LAWTON - When the new town of Lawton sprang up overnight as the result of a land lottery, the need for law and order was immediate. It was located in what was called “Fort Sill country” and had been designated as a county seat. The townsite was originally 320 acres and was named in honor of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Lawton.
He had been a quartermaster at Fort Sill and was involved in the pursuit and capture of Geronimo, a prominent leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Apache tribe. Maj. Gen. Lawton was killed in action Dec. 19, 1899, in the Philippine-American War. QUEEN CITY Historian and author Glenn Shirley called Lawton the “Queen City” because it was the “wildest, woolliest, and wickedest.” Federal Marshal C.H. Thompson sent Henry A. “Heck” Thomas in to tame it.
HECK THOMAS
The famed frontier lawman was well-respected and had a reputation of being able to track and bring the “baddest of the bad” to justice, whether from the blast of a gun through resistance or in Isaac Parker’s courtroom in Fort Smith, Ark. As a federal deputy, Heck preferred to bring them in alive, as he wasn’t paid if the wanted man was dead. Thus, his reputation to always allow the hunted man to surrender first was established. “Coming to Lawton with a reputation like few other lawmen of his time, Heck kept terrorism by gangs at a minimum. Gunslingers feared him,” Shirley wrote in his book “Heck Thomas: Frontier Marshal.”
REPUTATION/RESUME
Stories abound through late 1800s and early 1900s newspaper articles and later twentieth century books of Heck’s lawman career. He was born in January 1850, the youngest of 12 children in Oxford, Ga., and at 12 years of age went to the Civil War battlefields in Virginia with his father and uncles, who were officers in the 35th Georgia Infantry. Heck served as a courier in the Confederate Army and was present at the Second Battle of Bull Run.
He came from a long line of military men. At the close of the Civil War, Heck clerked in his brother’s store in Atlanta,Ga., and then, at 18, served as a police officer there. It wasn’t a peaceful time in the South after the Civil War during Reconstruction. As a peace officer, he encountered much turmoil and violence. In 1871, he married Isabelle Gray and, through the years, they had five children. The family moved to Texas in 1875 and Heck’s cousin, Jim Thomas, helped him get a job as a railroad guard in Galveston with the Texas Express Company. His duties included guarding the Houston and Texas Central Railroad that ran between Denison and Galveston. He became acquainted and helped bring to justice many of the notorious train robbers of the day. After leaving the railroad, Heck operated his own detective agency at Fort Worth and tracked down and killed the notorious Lee gang.
He then spent six years, 1886 to 1892, riding out of the court of the famous “Hanging Judge” Isaac Charles Parker at Fort Smith, Ark. Then from 1893 to 1900, he served under every United States Marshal appointed for Oklahoma Territory. His wife, Isabelle, wasn’t able to tolerate the turbulent life on the plains and Heck’s long absences. She took the children and went back to Georgia. The couple later divorced. Eventually, Heck did remarry. In 1888, he met a preacher’s daughter named Mattie Mowbray while he was recovering in Tulsa from wounds he received in the line of duty. They married in 1889, and Heck started a second family.
LAWTON
Heck had seen the likes of a town like Lawton springing up, and the resulting problems and challenges, before. Shirley wrote that it was reminiscent of Heck’s days in Whitebead Hill in the Chickasaw Nation and Perry in the same to him. “Picture a place about a mile square, staked off in lots, with canvas tents pitched in long rows with broad streets and alleys in between, then multiply any good carnival company by ten, and you have it.” Shirley attributed this quote to Heck.
“The first two buildings in Lawton were a long, low wooden structure which housed the land office and a boxlike shack about 16 feet by 20 feet, occupied by the First National Bank,” Shirley wrote. “The bank had no vault, no steel cages, only a pine counter. But on the outside sat two determined men with high-powered rifles carelessly resting across their knees. Two different men sat on guard all night. “There was no difference between day and night ... Shell games, wheels of fortune, street shows, and fakirs were everywhere. Gamblers, confidence men, and prostitutes did more business than the ‘locaters,’ real-estate agents, and land lawyers. Gun-hung toughs swaggered the streets looking for their ‘man for breakfast,’” Shirley wrote.
Then, entered Heck Thomas “with a reputation like few other lawmen of his time ... he kept terrorism by gangs at a minimum. Gunslingers feared him. “Within a few weeks he had been elected Lawton’s first chief of police. He organized a three-man police force that finally grew to fourteen, and equipped them ... in blue uniforms with brass buttons, and black hats. Heck always wore a white one,” Shirley wrote. As chief of police, he was also in charge of the volunteer fire department. Former Lawton Constitution reporter, the late Paul McClung, reported on Dec. 1, 1963, that Heck had lived on the northeast corner of Second and Lee.
“The new town was filled with saloons and gambling tents. Heck moved to deputize a reserve police force of 40 men, a gesture of firm authority towards the unlawful elements and ‘extremists’ of that day. “‘Colonel’ J.W. Hawkins, brawling Texan and former gambler who said he had never before done ‘an honest day’s work’ was named assistant city marshal. In recommending Hawkins to the city council, Heck referred to him as ‘an impressive big man, fearless, could shoot well, and always wore black clothes because he liked to attend funerals,” McClung reported in 1963. “He had received thousands of dollars in rewards, but he died broke, on Aug. 15, 1912,” continued McClung. “He was also Lawton’s first fire marshal, and he’d suffered a heart attack while racing to a fire and had been in ill health several years.”
In addition to Glenn Shirley’s book, source material also includes https://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-heckthomas/
Heck Thomas’ frontier law enforcement career has been retold in magazine and newspaper articles, along with books. He was a law officer in some of the toughest areas in the Southwest, such as the Cherokee Strip and other outlaw-ridden parts of Oklahoma, wrote Glenn Shirley in his book, “Heck Thomas: Frontier Marshal.” Heck, Lawton’s first chief of police, was brought in to tame the new town after a land lottery opened the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache (KCA) reservation to homesteading.
Featured Photo courtesy of the Museum of the Great Plains, Lawton, from the Arthur R. Lawrence collection; circae 1901-1903
Pictured, left to right: Rufus “Rufe” LeFors, Perry Foster, A.S. Woody, Sam Elrod, Fred C. “Pete” Larrence, Henry A. “Heck” Thomas (City Marshal), J. Will “Colonel” Hawkins (Assistant City Marshal), H.R. Blanding (Police Chief), John Heatherington, D.R. Morton, S.B. “Buck” Lancaster, Charles S. Hammonds.” Photo by Wade. Matted.