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Text originally published in 1962 under the same title.
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HECK THOMAS
Frontier Marshal
The Story of a Real Gunfighter
BY
GLENN SHIRLEY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
For his daughter, BETH THOMAS MEEKS
who inspired this work
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
While much of the material for this work came from my private collection of books, pamphlets, newspaper records, and memorabilia on the Western peace officer and outlaw, I express my sincere thanks to the following:
To Miss Bess Glenn, Archivist in Charge, Justice and Executive Branch, General Records Division, The National Archives, Washington, D.C., for copies of correspondence, clippings, and documents from the Department of Justice.
To the staffs of the Oklahoma State Historical Society, Oklahoma City, and the Division of Manuscripts, University of Oklahoma Library, Norman, Oklahoma, for placing at my disposal certain collections containing material on Henry Andrew Thomas.
My appreciation goes to his daughter, Beth Thomas Meeks, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the use of family records, letters, voluminous scrapbooks, marshals records, personal memoirs, and recollections; to his grandson, Cohn S. Monteith, Jr., of Columbia, South Carolina, for enlightening correspondence and valuable photographs; and to his son, the late Albert Thomas, of Anaheim, California, for the details of many of the exploits of Henry Andrew Thomas in his lifetime.
Without this assistance, I would not have been able to interpret him in a book.
THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
Within a quarter of a century, Oklahoma was transformed from an almost primeval wilderness into one of the most metropolitan and progressive states in the Union. From 1875 to 1900, it was a lawless land which bad men had made their stalking ground.
Strange as it may seem, here in the very heart of law-regulated America lay this great tract called Indian Territory, where for years the newly organized forces of law seemed weaker than the elements they opposed, and the roving bands of outlaws were the chief topic of conversation and apprehension as they swooped boldly down upon trains and banks, committed robbery and murder, and carried off great sums of plunder.
On the east side lay the wild, undeveloped lands of the Five Civilized Tribes. The herds of the great cattle barons roamed the prairies of the west side, finally to be usurped by the home-seekers, who were beginning in a crude way to organize the society that has reached such advancement today.
Of all the brave men who enlisted in the cause of law and order and who risked their lives by day and night to rid this land of its desperate bands, none won higher regard in his time and will be longer remembered for his most unbelievable deeds of valor than Heck Thomas.
He seemed an officer born. At the age of eighteen, at the close of the Civil War, he served as a policeman in Atlanta, Georgia, and from that time held the position of peace officer in some capacity well after the turn of the century.
He was an express messenger in Texas and put the Rangers on Sam Bass; he operated his own detective agency at Fort Worth and tracked down and killed the notorious Lee gang. From 1886 to 1892, he rode out of the court of the famous Hanging Judge Isaac Charles Parker at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and from 1893 to 1900, he served under every United States Marshal appointed for Oklahoma Territory. He became Chief of Police at Lawton, the first time after the opening of the Kiowa and Comanche country, and, after several terms, served as deputy United States Marshal again for the Western District of Oklahoma until his death.
An able Pauls Valley minister said afterward: He did more to Christianize the Indian Nations than all the ministers who were sent there.
Thomas rode the range alone most of the time, rounding up men for whom he had warrants and bringing them to almost every court in the Territory. Invariably he picked out the most dangerous desperadoes to pursue. He gave them the opportunity to surrender, and thus live; if they resisted, he shotand shot to kill. He sustained a half-dozen gunshot wounds in fights with bandit gangs. But few bad men dared go up against him alone, for his reputation and deadly skill with the Winchester and forty-five cowed them. He slept on the prairies night after night until his strong body was racked with rheumatism, and ate skimpy meals washed down with water from a running stream. Despite the hardships and the constant threat of death, he never lost sight of the fact that he was a representative of the Federal Government. He lived and acted as was expected of him.
In all his public career, with opportunities always present, he never profited by ill-gotten gain, nor did he dig into the public crib. He died a man of moderate finances. His reward was the satisfaction of having served his Government well. He contributed as much as any man to the building of a great state. His record as a fearless officer is without parallel in the history of the West.
GLENN SHIRLEY
Stillwater, Oklahoma
1 A Fighting Georgian Goes West
The first train robbery in America occurred on October 6, 1866. It was committed by the Reno brothers, who made their headquarters at Seymour, Indiana, and established a pattern for all the train robberies that were to disgrace the whole country through the years. The James-Younger gang of Missouri perfected the method in its first train holdup on July 21, 1873.
From this date, the deeds of Jack Sheppard and others, who used to entrap unwary travelers upon the Kings highway, seem utterly tame and insignificant when compared to these highhanded artists who coolly stepped upon the steel rails, stopped the snorting iron horse of commerce, and plundered express and mail cars while the officers of the same stood powerless and the terrified passengers sat shivering and helpless before the muzzles of their cocked rifles and revolvers.
By 1878, the audacious, deliberate proceedings spread into Texas. The first sign of trouble on that date of February 22, Washingtons birthday, came in late afternoon when a stranger on a gray racing pony rode into Allen Station, a little prairie village eight miles south of McKinney and twenty-four miles north of Dallas, on the Houston and Texas Central Railroad.
