Slats grew up tough in mind, body and spirit, but constantly in and out of trouble. When he reached the age of 18, he married a 15 year old girl, lied about his age and got a job with the railroad. His strong will and keen mind enabled him to slug his way from yard-boy to engineer with the railroad. The young g soldier of fortune discovered he could make extra money hauling bootleg whiskey in the cab of his locomotive. He used the money to construct the first airplane built in Texas. At the end of World War I, Love Field became a Mecca for gypsy barnstorming pilots and a flying circus was formed called Slats Rodgers and the Love Field Lunatics. The circus was used as a cover for the delivery of his bootleg whiskey. When Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1933, he repealed the Volstead Act. The sixteen year window of time for bootleggers slammed shut. Mexico beckoned to Slats and he became a gun runner involved in a small revolution. Later he left Mexico, a rich man. With the gold he brought out of Mexico, he purchased an airfield in Mission, Texas and went into the crop dusting business.