Oklahoma has a long and colorful history of crime. It was created as a territory for

the five Native American tribes who suffered through the trail of tears in the 1830s.

The Creek Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole tribes marched at gunpoint from their

homes in the southeastern United States to a new territory north of Texas. The land

featured rocky rolling hills in some places and flat desolate prairie and others.

Alcohol was outlawed in the territory, which meant illegal whiskey operations immediately

sprang alive. Bootlegers made good livings by taking illegal alcohol into the territory

in the Old West era and they continued to do so well into the 20th century, especially

in the 1920s during pro-ovisional. Indian territory, as it was originally called, was the perfect

hideout for outlaws of the Old West, like the infamous Dalton gang. There were bank robberies,

stagecoach robberies, train robberies and shootouts on a regular basis.

To try to stop these activities, a new breed of lawmen emerged. He was park tracker,

investigator and park gunfighter. The men who became legends for their work in the territory

were usually US marshals, like bass reaves or bill tillman. Many began their careers as

sheriffs or rangers down in Texas before moving north to bring law and order to the area

that was known as Oklahoma territory by 1890. By the early 1920s, as the Osage started

to wonder who would be the next victim, the Al Spencer gang prowled the hills of Oklahoma.

And robbed and killed, seemingly at will. At the same time, a young man named Charles Floyd

was striking out on his own from his family's farm in eastern Oklahoma. Shortly after he began

his career as a bank robber, he was gifted the nickname Pretty Boy Floyd. He became the second

public enemy number one after John Dillinger, and he was a Robin Hood figure to many in

Oklahoma. But no one in Osage County was concerned about the upstart bank robber,

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