Where would the entertainment world be without U.S. marshals?
These national law enforcers, the focus of the U.S. Marshals Museum scheduled to break ground September 24 in a grassy field along the Arkansas River here, are the stuff of legend. That's why they have long been the inspiration for some of the most memorable characters to appear on TV and in films.
Dozens of deputy U.S. marshals (the in-the-saddle guys--some of them former outlaws--who patrolled the 74,000-square-mile Indian Territory that's now Oklahoma, not the politically appointed U.S. marshals who oversaw the work of the courts) were stationed in this frontier town in the 1870s, rounding up criminals and bringing them back to face justice at the hands of "Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker of the U.S. Court for the Western District of Arkansas--if they were still alive.
Over 100 deputy U.S. marshals are buried within 50 miles of Fort Smith. And it's not hard to find some of their descendants nearby.
The most conspicuous big-screen marshal is cantankerous, hard-drinking Rooster Cogburn, introduced in the novel True Grit by Arkansas' own Charles Portis. The one-eyed Civil War veteran was played with Oscar-winning bravado by John Wayne in the 1969 film of the same name and less abrasively by Jeff Bridges in the Coen brothers' 2010 remake.
"The version with John Wayne was so popular in Fort Smith that it played there for more than a year," says Little Rock resident Jennifer Boulden, formerly with the Fort Smith Convention & Visitors Bureau (which occupies a former bordello across from the Marshals Museum site; prostitution was legal here until 1924), where she promoted the marshals' history for several years. "Every time John Wayne said, 'I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned. Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker's convenience. Which'll it be?' a huge cheer would arise from the crowded theater."
Rooster Cogburn is not the first marshal to achieve media-darling status. Go back to the mid-1950s to find stolid Matt Dillon (James Arness), who
kept order in rough-and-ready Dodge City, Kansas circa 1870 on TV's Gunsmoke, which aired for an incredible 635 episodes from 1955-1975.
Then there's deputy U.S. Marshal Jed Cooper (Clint Eastwood), nearly executed by rustlers in Hang 'Em High (1968). Will Smith as sophisticated Jim West and Kevin Kline as fellow marshal Artemus Gordon in Wild Wild West (1999). Gary Cooper in an Academy Award-winning turn as Will Kane, who faces a vengeful killer in High Noon (1952).
A modern addition is Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens of the FX series Justified. As played by Timothy Olyphant, Raylan is a sexy Stetson-wearing son of a career criminal, not hesitant about bending the rules in pursuit of bad guys--especially when it comes to discharging high-caliber weapons.
As fascinating as these and many other fictional characters may be, the U.S. Marshals Museum, scheduled to open in 2017, won't have to rely on Hollywood inventions to populate its exhibits. There are plenty of real U.S. marshals--many with Arkansas connections--whose amazing accomplishments are the equal of any screenwriter's imaginings.
Leading the pack is Bass Reeves, a former slave born in 1838 who was such a fearsome deputy marshal that notorious Fort Smith bandit queen Belle Starr is said to have turned herself in when she merely had a dream that he was looking for her.
Physically imposing and self-possessed, Reeves was a farmer and horse breeder near Van Buren until 1875. That's when Parker was appointed judge; before his appointment, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, there was a popular saying about the frontier that Parker's court covered: There is no law west of St. Louis and no God west of Fort Smith.
After hearing about Reeves' knowledge of the area, his tracking skills, and his ability to speak several tribal languages, Parker recruited Reeves to become a deputy marshal. He served from 1875 to 1907 and arrested over 3,000 suspected scofflaws, among them his own son.
"If Reeves were fictional, he would be a combination of Sherlock Holmes, Superman, and the Lone Ranger," writes historian Art T. Burton in his book Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves.
The fame of marshals Virgil Earp and Wyatt Earp (an accused horse thief who was released on bond in Van Buren in 1871, then neglected to return to face charges), participants in the Shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, in 1881, may cause some to think they're fictional. But no--that standoff where they, along with their brother Morgan Earp and temporarily designated marshal Doc Holliday took on outlaws Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury in a storied 30-second gun battle, was real.
