Evett Dumas Nix and the War on the Doolin-Dalton Gang

 

Evett Dumas Nix

When Evett Dumas Nix became U.S. Marshal of Oklahoma Territory in 1893, deputy marshals were still trying to bring outlaws in alive.

 

That policy nearly got them wiped out.

 

On September 1, 1893, deputy marshals rode into Ingalls looking for members of the Doolin-Dalton Gang. Instead, they found a minor war waiting for them.

 

The fight shocked Oklahoma Territory.

 

Judge Frank Dale told the marshals, “Bring them in dead—quit trying to bring them in as prisoners.”

 

Whether those were his exact words hardly mattered. The message was clear enough.

 

The old rules were finished.

 

For years, deputy marshals had been going after outlaws, as Nix later put it, “Kentucky style.” If a man surrendered, he got his day in court. If he wanted to fight, the marshals fought back. There was still an effort to take prisoners.

Ingalls changed that.

 

Within six weeks after the gunfight, nine dead outlaws were brought into Guthrie for identification. The newspapers reported the bodies. The territory got the message.

Heck Thomas

The war had entered a new phase.

 

At the center of it stood an unlikely figure. Evett Dumas Nix wasn’t a career lawman. Before Grover Cleveland appointed him marshal, he ran a mercantile business in Guthrie. He sold goods, managed accounts, and worried about the same things every businessman worried about.

 

Then somebody handed him responsibility for one of the most dangerous territories in America.

 

Fortunately, Nix had good deputies.

 

Bill Tilghman.

 

Heck Thomas.

 

Chris Madsen.

 

The newspapers would later make legends of them. At the time, they were simply the men assigned to hunt Bill Doolin and his gang.

 

Tilghman was a natural storyteller. Nix said he had “a knack for developing dramatic climaxes, then abruptly halting—leaving his listeners to form their own conclusions.”

Chris Madsen

Madsen looked like he’d wandered into Oklahoma from another century. Born in Denmark, he served in the Danish Army, fought in the Franco-Prussian War, and joined the French Foreign Legion in Algeria. While there, he heard stories about the Indian wars in America and decided that sounded like a better adventure.

 

He came to America and found it.

 

After joining the U.S. Army in 1875, Madsen fought across Wyoming, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Indian Territory before eventually becoming a deputy marshal.

 

Heck Thomas was cut from a different cloth. Nix described him as a polished gentleman. During the Civil War, Thomas carried dispatches when he was only twelve years old. After the war, he became a Texas Ranger, took down the notorious Lee brothers single-handedly, and later worked under Judge Isaac Parker, the famous Hanging Judge, at Fort Smith.

 

If Nix was going to war with the Doolin Gang, he had picked the right men.

 

The first major test came at Ingalls.

 

The gang practically owned the town. One of their favorite hangouts was Mary Pierce’s hotel. According to Nix, she always kept “three or four ladies of joy” on hand for visiting members of the gang.

 

The deputies expected trouble.

 

Each man rode into town carrying enough ammunition for a small war. Two cartridge belts circled his waist. More ammunition filled his pockets. Every deputy carried two six-shooters and a Winchester rifle.

Bill Tighman

The plan was to surround Mary Pierce’s hotel and Trilby’s Saloon before the outlaws knew what was happening.

 

The plan didn’t last  long. Before the deputies could get into position, shooting erupted in the streets.

 

Deputies dove behind wagons and storefronts. Outlaws fired from windows and doorways. Horses bolted through town while residents scrambled for cover.

 

Bill Doolin dragged the wounded Bitter Creek Newcomb into a stable and kept fighting. Bill Dalton, Red Buck, and Dynamite Dick darted across the street, “zig-zagging like a pack of Apaches,” while bullets kicked up dust around them.

 

Mary Pierce and Rose of Cimarron climbed from a second-story hotel window. They crawled across the roof carrying a rifle and several ammunition belts, determined to keep the outlaws supplied.

 

Deputy Marshal Tom Houston was shot and killed while rushing the hotel. Deputy Dick Speed went down while trying to cross the street and help Deputy Lafe Shadley. Not long afterward, Bill Dalton put a bullet into Shadley, killing him as well.

 

When the shooting finally stopped, three deputy marshals were dead. Several others were wounded. Most of the gang escaped.

 

One outlaw wasn’t so lucky.

 

Arkansas Tom Jones (Ray Daugherty), barely twenty years old, was taken prisoner. Nix considered him “the least important member of the gang.” He had only been on the outlaw trail for about a year. Convicted and sentenced to fifty years in prison, Arkansas Tom served fourteen before regaining his freedom.

