Tales of Early Days
by Nila Braden

The Last Bank Robbery in Wichita Falls, Texas

There had been law and order in Wichita Falls for many years and business places were preparing to open as usual on Oct. 25, 1896. At the City National Bank, Frank Dorsey was counting his money and placing it in the till when two masked men entered the bank with guns drawn. Frank Dorsey thought some one was playing a prank on him, so he stalled for time trying to figure out who the men were. Bill Crawford and Elmer Lewis were hardened criminals. They demanded the money. When Dorsey hesitated, he was shot. The bookkeeper, Langford, coming to Dorsey's aid, was gunned down too.

Hurriedly scooping up all the cash they could gather, the two raced outside to their horses tied to a rack nearby. Their horses spooked and broke loose. They quickly took two others tied nearby, galloping away unchased. Some passersby, hearing the shots, rushed into the bank. Dorsey was dead. Langford wounded seriously, was still breathing.

The Sheriff and the Texas Rangers were notified. Several other men joined them in the chase. Nine miles out of town, the thieves were caught where they were holed up in a brush thicket.

Handcuffed without resistance, the two culprits were taken back to Wichita Falls. The Rangers left for their Amarillo headquarters. Deputizing 25 men to keep watch over the prisoners in the flimsy jail, the Sheriff tried to disburse the gathering crowd. There were threats of lynching and burning the bodies afterwards.

As the shadows of evening gathered, the increasingly growing crowd demanded revenge for the murder of the bank's cashier and the wounding of the bookkeeper. Wichita Falls was made up of both business men and farmers. It had been a town of safety and peace. The town's citizens didn't want this sort of thing to happen again. They wanted justice.

It is not known how the 25 men guarding the prisoners were overcome, but it is told that 300 men stormed the jail. The two men were dragged from their cells. Ropes were thrown over a post and a nearby scaffold. The Prisoners were asked if they had anything to say. Lewis didn't. Bill Crawford begged for mercy, saying his gun was not fired. He also asked for a drink to calm his nerves. Then he asked to speak to Tom Burnett, since he had known him while working for the T-Fork Ranch outside of Wichita Falls. Tom was the son of the well known rancher Burk Burnett and was widely respected.

Burnett listened to what Crawford had to say in his own defense. He told Tom that he did not fire the shot which killed Dorsey, while he freely admitted robbing the cashier. Crawford said they money was hidden at a place called Turkey Bend.

During the time Crawford talked to Burnett, Lewis, the younger of the two, cursed violently. He said that it was not his bullets which had taken the life of the innocent cashier. He admitted hitting the bookkeeper over the head but had not intended to kill him.

The crowd had heard all the denials they cared to. It was obvious the two men were lying to save themselves from being hanged. Continuing to jeer at the crowd, Lewis, dressed in black pants, red shirt and high heeled boots, felt the rope being tightened around his neck. Cursing the audience then laughing, Lewis waited defiantly for the end. "HAVE YOU ANY LAST WORDS?" he was asked. "I ain't afraid to die. Go ahead and get it over with!"

Before he died Lewis said his parents still lived in Missouri. "Any messages for them?" he was asked. "Well, tell them I'm not scared and I kept my nerve to the end."

"Time's up!" Someone shouted and they pulled the rope.

"I'm only twenty years old..." were Lewis' last words.

Bill Crawford watched as his partner swung in the air. Crawford fainted but he swung anyway.

Newspapers, making comments about this affair, commented, "In taking the law into their hands they acted without sanction. But at the same time there are none to say the robbers did not meet justice. The tragedy was an indictment written in blood against the maintenance of the semi-barbarous system that exists in the Indian Territory by the grace of the government in Washington. Other towns had been victims of cutthroats and robbers who had hidden from justice, coming out of Indian Territory to the north. The sooner the Territory was opened to settlement, it was thought, the sooner there would be no place where outlaws could hide. Crawford and Lewis hadn't been the only men who had robbed and killed. Another mob had whooped down on the Burnett Ranch, shooting wildly and scattering ranch hands who rode into Wichita Falls for help.

