Oklahoma Tall Tales Uncovered

By Joe M. Cummings

From Amelia Earhart's arrest to the croquet mallet that foiled Bonnie and Clyde, Joe M. Cummings reveals the hidden depths of Oklahoma's tall tales.

Oklahoma has no shortage of tall tales chock full of truth, however unlikely it might seem. Puzzle over Geronimo's three skulls. Examine the beer bottle that suckered town leaders on April Fools' Day or join the mad rush of a hundred thousand person race. Accompany the governor who went to the White House and boxed the President. Untangle the hideouts and shootouts of notorious outlaws like the Dalton Gang. Retrieve the kind of lore that is buried alongside Oklahoma's legends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Nov 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781439676646

Joe M. Cummings

Joe M. Cummings has authored history articles for Oklahoma Today, the Chronicles of Oklahoma, the Texas Director, the Enid Daily Eagle and the Stillwater News Press. His history podcast, Tall Tales Uncovered, is on Apple and most other platforms, with four thousand-plus followers. He earned a BA and an MA in English from Oklahoma State University and a BS in funeral service from the University of Central Oklahoma. An Enid native, he spent forty-two years as a funeral director/embalmer in the Enid community, which established deep and lasting community relationships in the area. Joe lives in Enid with his wife of fifty-one years, Becky. They have three children and seven grandchildren.

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INTRODUCTION

I have had the joy of listening to folks spin their families’ stories into great tales. When the shifting of the sand is finished, it is clear the cores of these stories are not fictional. These were real pioneer families building a wild, dangerous, untamed area into a civilized statehood. The question became: How does one uncover a tall tale?

Well, at first, it seemed straightforward. I just needed to research the original newspapers, check with museums, and do the legwork. I divided the tall tales between the Twin Territories, the Oklahoma and Indian Territories, which was what Oklahoma was called before May 8, 1890, when the U.S. Congress created the territory of Oklahoma. The Cherokee Strip, the opening of the Cherokee Outlet for staking land claims, and the birth of my hometown, Enid, and then the state. The Cherokee Strip’s story includes the Enid marshal facing two cowpokes in a face-to-face fast draw in downtown Enid, the deeds of the Doolin and Dalton Gangs and Walter Cook staking the first claim in a race between one hundred thousand people to claim one of the 160-acre homesteads available. It also includes the stories of the eight-foot-two-inch-tall Oklahoma Giant and Little Nick, who was thirty-five inches tall. The stories of the Campbell Brothers Circus, Buffalo Bill, Bonnie and Clyde, John Phillip Sousa and Amelia Earhart are also included. But still, the tall tale remained covered. I had the actual facts and events, but something was missing.

One afternoon, as I was visiting Rick Lane, a longtime friend of my wife’s family, he told me his family’s stories. He told me about his grandfather Dr. Julian Feild, an early prominent Enid doctor who was also a founder of General Hospital in Enid. His family story said that Bonnie and Clyde stole Julian’s car and took his doctor’s bag. Rick said, I don’t live in Enid. Could you look to see if it is true? I have all the family information about Dr. Feild and pictures you can use. The tall tales began to uncover themselves as he spoke. I had the facts, but I needed the people, the descendants of the pioneers, to reveal the gem of their story. So, I listened.

This book is a community effort—the result of a generous outpouring of family stories and records. I am so thankful that I was invited into these families’ homes and allowed to open family records—many for the first time. History is more than a study of past events. It is also the study of change. For Oklahoma, this is centered on the path to statehood.

THE TWIN TERRITORIES

1

MURDER MOST FOUL

Oklahoma Territory, in 1890, had stagecoach stops like the Buffalo Springs Stage Station along the Chisholm Trail and the Skeleton Ranch Station. Transportation routes had always been significant in this area. In 1889, the Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railway constructed a line from Kansas through the area, mainly along a cattle trail. The line was sold to the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway in 1891. About four miles north of Buffalo Springs Stage Station was stop no. 1 for the northbound Rock Island Line train headed for Wichita, Kansas.

Charles Blackface Charley Bryant was a cowboy, a puncher who rode for Oscar Halsell’s HX Bar Ranch on the Cimmarron River. During a saloon fight, a gun went off in his face, causing the gunpowder to burn his face and leave a black mark on his left cheek. In 1891, Bryant, Bill Doolin, George Bittercreek Newcomb, Bill Powers, Charley Pierce, William McElhaney and Dick Broadwell fell in with three brothers from Kansas, Bob, Gratton Grat and Emmett Dalton, to form the infamous Dalton Gang. The Daltons’ middle brother, Bill, was also an outlaw but rode with the Wild Bunch. The mother of the Dalton boys, Adeline Younger, lived two and a half miles north of Kingfisher on a school section she leased. She was also an aunt to Jim, John, Bob and Cole Younger. Emmett stated Jesse James and Cole Younger would often visit their home.

The Dalton Gang’s first real holdup of the Santa Fe Express train at Wharton (now Perry in Noble County) occurred on May 9, 1891. The gang rode up to the station, and Charley Bryant and Bob Dalton went inside. They made the station agent set the signals so that the train would stop, and then they tied him up. Just as the train hissed to a stop, one of the gang members leaped into the cab and shoved a gun into the engineer’s face. Likewise, they got the drop on the conductor and the messenger as he opened the door to the express car to see what was going on. Two of the holdup men forced the messenger to stuff a grain sack full of money from the safe, in the amount of $1,500. Bryant was one of the two gang members in the express car. He looked over to the station window and saw that the agent had freed himself and was bent over the telegraph key to send an alarm. Charley raised his rifle and dropped the agent to the floor with a fatal shot. Blackface Charley and his companion leaped from the train onto their horses, which were being held by other gang members. A posse pursued them until they caught up with them at Skeleton Creek. In the gunfight that immediately ensued, a posse member named Starmer was killed. In less than twenty-four hours, the Dalton Gang had left two dead men behind. Because of his black mark, Charley was recognized, as was Bob Dalton. The Santa Fe Railroad offered $1,000 for the capture of the gang and another $1,000 for the capture of the station agent’s killer.