Cattle Annie and Little Britches

The newspapers treated Ingalls as an outlaw victory.

 

After Ingalls, the marshals stayed busy.

 

Cattle Annie and Little Britches were two of the most interesting characters the deputies faced. Although they were just teenagers, the girls had been peddling whiskey to the Osage Nation and feeding information on the deputies’ movements to the Doolin-Dalton Gang.

 

Bill Tilghman and Steve Burke tracked the girls to a farmhouse near Pawnee. 

 

Little Britches ran out the back door and hopped on her horse when she saw them. Tilghman followed her. Burke went into the house to search for Cattle Annie. 

 

Little Britches fired a few shots at Tilghman as she rode away. The marshal was unsure what to do. He’d never shot a woman or child, but—the girl was shooting to kill.

 

Finally, he grabbed his Winchester and shot her horse. It crumpled to the ground, trapping her underneath. When Tilghman came up on her, she was wriggling and “screeching like a wildcat,” trying to reach her pistol which was just a few inches out of her reach. 

 

When Tilghman lifted the horse off her leg, the girl came up fighting. 

 

Burke had an easier time with Cattle Annie. She was holding a Winchester and a pistol, but he quickly disarmed her. Then it was off to the hoosegow. 

 

The pressure never stopped. 

 

One outlaw was captured. Another was killed resisting arrest. A third disappeared into a jail cell. The names changed, but the result stayed the same. Every few months another member of the gang dropped from the rolls.

 

The outlaws kept running. The marshals kept coming.

 

Years later, Nix reflected on the profession his opponents had chosen. Outlawry, he said, was the worst-paying position a man could engage in. He never knew “a single one to have anything in the end.”

 

The records suggest that he was right.

 

Bitter Creek Newcomb died in a hail of bullets.

 

Tulsa Jack Blake was shot down by deputy marshals.

 

Dynamite Dan Clifton met a similar fate.

 

Bill Dalton’s death was unspectacular. 

 

Deputies staked out his wife’s house about twelve miles outside Ardmore. Dalton walked into the yard on the morning of September 25, 1895. When deputies told him to throw his hands up, Dalton reached for his gun.

 

Les Hart put a bullet in him, killing him instantly.

 

A week later, a group of deputies led by Chris Madsen took down Red Buck in a dugout near Arapahoe. When they told him to surrender, Red pulled both pistols. Only he wasn’t quick enough. 

 

A hail of bullets took him down.

 

Bill Doolin lasted longer than most.

 

For years he slipped through posses, escaped jail, and somehow stayed one step ahead of the law. Then, in August 1896, the law finally caught up.

 

Deputies surrounded a house near Lawson, Oklahoma, where Doolin was hiding.

 

According to Nix, Doolin came charging out of the house with his Winchester blazing so rapidly that it “almost equaled the speed of machine gun fire.”

 

Heck Thomas was waiting behind a wall with a clear shot. Then Doolin’s sister darted between them.

 

Thomas hesitated.

 

It didn’t matter.

 

Chris Madsen stepped from his hiding place and opened fire.

 

Moments later, Bill Doolin lay dead.

 

The leader of the Doolin Gang was gone, and the war was effectively over.

 

Unlike Tilghman, Thomas, or Madsen, Nix never became a frontier celebrity. In 1901, he left Oklahoma altogether and eventually settled in St. Louis, where he worked as a stockbroker. Most people who met him there did not know he had once directed the largest outlaw hunt in Oklahoma history, deputizing one hundred and fifty men.

 

In 1929, Nix published Oklahombres, a collection of stories about the outlaws and lawmen he had known during Oklahoma’s territorial days. By then, the frontier was gone. The outlaws were dead. The deputy marshals were old men.

 

But the stories remained.

 

And without Evett Dumas Nix, many of them might have been forgotten.

Before you go ...

If you’ve ever caught yourself saying, “I remember that,” you’re in the right place.

I dig up stories about Old West lawmen, outlaws, gunfighters, robberies, murders, forgotten towns, and all the strange, fascinating pieces of history that somehow slipped through the cracks. No clickbait. No fluff. Just authentic stories and actual history.

If you enjoy what you read and would like to help keep the lights on, consider buying me a Big Gulp.

Every little bit helps pay for books, newspaper archives, research trips, and the countless hours spent tracking down stories most people forgot decades ago.

Buy Me a Big Gulp / NickVulich.com

If the Old West is your thing, you may enjoy these books...

Shot All To Hell

Shot All To Pieces