This last episode resulted in "a petition to Congress to open up the Indian Territory as to protect us from further trouble with the banditry who invades our border."

Five years later the U.S. Government opened the unsettled areas in Indian Territory.

Burk Burnett

Burk Burnett was born in Bates County, Missouri, January 1, 1849. He didn't get to go to school much. The Jayhawkers, who were looting this part of the United States just prior to the Civil War, burned the Burnett home. The family decided to migrate. Burk was just ten years old when the Burnetts loaded their possessions into a covered wagon and jolted southward across Indian Territory. Denton Creek, Texas, was their destination.

Jerry Burnett, Burk's father, entered the cattle business with a small herd. In eight years, the herd had grown in numbers and the trails had opened to the Kansas markets. Burk was put in charge of a trail outfit, made up of ten men and seventeen hundred head of longhorns bound for the Abilene market. An Osage Indian war party raided the camp and made off with all the horses but eleven. One for each man. Burk went on. The cowboys walked all day so the ponies might be saved for possible emergencies. The cattle did go through, and Burk returned to Texas with a big profit. Old Jerry was so pleased, he made Burk a partner.

Another tale goes that Burk was gambling in Fort Worth. He won a big stake with a poker hand containing four sixes. Whatever the reason, Burk used 6666 as his permanent cattle brand.

In 1873, Burk drove eleven hundred head to the railroad at Wichita, Kansas. The market was flooded and the price had dropped too low to make a profit. Burk pulled the cattle back to winter on the Osage reservation. When he sold the cattle the next fall, they weighed more and he made a big profit. That winter, Burk bought thirteen hundred head in the Rio Grande country and drove them north to an area around Wichita Falls. He wrote about the large number of buffalos, stating that he had to kill three hundred at one time before he could drive them from his herd.

Burk bought land, sometimes for as little as twenty-five cents and acre. He established his headquarters near what is now Burkburnett. He married the daughter of a Fort Worth banker. With his father-in-law's help, he continued to expand. Quanah Parker, Chief of the Comanches, was his friend. Burk leased three hundred thousand acres from the Comanche, Kiowa and Wichita tribes.

Other cattlemen, usually the Waggoners, the Suggs, the Herrings and others, would meet to discuss leasing problems. Burnett would be the spokesman and mediator between the white man and the Indians. The annual lease payment was a ten dollar bill paid personally to each Indian at the Indian Agency at Anadarko, Oklahoma.

Another tale relates that the cattlemen took Quanah Parker and Yellow Bear to a cattlemen's convention at Fort Worth. Yellow Bear was sleeping in a hotel for the first time. Yellow Bear blew out the gas jet instead of turning off the stop cock. The next morning Yellow bear was found dead. Quanah Parker was revived. Yellow Bear was a great man in his tribe and when his body was returned to the Reservation, Quanah Parker, who accompanied it, was in trouble. The Indians didn't believe that breathing bad air could kill. Burk took a bottle of ammonia and gave the Indians a good whiff and saved the day for Quanah.

In the 1890's, Washington was being bombarded with requests to open the Indian Territories for settlement. This would cause a big loss to the cattlemen who leased the grass. Burk Burnett went to Washington. Teddy Roosevelt was president. Burnett told the President about a man named Jack Abernathy who would catch and kill a coyote with his bare hands. Plans were made for a hunting trip for the President with Burnett, Abernathy and a few others. Sure enough, Abernathy was able to perform for the President. Abernathy would grab a coyote by the lower jaw and ram his fist down the animal's throat, thus choking it to death.

President Roosevelt and Burk Burnett became friends. The President asked Congress to postpone opening the Indian Territory for two years to give the cattlemen time to move their herds back to Texas.

Oil was brought in on the 6666 ranch. The derricks began to crowd the cattle. The Four Sixes again expanded, branching out farther into Wichita County and into King County to the west.

When our town was going to be named in 1907, several names were suggested. President Roosevelt settled the matter, saying the new town should have the name of his friend, Burk Burnett. The Post Office department responded that it was illegal to give a town two names. Roosevelt said, "Well, make it one word then." So that is why we are called Burkburnett.

