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Evett Dumas "E.D.” Nix (1861-1946)
- E.D. Nix took the oath of office as
U.S. Marshal for the
Oklahoma
Territory on July 1, 1893 and served until 1896. He led the posse that
fought in the Ingalls, Oklahoma
Shoot-out and was primarily responsible for the capture and
killing of the members of the
Doolin-Dalton
Gang.
Born in Kentucky on September 19, 1861, he
would come by his lawman experience honestly, as his father served as
a deputy sheriff and his uncle, a county sheriff. As a young man, he
worked in his father's factory and later operated a grocery, hardware,
and furniture business in Coldwater, Kentucky. He became a traveling
sales representative and moved to Paducah, Kentucky and in 1885, where
he married Ellen Felts.
He and his wife moved to Guthrie,
Oklahoma
in October, 1889, where he became a prosperous businessman and formed
a number of influential friendships.
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Evett Dumas "E.D.” Nix (1861-1946) |
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 At
the age of 32, he was appointed as
U.S. Marshal
of
Oklahoma
Territory on July 1, 1893, the youngest man assigned to such a position.
At the time of his appointment the Guthrie Daily News said of him:
"He has, right now, all the sturdy
characteristics of a veteran. A forceful independence, a clear, cool
head, a quiet, unostentatious confidence in himself that is the best
equipment it is possible for a man to have who would fill successfully the
high office to which his merits, and his merits alone, were the signal
cause of his call.”
During these last years of Judge Isaac
Parker’s tenure, the territory was still a lawless frontier, filled with
desperadoes. Recognizing the though job ahead, he quickly appointed a formidable
force of deputies, including Henry Andrew "Heck" Thomas, William Matthew "Bill"
Tilghman, Chris Madsen, Frank M. Canton, Charles Colcord, John Hixon, and
others, most of whom were already veteran peace officers.
At the time he took office, the
Doolin-Dalton Gang
was terrorizing the territory and Nix made it one of his first responsibilities,
to take them down. Just a few months later, on September 1, 1893, he led a posse
of some 27 deputy marshals and Indian Police and headed towards Ingalls,
Oklahoma,
a known hideout of the gang. In what would become known as the
Battle of Ingalls, three of his deputy
marshals -- Thomas Hueston, Richard Speed, and Lafeyette Shadley were killed and
Doolin-Dalton Gang
members, "Bittercreek" Newcomb, Charley Pierce, and "Dynamite Dan" Clifton were
wounded, but escaped. Only gang member "Arkansas Tom" Jones was captured. Though
the battle was won by the outlaws, the "war” was not yet over. Nix then organized an elite group of about 100
U.S. Deputy Marshals
to bring down the infamous
Doolin-Dalton Gang.
By 1898, the entire gang had either been captured or killed.
He was dismissed from his position on January
24, 1896, when an audit alleged that he had misused funds. However, it was
later found that the "misuse” was probably the result of an inadequate fee
system used at that time for payment of
U.S. Marshals Service officers.
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Nix returned to life as a
Guthrie businessman and in 1929 co-authored a book titled "Oklahombres:
Particularly the Wilder Ones" with Gordon Hines, which detailed the
demise of the
Doolin-Dalton Gang.
Nix died on February 4,
1946 in Riverside, California and was buried in Paducah, Kentucky.
©
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of America, updated January,
2010.
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