Many Mysterious Murders Make Men Fear "Dead Man's Gulch" on Old
Atoka Trail
Article in Daily Oklahoman on August 17, 1907
Submitted and Transcribed by Linda Craig
Special to The
Oklahoman
Atoka, Indian Territory, Aug 16--No man ever has traveled from
Atoka to Bobby Depot, twelve miles distant, without getting that "creepy"
feeling when he crossed Sandy Creek, three miles out from Atoka on the old
trail. This lonely spot, with its deathly stillness during the day, and
the weird call of the screech owl and the yelping coyote at night, will occupy a
place in the history of Indian Territory as the scene of more mysterious murders
than any other one spot in its borders.
Atoka is one of the oldest towns
in the Choctaw nation, and Boggy Depot is another, and in the early days the
trail between the two towns was much frequented. Long ago the crossing at
Sandy Creek took the name "Dead Man's Gulch", and to this day no native of that
section will make that crossing after nightfall unless forced to do so.
They will go miles out of the way to avoid it.
Nearly 40 years ago the
bodies of two men were found at this spot. They had been murdered.
No one ever identified them, and no one ever found out who killed them or
why. It was then the name "Dead Man's Gulch" was first heard. A few
years later the stage driver who carried mail from Atoka over the trail to Boggy
Depot, was murdered and his body found in exactly the same spot where the other
two had been found.
Quantrell, during the war, passed this spot and left
his mark upon it. He had found in the Choctaw nation five men who were
working among the Choctaws trying to get recruits for the northern army.
These men had come among the Indians as traders and were not generally known to
be representative of the northern army. They ingratlated themselves in the
good will of the neighboring Indians and then incited them to join the Union
army if possible. When Quantrell got on the trail of these five men he
scoured the country over for them. They were chased across the Choctaw
nation, took refuge in the Winding Stair mountains, were driven back westward
and tried to get into the Arbuckle mountains in the Chickasaw nation, but were
intercepted at Limestone Gap, by a squad of Auantrell's men led by a Choctaw
Indian. These five men were brought up on the trail and hanged at the
crossing at Sandy Creek, together with one of Quantrell's own men who had
disobeyed orders in the treatment of Indians. The bodies swung in the
breezes for many days, until they fell to the ground of their own weight, and it
was difficult for a long time to get anyone to travel that way, even in the
daytime.
Immediately after the Civil War, a stage coach with a lot of
money designed to pay government troops then stationed near Boggy Depot, was
held up and robbed, and the government money, as well as all of the money and
valuables of the passengers was taken. The bandits stood under a big elm
tree and with their Winchesters leveled at the stage, ordered the driver to
proceed.
Twenty years later three men, travelling in a light spring wagon
and driving a spendid team of horses, stopped and camped for the night under the
old elm tree. It was the first time since Quantrall had hanged his men
that any one was ever known to have stopped over night there. The next
morning the party was gone but there had been strange proceedings during the
night.
The men had measured off a distance of 150 feet from the tree and
set a circle of stakes around it in a perfect circle. It was evident that
they had used a tape line for the measurements. And where they had set
their stakes they had dug into the ground. At the end of one of the lines
their search had evidently been rewarded for in the bottom of the hole was
plainly seen the imprint of a large pot, with toes on the bottom, large enough
to hold at least five gallons. The pot had been broken and whatever it
contained had been carried away. There was no more digging after the pot
was found and the remainder of the stakes were left where they had been
driven. There are men living in Atoka today who remember this
incident. The three men disappeared from the nighborhood as mysteriously
as they had come and were never heard of again.
The remarkable feature
about the place is that all the tragedies have occured in the same spot, and
there has never been a single one solved.
The mysterious place guards its
bloody tales well.