Noteworthy Nixes: Outlaws and Infamy

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Evitt Dumas Nix, US Marshall

E.D. Nix took the oath of office as US Marshall for the Oklahoma Territory July 1st 1893 and served until 1896. In his later years, he wrote a book entitled "Oklahombres: Particularly the Wilder Ones" that recounted his dealings with various villains and outlaw gangs during his time as Marshall.

June 6, 1893; Article from th eGuthrie Daily News (Guthrie, OK)
United States Marshal, E. D. Nix, who won the crown and wears it, arrived in Guthrie Sunday afternoon and was enthusiastically received by a legion of friends. This young exemplar of the young democracy of Oklahoma bears his well-won honors with a modest dignity that well befits him. When The News corralled him he was as smiling as a father gazing on his first paternal triumph, and assured The News that he was all there, with the sheepskin in his pocket. A considerable conversation ensued, in which the marshal briefly outlined a few of his future purposes. The time has gone by, he says, for swashbucklers, for men who fence themselves round with revolvers and cartridges. A revolver, with the men he will appoint, will be for business, and not for show. Hereafter men who are arrested will not be carried five hundred miles around the country to make fees for speculative deputies. Men will not be arrested and dragged from their homes to Fort Smith for the sole purpose of putting dollars in the pockets of officials who arrest them. Men shall be treated as innocent men, when arrested, until the law and the evidence shall prove them guilty. He will see to it that the territory will not be burdened with taxation by arresting men on trumped up charges and carried, until turned loose by the authorities, as persons who never should have been arrested. He will give personal supervision to the office and keep it as clean as he would the business of a private concern. He uttered these sentiments in a utopian sense. He is convinced, as a businessman, that the office can be conducted on business principles and that it is as necessary to have honest men around him, as it is in the great business with which he has been connected. Marshal Nix will make no appointments until he take possession of the office, which will not be until the 1st day of July. In the mean time he will retain the present deputies until he has carefully looked over the field, and be enabled to make a satisfactory selection for the various places to be filled. Speaking of his campaign in Washington he said that it was a clean one on part of every man concerned who sought the office. There were twenty-three candidates, nineteen from Oklahoma Territory and four from the outside. He speaks in terms of high eulogy of them all. He regards them as a fine set of men, and only wishes that was not a marshalship for every one; for each and every one, he says, is deserving of a place. In E. D. Nix the people of Oklahoma Territory will find they have a very capable marshal and one who is splendidly equipped for the high office that he holds.

E.D. Nix is also mentioned in:
The Gunfighters; by Time Life Books; 1974 Text Edition; p. 158
Index of U. S. Marshals 1789-1960; transcribed by Virgil D. White, 1988; Transcribed from National Archives Record Groups 60 & 287
Heck Thomas: Frontier Marshal; by Glenn Shirley; 1962; pgs. 188-197, 210-211, 216-218, 224-225, 230, 232, 234-235, 240