Mr. John Garham Hardin and Burkburnett, Texas

After the war of 1812, a Major Stephen H. Long explored the lands near the Red and Arkansas Rivers. He called all the Great Plains area "The Great American Desert," and branded it unfit for occupation. The early pioneers passed on over this area to lands further west. The grass here was so tall and the sod so tough that the farmers didn't have plows that could turn the soil. This is one of the last frontiers of our country.

The first people to come to a new land are usually traders and fur trappers. Next come the cattlemen with great herds of cattle, looking for more grass. Then the farmers come to clear the land, break the sod, plow the soil, build schools and churches. Merchants, teachers, doctors, lawyers and others come and we have townships and laws and roads and civilization.

A trader and fur trapper named Mabel Gilbert brought his family and slaves up the Red River on a barge and settled on the mouth of a creek, now known as Gilbert Creek, in 1856. Mr. Gilbert brought trinkets to trade with the Indians for pelts and buffalo hides. He built a log cabin on a bluff overlooking Red River. His farm was protected from buffalo by a trench dug by his slaves. Mr. Gilbert had eleven children by his first wife and eight by his second wife. His eighteenth child, a daughter named Hettie, was born here in 1860. She was the first white child born in Wichita County. The closest store to buy supplies was Gainesville, Texas, 120 miles away.

Indian raids drove the Gilberts from their home three different years. Mr. Gilbert died here of pneumonia in 1870. Mrs. Gilbert took the family back to Cook County and civilization.

When Col. McKenzie came with a troop from Fort Richardson en route to Fort Sill in 1872 he noted that the Gilbert cabin had been burned, presumably by Indians. Later a man named McFarland and his two sons herded cattle in this area, using the corrals erected by Gilbert. When Hardin and Hawkins came, they found the peach trees set out from slips by Gilbert were in bloom.

Next came the cattlemen and we have the tale of Burk Burnett, the rancher. In the sixties, wild cattle and buffalo roamed this area. It wasn't until the late 1870's that the farmers came to this area and we have the story of J.G. Hardin.

John Garham Hardin was born in Mississippi in 1854. His parents were Tennesseans and the family moved back to Tennessee while John was still a child. He was a very small boy and the family moved back to Tennessee while John was still a child. He was a very small boy when his father went away to fight for the Confederacy. John was twenty-one when he and his father bought roundtrip tickets to Texas to visit relatives. At Texarkana, someone jostled the elder Hardin while he was getting off the train. His billfold with his money and return ticket was stolen. John gave his father his ticket and stayed in Texas. He soon married and in 1879 John and wife, along with the S.P. Hawkins family, decided to seek a new location. They loaded their belongings in wagons and started toward Wichita Falls. Once, they started to turn back. A stranger came along and told them about the area around Gilbert Creek, saying "if you don't find what you are looking for there you never will." The families went on and this was truly what they were looking for!! The grass was waist high on the bottom land and the wild flowers were beautiful. The Hawkins and Hardins, along with the Rexfords and Dodsons, who were already there, placed their dugouts in a circle for protection from the Indians. In 1881 there was a terrible drought and the settlers made no crops at all. The cattlemen began to move their herds to other areas. Every day the settlers watched herds of cattle being driven to greener pastures.

In 1882, the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad was built to Wichita Falls, and the mail came to Gilbert Creek, or Nesterville as the cowboys from Burk Burnett's ranch jokingly called the settlement. Mr. John Hardin was the first Postmaster.

The Hardin family weathered many hard times. The winters were cold. One bitter cold day their milk cow fell through the wagon sheet that was used for a door into their dugout. One blustery day, Mrs. Hardin wanted to air the featherbed. The wind caught the mattress and blew it for three miles before a cowboy was able to catch up and rescue the Hardin's bedroom. Another time, the Hardins made a bumper corn crop. The fall had been dry and the danger of a prairie fire was great. John burned some strips close to his corn crib and the dugout. John thought the fire was out and came in for supper. The wind must have stirred a spark. The corn crib caught fire and they lost their complete crop, a year's work. The Hardins had to stay. There was no money to leave. In 1884 John's young wife died. His babies died soon afterward. John was now alone.

