Marlow, Oklahoma
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Marlow is a city in Stephens County,
Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...
, United States. The population was 4,385 at the time of the 2020 Census. Marlow is located 10 miles north of
Duncan, Oklahoma Duncan is a city in and the county seat of Stephens County, Oklahoma, United States. Its population was 22,310 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Centrally located in Stephens County, Duncan became the county seat after Oklahoma achie ...
, and 30 miles east of
Lawton, Oklahoma Lawton is a city in and the county seat of Comanche County, Oklahoma, Comanche County, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Located in western Oklahoma, approximately southwest of Oklahoma City, it is the principal city of the Lawton metropolitan ar ...
.


History

The site that would become Marlow was first settled by Dr. Williamson Marlow, the father of the five Marlow brothers, when he and his wife, Martha Jane, moved from Missouri to the Wildhorse Creek area in Oklahoma in 1880. William Rathmell's 1892 book ''Life of the Marlows'' detailed the history of the brothers' escapades and set a narrative for the city's legacy.


Marlow brothers

Born along the Chisholm Trail and on the banks of Wildhorse Creek, the legend of the Marlow family and the five Marlow brothers has been proven to be more fact than fiction. Dr. Williamson Marlow and his wife, Martha Jane, a relative of
Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (, 1734September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyo ...
, first established a homestead in this area during the early 1880s. The site of the original Marlow family home is reported to have been located just north of Redbud Park. Somewhat of a nomad by nature, Dr. Marlow provided medical treatment to the many settlers in this portion of Indian Territory and to many cowboys driving cattle up the Chisholm Trail. He also farmed while his sons reportedly herded horses, selling many of the animals to the U.S. Army located at neighboring
Fort Sill Fort Sill is a United States Army post north of Lawton, Oklahoma, about 85 miles (137 km) southwest of Oklahoma City. It covers almost . The fort was first built during the Indian Wars. It is designated as a National Historic Landmark a ...
. Dr. Marlow died in 1885. In 1888 his five sons were accused of horse-stealing, a charge which was later proven to be unfounded. Four of the brothers (Charlie, Alfred, Boone and Lewellyn) were arrested and transported by a U.S. Deputy Marshall to the Federal Court in Graham, Texas, for trial. Hearing of this brother's arrest, George Marlow took the entire family to Graham to clear his brothers but soon found himself behind bars. Boone Marlow ultimately escaped and returned to the Marlow area in Indian Territory, while his four brothers were scheduled to be transported to an ostensibly safer jail in Weatherford, Texas. Several attempts were made by Graham citizens and law enforcement officials to lynch the Marlows. On the night of January 19, 1889, the brothers were shackled in pairs—George to Lewellyn and Charlie to Alfred—for the trip to Weatherford. When the group reached Dry Creek outside of Graham, a signal was given and a hidden mob opened fire on the seemingly defenseless Marlows. The guards ran to join the mob while the brothers leaped from the wagon and armed themselves with guns taken from guards. In the vicious gunfight that followed, Lewellyn and Alfred were killed. Both George and Charlie were seriously wounded. Retrieving a dead mob member's knife, George Marlow unjointed his dead brother's ankles. He and Charlie used a wagon to escape the ambush site. Three members of the mob were also killed and a number of others wounded. Several members of the mob were later prosecuted and convicted for the assault upon the brothers. Boone was later poisoned near Hell Creek, west of Marlow. His corpse was then shot in an attempt to obtain a $1,500 reward, but his killers, too, were brought to trial. Alfred, Boone and Lewellyn are buried in a small cemetery at what was once Finis, Texas, outside of Graham. George and Charlie Marlow survived the attack, eventually moving their families to
Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
where they became outstanding citizens, serving as law enforcement officers. In 1891, after sentencing mob members for their part in the attack, Federal Judge A. P. McCormick was quoted as saying: "This is the first time in the annals of history where unarmed prisoners, shackled together, ever repelled a mob. Such cool courage that preferred to fight against such great odds and die, if at all, in glorious battle rather than die ignominiously by a frenzied mob, deserves to be commemorated in song and story." '' The Sons of Katie Elder'', an American western film, uses concepts from ''Life of the Marlows'', a book about the Marlow brothers.


