Blue Ridge Country November/December 2021 - 38

TOP: " Otto Wood, " as
recorded by Cranford and
Thompson of Alleghany
County, North Carolina.
This first of the Otto
Wood ballads copied the
melody from the older
ballad of " Jesse James. "
LOWER LEFT: " Otto
Wood The Bandit, " by
the Carolina Buddies,
composed by Walter
" Kid " Smith, is the most
enduring of the ballads
and was revived by Doc
Watson in the 1960s.
LOWER RIGHT: " Otto
Wood, The Bandit, " by
Bernard " Slim " Smith of
Mississippi. The backing
band included a Hawaiian
steel guitarist; likely the
only old Appalachian
ballad that lends itself to
Hula dancing.
COLLECTION OF MARSHALL WYATT
decades. By the time he entered his early
teens, Wood was sentenced to work on a
chain gang. Only a few years later, he was
one of the first children from the mountains
of western North Carolina sent to a
new state reformatory. By the age of 18,
he had racked up a list of petty thefts,
as well as escapes from chain gangs and
the reformatory, and he had lost his left
hand in a hunting accident.
Despite the misfortunes of his early
years, Wood packed a lot of adventure
into his short life. Wood's criminal activities
led him through the deserts of
south Texas, the railyards of Missouri
and West Virginia and the back roads of
North Carolina. His prison record reflects
his travels, as well as his savvy as an escape
artist. Within the span of 17 years,
between 1913 and 1930, Wood escaped
OTTO WOOD TIMELINE
Here are key dates in the life of Otto Wood. This timeline is condensed from the complete version in the book.
May 9, 1893 Commonly
accepted date for Otto
Wood's birth
August 1907 Sent to the
Iredell County, North
Carolina, chain gang for petty
thefts
April 29, 1911 Loses his left
hand in a shotgun accident
March 27, 1913 Arrested for
breaking into train cars at
Graham, Virginia
May 10, 1913 Enters Virginia
State Penitentiary
May 15, 1913 Escapes from
Road Camp 27, Spotsylvania
County, Virginia
September 7, 1913 Returns
to Virginia State Penitentiary
after capture
November 20, 1914 Second
escape from Road Camp 27,
Spotsylvania, Virginia
November 13, 1915 Arrested
for car theft after chase in
Salisbury, North Carolina
November 1915 Breaks
from Iredell County, North
Carolina, chain gang
38 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
October 1916 Captured in
Chattanooga, Tennessee
December 3, 1916 Arrives at
Tennessee Penitentiary
May 28, 1917 Breaks out of
Tennessee Penitentiary
June 2, 1917 Captured
in Wilkes County, North
Carolina
June 8, 1917 Returned to
Tennessee Penitentiary
April 27, 1918 Second break
from Tennessee Penitentiary
September 5, 1918 Arrives
at West Virginia State
Penitentiary after being
captured and sentenced for
car theft in McDowell County
January 9, 1919 Escapes
from West Virginia State
Penitentiary alongside James
Borders
January 30, 1919 Wood's
younger brother and partner
in crime, Robert, dies of
Spanish flu
May 16, 1919 Captured
in Wilkes County, North
Carolina
To hear two of
these ballads, go to
BlueRidgeCountry.
com/OttoDoc and
to BlueRidge
Country.com/
OttoBuddies
11 times from five different state penitentiaries
across the South and Midwest.
These escapes are in addition to breaks
from smaller jails, too numerous and, at
times, too obscured in the records to ever
be tallied. Wood, like many criminals of
the era, also loved a good alias and used
many throughout his life, further hindering
any effort to trace his criminal
activities.
In the mid-1920s, Wood achieved
a semi-celebrity status throughout the
southern United States as the " Houdini
of Cell Block A, " a prisoner no jail or penitentiary
could hold. His notoriety and
crimes caught the attention of several
North Carolina governors, most notably
O. Max Gardner, who met with Wood
and attempted to use the escape artist as a
poster child for prison reform. The result
of what Gardner termed an " Experiment
in Humanity " proved disastrous and ultimately
led to the manhunt that resulted
in Wood's death at the age of 37.
A shootout on the streets of Salisbury
on New Year's Eve 1930 ended Wood's
life, but inspired lyrical tributes from
early country music songsters who gave
Wood a path, albeit a belated one, to immortality.
Can't
tell you all but I wish I could . . .
Even the ballad lyrics reveal the difficulties
of documenting Otto Wood's life.
True to his larger-than-life persona, Wood

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Blue Ridge Country November/December 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country November/December 2021