually bought by Commerce Bank.