Jim Crow era

From the end of the
Reconstruction era The Reconstruction era was a period in History of the United States, US history that followed the American Civil War (1861-65) and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the Abolitionism in the United States, abol ...
until the mid 20th century, municipalities in different parts of the country enacted
Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were U.S. state, state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, "Jim Crow (character), Ji ...
, which heavily restricted the rights of
Black people Black is a racial classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and often additional phenotypical ...
. In Marlow, prominent signs were erected publicly that stated, "
Negro In the English language, the term ''negro'' (or sometimes ''negress'' for a female) is a term historically used to refer to people of Black people, Black African heritage. The term ''negro'' means the color black in Spanish and Portuguese (from ...
, don't let the sun go down on you here."


Murders of Berch and Johnigan

On December 17, 1923, Albert W. Berch, a
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
hotel owner, and his
Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
porter, Robert Johnigan, were confronted and later murdered by an angry mob of Marlow residents at the Johnson Hotel. Berch had hired Johnigan as a porter 10 days before Johnigan decided to quit, citing racial tensions and a planned move to Duncan, but upon the request of J. L. Campbell, a guest from Norman, he decided to give one last shoe-shine. A mob of at least 15 men approached the hotel after sundown, around 8:30 PM, "who went to the hotel where the negro had been employed three days ago as a porter and shot down when Birch attempted to persuade them to desist from their threat to lynch the negro." The mob entered the hotel via the lobby and continued into an adjoining room to find Johnigan shining Campbell's shoes, asking Johnigan to leave. Campbell testified that one boy in the mob went into the room and grabbed Johnigan, but as Johnigan resisted, Campbell heard a gunshot, which prompted him to leave his chair just as Berch was falling. Campbell testified that he was heading to the hotel's dining room and heard four shots in total but saw no weapon in Berch's hand or any person who fired a gun. Berch had overheard the conflict between Johnigan and the mob, and he ordered the crowd to leave the hotel, stepping between Johnigan and mob member Marvin Kincannon, a man in his 20s alleged by Mrs. Berch as the leader of the mob. Conflict escalated when Elza "Roy" Gandy apprehended Johnigan and began beating him with a stick. According to hotel patron and eyewitness Walter O'Quinn, Berch struck Gandy, who landed back against a table. When Berch ran to Johnigan's defense, Kincannon fired a fatal bullet into the chest of Berch, who died within minutes, before twice shooting Johnigan, who died from his injuries at around 5:30 AM the following day. Other witnesses testified that it was Johnigan who knocked Gandy across a table and that Kincannon fired when the two were separated. As Berch fell, Johnigan started toward the phone booth, but Kincannon shot him inside the phone booth. Kincannon grabbed Johnigan out of the phone booth and shot him again in the chest. Four shots in total were fired according to O'Quinn. Dr. Richards, a witness to the scene, testified that he saw Berch on the lobby floor succumbing to his wounds: "Birch was dying, he only breathed a few more times after I got there and I saw I ocould do nothing for him and tried to do something for the nigger." Richards claimed Johnigan lie wounded in front of the shine stand about 10 feet from Berch. He claimed that "one of the bullets struck the negro just above the right breast nipple and lodged in the intestines, probably striking a rib and being deflected downward into the stomach.... The second bullet struck in the left groin and came out near the lower part of the hip, apparently being nothing more than a severe flesh wound." According to a contemporary report by '' The Duncan Banner'', "there had been trouble previous to the killing and that the negro had been warned by the defendants to leave the city." Kincannon, allegedly the only member of the mob to brandish firearms, left the scene in an automobile with his companions after the shooting and could not be located by police. After multiple related arrests, Kincannon surrendered himself to authorities in Duncan around 3:00 AM on December 22, 1923; he and the other suspects were arraigned that afternoon. A preliminary hearing on January 2, 1924, before County Judge Eugene Rice included Marvin Kincannon, Elza Gandy, Bryon Wright, Fred Stotts, Ollie Lloyd, Homer Thompson, Ellis Spence, and Frank Cain as defendants. Kincannon was the only individual formally charged with Albert Berch's killing. On April 18, 1924, Kincannon appeared at district court for the murder charge of Berch, for which the state initially sought the
death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...
according to County Attorney Paul Sullivan. ''The Duncan Banner'' observed that the defendant decided not to refute that the shooter was Kincannon but instead plea self-defense. Kincannon was convicted of first-degree
manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...
for Berch's death and sentenced to 25 years in state prison, of which he served 11. Gandy, whose father was a Marlow police officer, was also convicted of manslaughter for his role in inciting the mob, attacking Johnigan, and furnishing the firearm that was used in the killings. Gandy's sentence was declared as life imprisonment on May 15, 1926, but he received a 7-year sentence. An appellate court stated that "Gandy was one of the chief instigators of the mob which was formed to run the negro out of town." Gandy denied that he instigated the mob or furnished Kincannon the gun. Gandy received parole at least twice; once for seven days for his grandmother's death, reported on January 26, 1928, and again for five days to visit his sick sister in Hobart, Oklahoma, on August 13, 1929. The story was featured in '' The Casper Daily Tribune'', '' The Albany-Decatur Daily'', the ''
Shreveport Journal The ''Shreveport Journal'' was an American newspaper originally published by H. P. Benton in Shreveport and Bossier City in northwestern Louisiana. In operation from at least 1897, it ceased publication in 1991. History The name ''The Journal ...
'', '' The Vancouver Daily Province'', and the '' Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch'', among others. Elza Gandy died on December 9, 1949, in Caldwell, Kansas. Marvin Kincannon died at age 71 in July 1972. In 2019, Berch's maternal grandson, Albert Berch Hollingsworth, published a non-fiction book about the incident titled ''Killing Albert Berch'', which he spent five years researching.


