Digging into the real past to write fiction

I've always been fascinated by the 1920s oil boom in south Arkansas. However, the "Mules drowning in the muddy streets" stories and other wild tales told by the old timers around town are so outlandish they're hard to believe. But with subject matter that includes gunfights, knifings, wide open saloons, and forced prostitution, a fiction writer can really get worked up about writing a novel during this time period. However, I'll be honest. When I started my novel, The Queen of Hamburger Row, I had mentally discounted or at least thought these stories were greatly exaggerated.
Before I stared writing I wanted to get a true picture of El Dorado's boom town life in the 1920s. So I went to the Natural Resources Museum where they had oral histories and a vast amount of other data pertaining to the oil boom. What I found out shocked me. The stories weren't exaggerated. It was just the opposite. In fact, to keep the town from looking like a lawless hell hole, many of the interviews painted a totally different picture of the town during the 20s. Those folks were lying! South Washington Avenue, known as Hamburger Row, was a hell hole in the early 20s. A clip from the local paper tells it all, January 1st, 1922. "It seems the sport of the night was shooting at church bells, 12 people were killed."
Well, with all that gory detail in mind I started writing. I'll add a clip from the novel in another post later today.
More later.