This is here because we had family go through this.... too.

The Cherokee Outlet and its lawless days
1/19/2005

There was not much law in the Cherokee Outlet in the days before the famous land run of Sept. 16, 1893. Horse thieves and other assorted criminals operated freely. In fact there is one theory Pat Hennessy, a freighter plying the Chisholm Trail, was killed in the late 1800s by horse thieves masquerading as Indians.
Murder was easy. Many times people just seemed to disappear, never to be heard from again, until they were accidentally unearthed decades later. It was usually impossible to identify the remains.

This was pretty much the case with the skeletal remains unearthed in October 1927 near Alva. There was a story about it in the Enid Morning News, along with an interview with a pioneer resident, Evan G. “Parson” Barnard, giving his reactions to the finding of the unidentified remains.

All that was known about the man in the shallow grave was he certainly did not die of natural causes. There were two bullet holes in the skull. The newspaper story says the remains were found in October 1927, buried near the old camp house on the Fritzlen Ranch, northwest of Alva. Nearby residents estimated he had been in the ground for 25 years — maybe longer.

In the years before the land run of 1893 the Cherokee Outlet was a lush grassland, and a number of ranchers leased land from the Cherokees and established large cattle operations in the area.

The shooting victim was wearing a pair of homemade boots. “Killed with his boots on, eh!” Barnard exclaimed, as he leaned back in his chair at Grange headquarters on East Broadway. “Well, many went down that way in the early days,” he recalled.

The man found near Alva might have been killed in a fuss over who had first claim to a piece of land in the run of 1893. That would have been in about the same estimated time frame of 25 years or so earlier (34 years to be exact). Maybe he was a “Sooner” who had entered the Outlet before the prescribed time, or maybe he was a lawful participant in the land run killed by a “Sooner,” and then buried to cover up the crime.

Whoever killed him must have wanted to make sure he was dead, because they shot him twice in the head. Once should have been enough. So, maybe it was a crime of passion, done in a burst of anger.

There probably are still scores of skeletal remains of people, who died violently, or non-violently, lying in unmarked graves all over the old Cherokee Outlet and the Oklahoma Panhandle.

In this same interview Barnard tells how he almost became one of them:

“In the fall of 1887,” Barnard began, “I was working down around El Reno on a government contract. We drove a large herd of cattle to Kiowa, Kan., to market. Kiowa was a wild town in those days and looked awfully big and thriving after 18 months on the range.

“As I was returning, I was caught in a rain storm about 17 miles south, and pulled into a cabin near what was then known as the Drum Ranch. As I approached the cabin I noticed three horses outside the cabin. It was raining hard and I went in. Who do you think I found there?

“Three of the toughest cattle rustlers in the country were in that cabin. One was George Newcomb, better known as the ‘Slaughter Kid.’ Another was Boss Smith, and I do not recall the name of the third man. They fingered their guns quite freely.

“Finally, I took my six-shooter from its holster and began wiping it off. No trouble ensued. I knew those men and knew their business. It would have been a perfectly easy thing for them to have bumped me off, buried me and no one would have ever known. That’s perhaps what happened to the man whose skeleton was found near Alva.”


Brown is a retired News & Eagle editor.

Now here is a happy baby.....

http://www.backroaddesign.com/jonandrandi/hello/256/1527/640/Img_0629.jpg Click on the link to view..... haha got ya.... Taken by Jonathan...!!!