Geography

Marlow is located in northern Stephens County about 29 miles east of Lawton at the intersection of U.S. Route 81 and Oklahoma State Highway 29.
Duncan, Oklahoma Duncan is a city in and the county seat of Stephens County, Oklahoma, United States. Its population was 22,310 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Centrally located in Stephens County, Duncan became the county seat after Oklahoma achie ...
, the
county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
of Stephens County, is ten miles south of Marlow. According to the
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the city has a total area of , of which is land and 0.14% is water.


Demographics

As of the 2010
census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
, there were 4,662 people, 1,862 households, and 1,257 families residing in the city.2010 Demographic Profile for Marlow
U.S. Census website
(accessed November 6, 2013)
The population density was . There were 2,119 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 87.2%
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 0.2%
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 5.2% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 1.6% from other races, and 5.6% from two or more races.
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
s or Latinos were 4.4% of the population, having doubled since 2000. There were 1,862 households, out of which half (50.1%) were
married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...
, a third (34.3%) included children under the age of 18, 12.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.5% were non-families. of households were made up of individuals; 14.5% of households had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 3. In the city, the population was spread out, with 25.8% under the age of 18, 7.5% from 18 to 24, 23.7% from 25 to 44, 24.4% from 45 to 64, and 18.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38.8 years. For every 100 females, there were 88 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 82 males. The median income for a household in the city was $43,221, and the median income for a family was $57,713.2007-2011 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
U.S. Census website
(accessed November 6, 2013)
Males had a median income of $34,325 versus $29,21 for females. The
per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the city was $20,299. An estimated 10.7% of families and 15.2% of the population were below the
poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 16.3% of those under age 18 and 12.7% of those age 65 or over.


Entertainment

Entertainment in Marlow includes: * Redbud Park located in the eastern part of the town that includes; the Hideout (a large playground), a trail through the park, a stage for concerts, and the Outlaw cave (the cave where the Marlows often hid out) * The Life Center, a church funded recreational center that includes a basketball court, a walking track, and several rooms that can be rented * Miller Park in the western part of the town that includes the public pool, Miller Pond, and the Mile trail * Main Street shops & Restaurants


Education

Marlow is serviced by the Marlow Public School District. Marlow High School is located near the center of town, and Marlow Elementary School and Marlow Middle school are also located in town.


Notable people

* Terry Brown, former NFL defensive back for
Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. The Vikings compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. Founded in 1960 as ...
* Ross Coyle, gridiron football player * Joe Dial, former world record-holder in pole vault, 2011 inductee into Pole Vault Hall of Fame * Cady Groves (1989–2020), singer-songwriter * Sam Hinkie, general manager of NBA's Philadelphia 76ers * Barry Hinson, basketball head coach,
Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois. Board of trustees The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of T ...
* Sonny Liles, football player * James C. Nance, Oklahoma community newspaper chain publisher and former
Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives The Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives is the speaker (politics), presiding officer of the lower house of the Oklahoma Legislature, the Oklahoma House of Representatives. The speaker exercises administrative and procedural function ...
* Keith Patterson, head football coach at NCAA Division I program, Abilene Christian University * Eula Pearl Carter Scott (1915–2005), became youngest female aviator in Oklahoma in 1929. * Cecil Smith (1917–2009), longtime critic and columnist for the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' * Paul Sparks, actor


See also

* List of sundown towns in the United States


Notes


References


Further reading

* * *


External links

* {{authority control Cities in Oklahoma Cities in Stephens County, Oklahoma Sundown towns in Oklahoma