New people came to Nesterville. John opened a little store in the front of his home. The community managed to get a school started and also a Baptist church. Mr. Hardin became a prosperous wheat farmer. His 127 acres increased to 4000 acres. He owned a store, a blacksmith shop and was postmaster. He had married the school teacher. Some of this country's most valuable oil fields were developed on his land. John Garham Hardin was now a millionaire.

In 1907, the City of Burkburnett was incorporated and Mr. Hardin helped organize the First National Bank. (My bank.) He was it's president for twenty-five years. Mr. Hardin was known as a 'hip-pocket' banker. If someone needed money for any worthy reason and didn't have the collateral to qualify for a bank loan, Hardin just reached into his hip pocket and loaned his own money. He had the early pioneer's desire to give his neighbor a helping hand. Mr. A.R. Hill came to work at the First National Bank in 1920 and worked under Mr. Hardin's watchful eye for twelve years. (I started at the First National Bank in 1953 and it seems to me that Mr. Hardin's and Mr. Hill's basic beliefs in their community and their fellowmen are still guiding us today.)

As Burkburnett changed from a boomtown to a more stable type of community, Mr. Hardin and his wife helped in many ways. First he gave $35,000 for the erection of a municipal light plant. Next they gave the Burkburnett Independent School District $142,000 to pay off the schools indebtedness. The Hardins helped build the athletic plant too. It became the first lighted Class B plant in Texas. When Mrs. Hardin died, John gave his home and the surrounding acres to be used for a park. Mr. Hardin paid off the debts of the three churches then in Burkburnett, the Baptist, Methodist, and the Church of Christ.

When John Hardin was seventy, he decided that a man who had the ability to acquire several millions of dollars should be wise enough to administer his own estate. In a period of five years he and his wife gave away approximately four million dollars. They gave $1,250,000 to Buckner Orphan's home, Dallas, Texas; $850,000 was given to Baylor University at Waco. $250,000 went to Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. $125,000 to Baylor College for Women, Belton, Texas. $160,000 to Abilene Christian College, Abilene, Texas and a $900,000 trust fund was set up for several institutions and causes. The Hardin Foundation, Wichita County, provided funds for Midwestern University.

Mrs. Hardin died in 1935 and Mr. Hardin in 1937. They are buried in the cemetery in their hometown, Burkburnett. Governor James V. Allred said in remarks made at the memorial service, "John Garham Hardin built his own monument."

The Boom Period

The book "Boomtown" by one of our own, Mrs. Minnie Benton, will tell you about these exciting times here. The book may be purchased at the Burkburnett Star Office. Our Library has a few copies.

The story most often told is that Mrs. S.L. Fowler dreamed that oil was beneath their stock ranch. She persuaded her husband to drill. Fowler managed to borrow the money and contributed his farm and $500. Other men joined him to form Fowler Farm Oil Co. Drilling was started. They had all kinds of trouble. Neighbors would gather around to watch and always teased Fowler. The well became known as Fowler's Folly.

Early on July 29, 1918, with the well 1,734 feet deep and while the Fowlers slept, Red Mud McDowell ran into the yard yelling: "The well came in during the night; She's filled the 800 barrel tank and the 400 barrel too and now is running down the cotton rows!" The Fowler well was worth at least $16,000 daily.

When the news of the Fowler well got around, the rush was on. There was soon a solid line of derricks two miles long along Burkburnett's streets. Burkburnett resembled a hive of bees at swarming time. Burkburnett was bursting at the seams. By January, it was estimated that the town had grown from 1,000 to 8,000 people. As many as four families lived in the same house. The street in front of the bank was still a dirt street. I've been told that during a rainy spell the ruts got so deep, because of the wagons hauling the heavy pipe, that a mule got caught in its harness right in front of the bank and drowned before men could free it.

