On this episode of Our American Stories, Ralphie’s fantasy villain in A Christmas Story came from a dime novel that turned a real outlaw into a cartoon desperado. The actual Black Bart was nothing like the character on screen. In the 1870s, he robbed stagecoaches with a courtesy that puzzled sheriffs and captivated the public, leaving polite poems instead of violence. Roger McGrath looks back at the life of Charles Boles, a man whose quiet manners and curious habits made him one of the most successful and most unexpected bandits in Old West history.

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