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.
George Tobler - January 30, 1890
On January 30, 1890 George Tobler was executed for the murder of Irvin Richmond.
On the night of April 30, 1889, Tobler attended a dance in the Choctaw Nation. Richmond was also there, with a woman that he and Tobler had previously fought over. At one point during the evening a shot was heard and Richmond, who had been playing the fiddle, fell from his chair mortally wounded.
No witnesses saw the murderer, as he had fired the shot from outside the house, pointing the gun through a crack in the wall, but circumstances pointed to Tobler.
Although he left a written statement declaring his innocence, Tobler told a fellow prisoner that he dreamed of the man he killed the night before his execution.
Tobler had received a stay of execution on January 1 from President Benjamin Harrison, but in the ensuing days his appeal did not pan out and hangman Georeg Maledon sent him to meet his maker on the last day of the month.
Tobler had received a stay of execution from President Benjamin Harrison on January 1, but the appeal was a short-lived one...and so was Tobler. Twenty-nine days after the stay was granted, hangman Geoge Maledon sent the Oklahoma cowboy to meet his maker.
