Attorney Relates Story of Early-Day Robbery

Contributed by Ralph Parrott rrparrott2@juno.com
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Attorney Relates Story of Early-Day Robbery

The Seminole Producer-October 26th, 1980

Editors Note-The following article was written by Frank Seay,
longtime Seminole attorney and chairman of the Seminole
Junior College board of regents.
Seay has lived in Seminole since 1918.

By Frank Seay

The story of the earliest beginnings of the town known as Seminole have
for the most part been forgotten, since practically none of the original
settlers took the time and trouble to record their knowledge and experiences
covering those beginnings. They were satisfied to retain in their memories
those early day experiences and the experiences of others they were told about.
When they answered the call to the "Great Beyond," the stories and events of
early day Seminole passed on with them and for the most part have been forgotten.
The writer came to Seminole with his family in 1918, when most of Seminole's
original settlers, including those who moved from Tidmore, the little 
settlement one mile west of Seminole, where the "rock barn" is located,
to the present site of Seminole, were still living. It was our privilege to be
aquainted with many of those early settlers, to talk with them, to hear them
recite many early day experiences they had participated in and heard about
from others.
One of those early day citizens whom we became aquainted with was "Uncle"
Frank Grall. The term "Uncle" was commonly used in those days as a designation
of respect rather than kinship.
Consequently he was known far and wide as "Uncle Frank." In the 1890's
he had served as a Deputy U.S. Marshall in the Indian Territory out of the
United States District Court of the famous "Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker,
at Fort Smith, Arkansas. Later he served as one of the first police chiefs 
of the territory town of Shawnee, Oklahoma. he also served as sheriff of
Seminole County, Oklahoma, from 1918 to 1920.
One of these early day stories of Seminole he related to me, some two or 
three years before he passed away, as we sat on a patio west of my home 
on Highway 9. He recalled that before the turn of the century there was 
a ditch some 8 to 10 feet in depth which traversed the back of the 
property where I lived, and a rock ledge on the property line between my
property and the property adjoining on the west which now belongs to
Jimmy Knowles. A spring of clear water flowed from under the rock ledge.
The original settlers of Seminole, having no water wells or other source
of fresh water, had hauled water from this spring for all their domestic
uses.
Then, pointing out the large native trees just south of the site of the
spring as being the same trees that existed there when the spring served
as Seminole's water supply, he related the following further interesting 
story of early Seminole.
According to his recollection, the year was 1893, when a Rock Island passenger
train bearing a shipment of gold and silver coins in its baggage coach was
robbed at a point about one mile east of the present site of Seminole by 
three hijackers. The gold and silver was taken from the baggage coach and 
the robbers fled in a northwesterly direction by horseback, later stopping
under the trees just south of spring, apparently with the intention on 
camping overnight. They were discovered at that place by a posse of law 
officers, including "Uncle Frank" Grall. Taking the robbers by surprise, 
a shootout ensued between the robbers and the law officers resulting in 
all of the robbers being killed.
The loot was never found. 
But many years later, old-timers recall that some unknown person dug up
from under a pecan tree on Magnolia Creek at a place between the scene
of the train robbery and the spring which supplied water for the original
settlers of Seminole, what appeared to be the location of a pot that had 
been buried for a long period of time, leading those who saw it to believe
that possibly this was the burial site of the loot taken at the train robbery.