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Published: April 30th 2013
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COURTHOUSE
The jail is in the basement. The Hanging Judge stepped out on the porch to personally watch every execution that he had ordered. DAY EIGHT: April 29, 2013
I found a car wash this morning before breakfast and got some of that old nasty Oklahoma mud knocked off the Jeep. Both of us feel better. Found an awesome place for breakfast finally. It was called Benson’s Café.
Fort Smith The judicial headquarters for the Western District of Arkansas was located in Fort Smith. An army post was established there in 1817 to keep the peace between the Osage and Cherokee peoples who did play well together. Nobody cared much if they fought except talk of relocation had already begun, and if there was too much hostility it was felt that the tribes would not come to Oklahoma. The government had plans to screw the Cherokees twenty years before it happened. At the start of the War Between the States the Yankees left Fort Smith and it was taken over by the Confederacy. They held it until 1863 when Vicksburg fell and the supply chain was broken. The Yankees have controlled things there ever since. After the war ended the Indian Territories became infested with white intruders and soon became lawless. Judge
GALLOWS
I saw assign in guy's driveway over on the Colorado River one day that said, "You Can't Drown A Man Who Was Born To Hang". I bet these gallows would give that guy the willies. Isaac C. Parker was sent to Fort Smith to try and restore some semblance of order. He held the bench for the western District having jurisdiction over the Indian Territories for about 20 years. He heard thousands of cases, but only 88 of them were allowed to swing through the gates of hell through his gallows. He personally stepped out on the courthouse porch and watched every single one of them. He was damn fine Yankee judge through some very difficult times.
Box My old friend Mark B Thobe has a mother named Lorena. She is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Her maiden name was Hopper. Her people came up from Texas and settled in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma near the little community of Box. I visited the cemetery there looking for the name Hopper on the headstones and didn’t find any. They must’ve been run out of town before any of them died.
Ned’s Fort Hill Ned Christie is held kind of in the same reverence among the Cherokee that William Wallace is in Scotland. Ned was a bootlegger and a fighter,
NO HOPPERS HERE
They must have all been hanged somewhere else. and he was wanted in connection with the murder of one of Judge Parker’s deputy marshals near Tahlequah. He did not hold himself accountable any sort of federal jurisdiction. He would answer to the laws of the Cherokee Nation only. They had their own court system. The federal court wanted him badly and so did the marshals. They pursued him aggressively until Ned built a stout fortress around his home and distillery. Both his farm and the moonshine business were doing well. Time after time the marshals attacked his hilltop fort without success. Finally they borrowed a cannon from the army, but the cannon wore out before much damage could be done to the fort. A dynamite blast breached the wall and Ned was killed in the ensuing gunplay. I have always admired his pluck. Ned was guilty of other things, but he didn’t kill that deputy. He did kill others who were attacking him.
Horse thief Van Buren is nice little town just north of Fort Smith. It is a thriving community full happy, industrious inhabitants. Few of them know or care anymore that a man stole
NED'S FORT HILL
There is nothing left of Ned's Fort except the hill. a horse there back in the 1870s. He was caught, made bail and promptly skipped out before going to trial. His name was Wyatt Earp.
Alma This little community is a few miles east of Van Buren. A man named Parley Pratt was passing through the area of Alma in 1857 when he was brutally murdered. Parley held a seat on the Council of Twelve and was one of Brigham Young’s most trusted henchmen. He was on a mission in Arkansas to pull a few converts in to the Mormon Church. One of his converts was a married woman who he had taken as yet another plural wife. She took her children along with her in to the new marriage. Her distraught husband did not want to lose his whole family so he tracked Parley down and gutted him like an Arkansas River catfish. Parley was laid to rest near Alma. Word of Parley’s death reached Salt Lake City and caused resentment among the Mormons. They responded by slaughtering a wagon train of immigrants passing through Utah on their way to California. It became known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
HORSETHIEF
There I nothing in Van Buren to take a photo of that might connect to the Horse thief, Wyatt Earp. Couldn't even find a bail bondsman there. The directional sign will have to do. I have taken shelter this evening at the Best Western Winner’s Circle Inn in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It is right across the street from Oaklawn Park. This little motel was the hub of excitement a couple of weeks ago. The Arkansas Derby was run at the racetrack next door. It is one of the major stakes races leading up to the Kentucky Derby. Hot Springs is a place that my dad came to party sometimes when he was in the army during WWII. Downtown Hot Springs cannot have changed much since he was last here.
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Jim Allen
non-member comment
Food for thought!
They have good catfish those parts.