Speaking of horse thieves, Belle Starr's son, James Edwin Reed, served three years for that particular crime, then briefly became a deputy U.S. marshal in Fort Smith in the 1890s.
Wild Bill Hickok achieved popularity in the 1860s for his fighting prowess and starred as himself in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in 1872 and '73. He was romantically linked to celebrity gunslinger Calamity Jane (real name Martha Jane Cannary) in 1876 in Deadwood, South Dakota, before he was shot and killed by disgruntled poker opponent Jack McCall. Hickok was said to be holding a pair of black aces and black eights when he died, a combination that has since been known as the Dead Man's Hand.
Former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a runaway who fled to Europe where supporters helped him raise money to purchase his freedom, was the first African American U.S. marshal, appointed for the District of Columbia by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877. A social reformer, writer, preacher and dazzling orator, he contributed to the development of Howard University in Washington, D.C.
In 1880, Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Sixkiller became the first captain of the U.S. Indian Police headquartered in the violent town of Muskogee, Indian Territory, with 40 men under his command. He was murdered while walking unarmed along the town's main street in 1886.
George Maledon, deputy U.S. marshal in the Western District of Arkansas from 1874-1894, was known as the Prince of the Hangmen for his service as chief executioner for Judge Parker. Maledon dispensed with 60 of the 79 men condemned to death by Parker, including six at one time on Sept. 3, 1875, which attracted an audience of more than 5,000 as well as reporters from Little Rock, St. Louis, Kansas City and beyond. (A reconstruction of the gallows used in the hangings can be found at the Fort Smith National Historic Site.)
William "Bat" Masterson was a sheriff and a deputy U.S. marshal in Dodge City, Kansas before heading to Tombstone, Arizona, around 1881, where he gained fame as an Indian fighter, a crack shot, and a sharp dresser. He later became a sports editor and columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph before dying of a heart attack at his desk in 1921.
Another VIP U.S. marshal in the late 1880s was Cal Whitson, thought to be a native of Plumerville. Along with a colorful career, he had one eye, the other having been shot out during the Civil War. "It's believed he was one of the deputies who inspired Rooster Cogburn's character in True Grit," says Boulden.
According to an entry in Fort Smith Minutes, developed by the Fort Smith National Historic Site to provide public-service announcements for local radio stations in 1996, deputy marshal Bill Tilghman crossed over from law enforcement to entertainment by appearing in a film titled The Bank Robbery in 1908.
Tilghman went on to direct The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws in 1915, which featured former deputy marshal Chris Madsen in the acting credits. Long after Tilghman died, he was the basis for a character played by Rod Steiger in the 1981 film Cattle Annie and Little Britches.
Dorothy Rose, at the age of 21, became the youngest deputy U.S. marshal in the U.S. in 1929. Known as a crack shot, Rose served the Northern District of Illinois, where her work involved escorting female prisoners to court, jail and prison.
In 1949, Katherine Battle Gordy, a longtime deputy U.S. marshal, became the first woman to become a full U.S. marshal in the Southern District of Alabama.
Kirk Bowden of Memphis was among the black marshals assigned to protect James Meredith after Meredith became the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962.
Celebrity aside, the official role of U.S. marshals nowadays is to protect the federal judiciary, apprehend federal fugitives, manage and sell seized assets from criminals, house and transport federal prisoners, and operate the Witness Security Program.
The museum coming to Riverfront Drive and H Street, a spot now marked by a sign and a flagpole, was preceded by the National U.S. Marshals Museum, a traveling exhibit based in Laramie, Wyoming, that visited 14 cities before being closed in 2003. That's when the USMS began the search for a permanent site, selecting Fort Smith in 2007 from a list of 16 cities.
The museum is likely to make a star out of Fort Smith, joining the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville in drawing visitors from across the country.
"The U.S. Marshals Museum will be an outstanding attraction for Fort Smith and all of Arkansas," said Richard Davies, executive director of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.
Boulden, whose enthusiasm for the new museum--and the city where it will be built--knows no bounds, wishes more Arkansans knew how rich and entertaining Fort Smith's history is. "It's interesting stuff, " she says, "and a damn shame that people in Arkansas barely have any idea that it's there."
Editorial on 08/17/2014