Tornado comes, leaves two dead

This Week in County History

— Sequoyah County Times, April 2, 1948

From the files of Your Sequoyah County Times

25 Years Ago

(From the April 2, 1998, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —A land transfer signing ceremony is planned by the Cherokee Nation at 10:30 a.m. April 18 at Sallisaw Landing, south of Interstate 40 at the end of Dwight Mission Road.

The transfer involved about 700 acres with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is giving to the Cherokee Nation, through several other federal agencies.

The corps and the tribe began negotiation for the land about a year ago, and the process to the April 18 land transfer has been a rocky road.

U.S. Rep. Tom Coburn (R-Muskogee) came out against the land transfer in June. He contends the U.S. Corps of Engineers land to be transferred to the Cherokee Nation belongs to the taxpayers, and should have been offered for sale first to prospective buyers before being given to the Cherokees.

50 Years Ago

(From the March 29, 1973, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —A number of state leaders, including Gov. David Hall, will be in Sallisaw Thursday as luncheon guests of the Holley Carburetor Division of Colt Industries, which is opening a plant in the Sallisaw Industrial Park.

A number of local residents who aided Holley in locating the plant here are also scheduled to attend the meeting.

While the plant was unofficially announced some weeks ago the Thursday meeting will bring the formal announcement and details about its operation. Holley will manufacture an emission control device for automobiles at the Sallisaw plant.

75 Years Ago

(From the April 2, 1948, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —Those two devils of despair, Death and Destruction rode into Sequoyah County a week ago on the back of a tornado and left in their wake a gruesome, tangled wreckage of what had once been a peaceful, serene community.

The invisible invaders caught about 50 families in their vise-like grip before their victims mostly in the McClanahan and Brushy Mountain areas knew what hit them.

Although only two persons, 72 -year-old Commodore Rogers and his daughter, Ola, were killed as the twister roared northeasterly through Sequoyah County shortly after 11 p.m. Thursday night, March 25, many others were injured, some seriously and a great number were made homeless by the terrible torturous tornado.

Now, a week later, still in hospital beds are Earl Rogers, his wife, Geneva and their two sons, Marshall and Garland, Will Rogers, son of the late Commodore Rogers, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Long and Mrs. Diantha Jones.

Fortunately these persons have improved and fears first felt for their lives have disappeared.

But the horror of that awful night, the sight of the ruthless rose-red funnel cloud of destruction, as it approached them, and the satanic rumbling the tornado made like the giant-size freight train as it swept over them will linger forever in the minds of those caught in its merciless grasp.

—Sequoyah County U.S. Marine Corps veterans entitled to receive the World War II Victory medal and the American Defense medal can do so any Friday afternoon in the local post office.

According to T/Sgt. J.D. Yates Jr., of Muskogee, who is the Marine Corps recruiting officer for this district, he will be in Sallisaw every Friday.

100 years ago

(From the March 30, 1923, issue of the Sequoyah County Democrat) —Joe Brandon, a local barber who was apprehended in Portland, Oregon after a three week’s chase was bound over to the district court following his preliminary hearing before judge McLaughlin in forgery charge. Brandon fought the case in the justice court and tried in every way to have the case thrown out, but Judge McLaughlin after taking the case in hand and viewing the situation bound Brandon over for a jury trial in the district court. His case will probably come up during the May term of court. He was released under a $1000.00 bond.

—Ed Lockhart, alias Dave Lockhart, who was captured in Sallisaw several weeks ago by Night Patrolman Perry Chuculate, while he and two companions were attempting to steal a car, will be taken to Harrison, Arkansas to stand trial on jail breaking and participating in the daylight raid on a bank, just as soon as Governor J.C. Walton honors papers for removal.

Lockhart who recently was bound over to the action of the district court on charge of raiding the Farmers State Bank in Gore three years ago, is wanted in Arkansas, as a companion of Henry Starr, who was killed in a raid on the Peoples Bank at Harrison in 1921.

The Arkansas authorities state that Lockhart was with Starr at the time the raid was pulled that resulted in the death of the noted Indian bandit.

Lockhart is charged in this county with raiding the Farmers State Bank at Gore, horse stealing and attempting to steal an automobile, the Arkansas authorities were in Sallisaw last week conferring with County Attorney Harry D. Pitchford, and the county attorney is willing to let the bandit be returned to Arkansas for trial.