People were too busy trying to get rich to worry about roads. The danger of fire was desperate also. During the fall, the peak production for the Burkburnett area was 100,000 barrels daily.

In 1918, the Burkburnett school had 673 pupils. In 1919, the school had increased to 945. In 1920, when tax money should have poured in, the school had to close. People were too busy trying to get rich no thought was given to the school. Not enough attention had been given to civic affairs.

The price of crude oil went down. Production fell off. People who had become wealthy in oil moved to larger places. "The Boom" was over.

Clark Gable, who starred in the movie about our town, worked in the oil fields here during the boom.

Oklahoma

Just north across the Red River was a vast area of grassland; the home and hunting grounds of the Osage, Caddo, Wichita, Comanche and Kiowa Indians. In 1824 the United States Government began to prepare to move the majority of the five civilized tribes: the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw and Seminole. The five civilized tribes had lived in close contact with white men for more than 100 years. They had adopted many of the habits and customs of the whites. Most of them, except the Seminole, had been at peace with the United States since 1814. But the government forced them to give up their eastern homes to the whites. Between 1820 and 1846 these Indians were driven and herded to the open prairies of what is now Oklahoma. Treaties guaranteed that the Indians would own this land "as long as grass shall grow and rivers run." Some of these Indians were farmers and slave owners. They brought their slaves with them.

During the Civil War, most of the five civilized tribes joined with the southern states and fought in the Confederate Army. When the war ended, the Indians were told that they no longer had any ownership of their lands since they had rebelled against the Union. The government proposed to open Indian Territory to white settlement. Tribal representatives in Washington protested strongly, and the government softened its demands. Not long afterward the government bought about 2,000,000 acres of land in the central part of Indian Territory from the Creek and Seminole. At noon on April 22, 1889, this land was opened for settlement.

During the 1890's more and more Indian tribes accepted individual allotment of their lands by the Federal Government. Each person with one-fourth Indian blood was considered Indian and given a choice 160 acres of land. The surplus lands not allotted to tribe members were opened to settlement. There were 13,000 quarter sections to be allotted by lottery to the whites in 1901. 165,000 registered for this land. The drawings were held at Lawton and El Reno. James T. Wood was the first name called from the Lawton Drawing and Mattie Beal of Wichita, Kansas was second. Their ages and physical descriptions also were announced. Both were five-feet three inches in height. Wood and Miss Beal were peppered with taunts and sly suggestions that they pool their 160 acres and get married.

By 1906 the whites outnumbered the Indians 5 to 1 and on Nov. 16, 1907, Indian Territory and the Big Pasture became Oklahoma, the 46th state of the Union.

A Thumbnail Sketch of an Early Settler

A young doctor Kernodle came to the area just north of the river near Randlett in the early 1900's. He looked the land over and went home to a northern state and told his wife, "I've found the 'Garden of Eden'. The land is as flat as a table, the grass grows as tall as a horse's withers. The future bread basket of the world is right there!!" So he and his wife brought their five children to the prairie. The doctors fee for delivering a baby was a Sunday dinner for his family. His daughter, Doty, told me that they went somewhere every Sunday. There was a school with a dirt floor and plank walls. If more light was needed they just moved a plank to let in more sunlight. Dr. Kernodle wore a split tail coat and a top hat. He drove a buggy on his rounds. He had a big booming voice and his patients could hear him coming a quarter mile away singing, "Blessed Assurance! Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine." He sent his daughters to college. He told my father that he didn't care if they learned anything or not. He just wanted them to find a husband. Saying that if a boy had the gumption to go to college he could probably make his daughters a pretty good living. Doty married a Dr. Frank Daugherty. They went to Africa and served as medical missionaries for twenty years.

Another hearty pioneer was a Mr. George Pfiefer. He believed in education and encouraged the Randlett young people. Four students graduated in 1918. Two became university presidents. Dr. Oliver Willham was President of Oklahoma State University and Dr. Harvey Andrus became President of Pennsylvania State University. I've heard them laugh and say that theirs was the best class ever to graduate. That 50% were Presidents.