Few men in the annals of the American Old West represent the phrase “frontier justice” as well as Judge Isaac C. Parker, the infamous “Hanging Judge” of Fort Smith, who ruled over the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas with an iron hand from 1874-1895.
During his 21-year tenure on the bench, Parker presided over 160 cases that resulted in the sentence of death and 79 of those men met their final fate at the end of a hemp rope attached to the wooden and mortar gallows that defined and justified the nickname “Hell on the Border” on the Arkansas-Indian Territory border.
In later life, Parker was quoted as saying, “I never hanged a man, the law did,” and it was the keen sense of adherence to the law that allowed the court to operate and clean up what had become a lawless civilization in the years after the Civil War.
These are the stories of men who met justice under the gavel of Issac C. Parker.
Richard Smith - January 25, 1889
On January 25, 1889 Richard Smith was executed for the murder of Thomas Pringle.
Although a dying Pringle named Smith as his assassin, the key to conviction was a unique footprint at the crime scene. This showed that the murderer wore a pair of boots with soles full of roundheaded tacks, twenty-one in the right foot and fourteen in the left.
When arrested, Smith was wearing boots matching the footprints but the heels and tacks had been removed. A witness led officers to the location where Smith had thrown the heels and while the tacks were never found, the holes from them were visible in the shoe soles.
Despite confessing to the deputy who arrested him, Smith declared his innocence on the gallows.
