The town was 16 blocks, with 100-foot-wide streets and 20-foot-wide alleys. Four east-west streets were numbered : First, Second, Third and Fourth. Four north-south streets, beginning from the west, were Main, Walnut, Ash and Oak. The frontier settlement had a handful of doctors, two blacksmith shops, a barbershop, a dry goods store, a hardware store, a boot shop, a gristmill, general stores, livery stables and the Ransom and Murray Saloon. The sole two-story structure was the O.K. Hotel.
The presence of a gaming parlor, brothel and well-stocked saloon, along with Ingalls’ close proximity to the wild and rugged Creek Nation, soon attracted the Doolin-Dalton Gang.
September 1, 1893, two wagons full of deputy sheriffs descended on Ingalls. Federal officer Red Lucas, reported that Doolin, Bill Dalton, Bitter Creek Newcomb, Tulsa Jack Blake, Red Buck Waightman and Dynamite Dick Clifton were bellied up to the bar in the Ransom Saloon. He could not locate Arkansas Tom Jones. 13 lawmen entered town and moved to cut off all directions of escape. When Newcomb stepped outside for some air, Deputy Sheriff Dick Speed shot at him, and the battle began. Jones was in a room on the top floor of the O.K. Hotel—a perfect vantage point—and fired fatal Winchester rounds into Speed, Tom Hueston and Lafe Shadley. Stray bullets killed two of Ingalls’ citizens and wounded two more. Among the outlaws, Newcomb was shot through the leg and Clifton caught a bullet in the neck, but all who had been in the saloon managed to escape, abandoning Jones to capture. One of the bad men's horse laid dead, tied to the livery post. Some residents, mad about the deputy sheriffs’ brazen ambush, even helped the outlaws to escape.
After the Battle of Ingalls, the town was better known. Still, well into the 20th century, many area residents continued to take pride in Ingalls’ outlaw-lawman history. In 1938, when the state erected a monument to the deceased lawmen, one old-timer was noted as saying, “They built it for the wrong side.”
Ralph Peck
Photo of the OK Hotel By Ralph Peck
Ingalls, Oklahoma
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