Waukomis stop no. 1 on the northbound Rock Island railroad line. Courtesy of David Christy.

Charles Edwin Ed Short had blond hair and was of large and robust physique and commanding appearance.…A fearless and effective officer. Short was fearless and reveled in deeds of valor and blood. He wore a six-shooter on each hip and carried a Winchester rifle. He was indeed a shootist. He was involved in the Kansas county seat wars. The citizens were so appreciative of his work that he was presented a specially engraved Colt. He was elected city marshal in Hennessey’s first municipal election. At the time of the Oklahoma Territory’s establishment in 1890, U.S. marshal Grimes appointed Short deputy U.S. marshal, giving him the Dalton robbery case.

Blackface Charley Bryant left to visit his brother Jim in Mulhall and stopped in Hennessey to take a room in the Rock Island Hotel. He carried two single-action Colt .45 six-shooters—one at his belt and the other in a shoulder scabbard—the latest model Winchester and one hundred rounds of ammunition on his person and in his saddle pouch, as each Dalton Gang member did. In the Cherokee Strip, Short went to Hennessey and learned that Charley Bryant was in town. Short followed Jean Thorne as she took a lunch tray upstairs to Bryant’s room. Short threw the door open and leveled his pistol at Bryant. Short had the drop on Bryant, so he snapped a pair of manacles on him. His only problem was the closest secure jail was 140 miles away in Wichita. Short suspected the Dalton Gang would come to rescue Blackface Charley Bryant.

Short’s only solution was to take the northbound Rock Island train that was coming through to Wichita on Sunday, August 23, 1891. Conductor James Collins gave the deputy marshal permission to take Bryant to the baggage car to protect the passengers in case the Dalton Gang showed up. With his hands cuffed behind his back, Charley complained that his arms ached. Short relented and re-cuffed Bryant’s hands in front of him. As the train slowed for stop no. 1, the deputy marshal spotted galloping horsemen approaching.

Fearing the riders were the Daltons, Short handed his revolver to the postal agent and advised him to watch Bryant. Short stepped out onto the train car platform, rifle ready, to check out the riders. The baggage clerk had a bunch of mail left to sort, so he put the pistol into a letter pigeonhole. In a flash, Blackface Charley snatched up the six-shooter with his manacled hands and leaped onto the platform to confront Short. Both opened fire at point-blank range. Blackface Charley triggered the six-shooter, and Deputy Marshal Short leveled and fired his Winchester. Both men received their lethal wounds in the first two shots, but both kept firing. Bryant emptied six chambers, and Short’s Winchester fired eight shots. The ends of both train cars were riddled with bullets.

U.S. deputy marshal Charles Edwin Ed Short. Courtesy of the U.S. Marshals Museum, Fort Smith, AK.

Blackface Charley was the first to drop, falling headlong down the train’s steps. Short caught him by his leg and held him with his head almost touching the ground. In a real-life death grip, Deputy Marshal Short would not let Charley go. I have got him—and he has got me! Short reportedly yelled to the conductor. As the smoke cleared, the two men lay stretched out, dead.

A headline in the Kingfisher Free Press on August 27, 1891, read: MURDER MOST FOUL, Terrible Double Tragedy on the Rock Island. Short’s mother, Mrs. L.M. Short of Osgood, Indiana, received $500 from the Santa Fe Railroad for the capture of a member of the Dalton Gang. Deputy Marshal Short was buried in Osgood, Indiana, and Blackface Charley was buried in Boonville, Wise County, Texas, in an unmarked grave. Enid resident Bob Klemme, a recognized authority on the Chisholm Trail, told this author that Buffalo Springs Station is now Bison, Oklahoma, and Skeleton Springs Station is now North Enid. Both locations have markers for visitors.

So, the most noted western cowboy shootout in Oklahoma Territory occurred at stop no. 1 of the northbound Rock Island Line. However, the railroad workers had another name for it. They called it Walk Home Us because they had to walk home to Enid or, as it is now called in Garfield County, Waukomis.

2

MURDER AMONG FRIENDS

In 1895, Enid’s first platted area of 160 acres was located northwest of downtown. Christened Kenwood, it became the home of wealthy businessmen, including Territorial Governor Frank Frantz.

Gold was reportedly discovered at Boggy Creek, which brought everyone with their homemade sluices, according to the Engineering and Mine Journal.

The Enid Railroad War ended at North Town (North Enid), as the U.S. Congress passed legislation forcing the railroad to make a stop in Enid, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. Enid’s favorite son, Marquis James, who won two Pulitzer Prizes, wrote in his book They Had Their Hour about the smoldering railroad war and the announced discovery of gold at Boggy Creek. There were alarms of prospective raids by the Dalton Gang on Enid banks. The citizens reacted with Winchesters and calling for a city marshal. They engaged E.C. Williams.

The Enid Daily Wave of June 27, 1895, reported that Williams was born in San Francisco and moved to Boston, where he graduated from the best school in the state with honors. He then moved to Denver, where he married and became a reporter for the best papers in the state. At the opening of the Cherokee Strip, he came to look for a new home. According to They Had Their Hour, Williams came well recommended from western Kansas, where he had studied the art of community pacification under Wild Bill Hickok.

James Brown and Frank Smith came into Enid and shot out the lamps in a saloon. At