Allen Augustus “Gus” Bobbitt was a prominent stockman and U.S. Deputy Marshal assassinated in Oklahoma.

Bobbitt was born in Alabama in January 1862, but when he grew up, he lived in Oklahoma. He owned a saloon in Corner, Oklahoma, for a time, but was living in Center, Oklahoma, in the Chickasaw Nation when he was commissioned as a U.S. Deputy Marshal in 1888 under Marshal John Hammer.

During his career, Bobbitt brought in several criminals, including Jim Harbolt, who was wanted for train robbery and killing a sheriff. Sometime after the turn of the century, Bobbitt retired as a deputy marshal but continued to cause trouble for two men named Jesse West and Joe Allen. They were conning area Indians by getting them drunk and buying their land for nearly nothing. When Bobbitt tried to get their unethical practices stopped, West and Allen hired gunman “Deacon” Jim Miller to kill him.

After Miller had been paid a fee of $1,700, he shot Bobbitt when the ex-lawman was riding home on February 27, 1909. Bobbitt survived long enough to make his way home and identify his killer to his wife. Miller was arrested in Texas by a Texas Ranger and extradited to Oklahoma to stand trial alongside Jesse West, Joe Allen, and Berry Burrell, who had acted as a middleman in the killing. While the four men were awaiting trial in Ada, Oklahoma, the jail was stormed by a vigilante mob who removed the four men and hanged them.

 

©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated March 2026.

Also See:

Lawmen of the Old West

Lawmen & Gunfighters Photo Gallery

James Miller – Hired Killer of the Old West

Oklahoma – Indian Territory

U.S. Marshals – Two Centuries of Bravery

See Sources.