Okemah, Okfuskee, OK – Okemah Bombing - 1908

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Submitted by:    Donna Barnes
Email address:   okfuskee@losdos.org
Date submitted:  05/31/1999
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Source:  Okemah Daily Leader, Friday, April 21, 1961 reprint from Thursday, 
April 23, 1908


Terrific Blast Rocks Town From Slumber Saturday

     Saturday night, between 11:30 and 12 o'clock, the inhabitants of Okemah in 
the vicinity of the Dexter House, were startled from their peaceful slumbers by 
a terrific explosion, which fairly shook the buildings and rattled the window 
panes ominously, causing the more nervous portion of the community to think that 
the crack of doom had indeed sounded, and that in surrendering themselves to the 
seductive charms of the drowsy goddess they had missed the first number on the 
program, Gabriel's little overture.    There were others however, who seemed to 
know intuitively from what point the noise had proceeded, and they also soon 
jumped to an approximately correct conclusion as to the particular character of 
the discordant sound, and with a horrible picture in their minds of wrecked 
buildings, mangled remains and heartrending groans, they hastened to the rescue.

     The objective point of the rescue party was the negro boarding house on 
West Broadway kept by Eddie King, and it did not take long for those who had 
arrived to ascertain that their surmises were correct, as to the nature of the 
disturbance, but the result was a considerable modification of the mental 
picture they had entertained.  An attempt had been made to house, but the only 
marks the building bore of the explosion were broked window panes and a board 
which had been jarred loose.  There were about a dozen inmates of the building 
who, instead of being scattered promisciously around in fragmentary sections, 
they appeared very much intact, each one, in fact, being fast locked in the arms 
of Morpheus, and perfectly oblivious of the danger through which they had 
passed, and the ears of the onlookers, instead of being pierced with the piteous 
groans they had anticipated, were greeted with a chorus of resonant snores, more 
or less musical, as modified by the nasal formation of the sleeper; but in one 
respect there was perfect unitomiity-they were all sound asleep.  When the 
inmates of the building were finally awakened and told of the attempt that had 
been made to blow them up with dynamite some of them were greatly agitated, 
while others gave ""lease go away" and let me sleep feeling.

     There was no clue to the perpetrators of the deed.

     At 6 o'clock Sunday evening an inmate of the boarding house, Tom Morgan, 
died suddenly of heart disease, to which he was subject.  It is believed by some 
that the agitation caused by the attempt to wreck the building caused his death 
at that time.

     Morgan belonged at Weleetka, having been arrested on a whisky charge and 
brought to this place for trial.  He had been tried and acquitted.