Craig County Oklahoma Biographies presented by Genealogy Trails

Craig County, Oklahoma Biographies

A member of the Cherokee Indian tribe, Thomas Alberter "Bert" Chandler was born near Eucha, Delaware County, Indian Territory, on July 26, 1871. The son of Burges G. and Annie Gunter Chandler, the future congressman graduated from Worcester Academy in Vinita and attended Drury College in Springfield, Missouri. In 1894 Chandler married Marie L. Wainwright, and the couple had two children, Norma Louise and Collis P. Appointed as the revenue collector for the Delaware District of the Cherokee Nation in 1891, Chandler later served as the Cherokee Nation townsite commissioner in 1895. A prominent farmer, businessman, and oil producer, he reportedly drilled the Cherokee Nation's first producing oil well on his allotment near Bartlesville. In 1899 he organized the Indian Telephone Company in Vinita for long distance service. From 1900 to1907 he served as deputy clerk of the United States court for the northern district of the Indian Territory. During this time he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1907. With statehood, he was named to the first Board of Public Affairs and as secretary secured Eastern State Hospital for Vinita. He participated in numerous organizations, including the Masonic order, Knights of Pythias, and Elks. Long interested in Republican Party politics, Chandler was the first Indian to meet with Pres. William McKinley and was influential in allotment of Indian lands in Oklahoma. In 1916 Chandler sought Oklahoma's First District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Campaigning on an "America first" platform, the Craig County politician called for a protective tariff and vigorously opposed the proposed literacy test amendment to the Constitution. Although the election was contested by Democratic incumbent James S. Davenport, Chandler won the subsequent court case. In his first congressional term, he served on the Indian Affairs and Alcoholic Liquor Traffic Committees. It was ironic that Chandler was on the Indian Affairs Committee, because as an American Indian, he still had a court-appointed guardian. He and Oklahoma colleagues W. W. Hastings and Charles Carter, who also served on the Indian Affairs Committee, were commended for their efforts in securing the best Indian appropriation bill ever passed. In addition, he labored to reduce taxes in the oil industry. Despite his efforts, Chandler was defeated for reelection in 1918. Two years later, he swept back into the position with the Republican Party landslide. As a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee during the Sixty-seventh Congress, Chandler called for protective tariffs on oil as a way to protect the small producer. The congressman also was largely responsible for legislation that validated contested Indian property titles in Tulsa. Voters were not swayed, however, and he was defeated in 1922. He retired from politics and returned to Vinita, where he practiced law. During his later years he resided at the Vinita Hotel and was remembered as a "fine old southern gentleman." Chandler died on June 22, 1953, in Vinita and was interred in Fairview Cemetery.

Born on September 21, 1864, on a farm in Cherokee County, Alabama, future U.S. Representative James Sanford Davenport was the tenth of eleven children born to William A. J. and Amanda C. Davenport. In 1880 the Davenports moved to Faulkner County, Arkansas, and farmed near Conway. Educated in the local schools and at Greenbrier Academy, the future solon did not attend college. Nevertheless, he aspired to become an attorney, and while teaching school in rural Faulkner County, he also studied law in the office of G. W. Bruce. In 1890 Davenport was admitted to the Arkansas bar. That same year he moved to Indian Territory and was admitted to practice law. In 1891 he joined a law firm with offices in Muskogee and South McAlester. Two years later he moved to Vinita where he also practiced law. In 1892 Davenport married Guelielma Ross, great-granddaughter of John Ross, the longtime principal chief of theCherokee Nation. The Davenports had three children. Guelielma Davenport died in 1898. In 1907 Davenport married Byrd Ironside, also a member of the Cherokee Nation. As an intermarried citizen of the tribe, he served as a member of the Cherokee National Council from 1897 to 1901 and was speaker of the Cherokee lower house the last two years. From 1901 to 1907 he was an attorney for the tribe and was instrumental in putting freedmen on allotment rolls. Always active in organizing the Democratic Party in Indian Territory, Davenport was among the first Oklahomans elected to the U.S. Congress in 1907. Defeated for reelection to the Third District seat in 1908, he recaptured it in 1911 and served until 1917. Although Davenport contested the 1916 election, Republican challenger Thomas Alberter Chandler won the subsequent court case. While in Congress, Davenport served on committees including Expenditures in the War Department, Territories, Insular Affairs, and Roads. The congressman was a member of the committee that created the first roads and highways committee in the U.S. House. In 1917 Davenport returned to Vinita and resumed his law practice. In 1926 he again entered public service when he was elected a judge of the Criminal Court of Appeals of Oklahoma. Because of his service on the bench, Davenport etched a lasting mark on Oklahoma's judicial history. Reelected to this position twice, he was serving at the time of his death on January 3, 1940, in Oklahoma City. He was interred in Fairview Cemetery in Vinita.

Halsell, Ewing, 1877-1965

A rancher whose operations spanned both Texas and Oklahoma, Ewing Halsell helped to open the Texas South Plains to farm settlement. He was born in 1877, in Jacksboro, Texas, the only son of the pioneer cattleman William Electious Halsell. He purchased Bird Creek Ranch near Vinita, Oklahoma, from his father in 1899 and assumed management of the Spring Lake (Mashed O) Ranch in Lamb and Bailey counties of Texas. On June 25, 1899, he married Lucile Fortner. Halsell contracted for the digging of the first irrigation well in Lamb County and, in the 1920s, along with a small group of other ranchers, initiated the use of milo maize as cattle feed in the arid regions of West and Southwest Texas. He built feedlots on his Oklahoma and Texas ranches in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1923 he formed the Halsell Farms Company to facilitate land sales from the Spring Lake Ranch to settlers, and founded the Texas towns of Amherst and Earth to further promote land sales. He purchased the 100,000-acre Farias Ranch southwest of San Antonio in 1944 and moved his home and business headquarters there. A life member and former vice-president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, he was also a charter member of the Santa Gertrudis Breeder International Association and member of the Blue Stem Cattle Raisers Association. Halsell died on December 17, 1965 at his Farias Ranch.