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 stone, 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 tales of the men that met their final justice under the auspices of Parker's court.
John Pointer - September 24, 1894
John Pointer, age 21, was executed on the Fort Smith gallows on September 20, 1894.
In December of 1891, Pointer, a native of Arkansas, was traveling from Texas to Eureka Springs in the company of William Bolding and Ed Vandever.
On Christmas night, the group camped in the Choctaw Nation. The next morning the bodies of Bolding and Vandever were found in a creek, each killed by blows from an axe.
Deputy marshals arrested Pointer as he tried to dispose of the wagon and team in McAlester, Choctaw Nation.
Found guilty by a Fort Smith jury, Pointer appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The original verdict was upheld.
