Ancestry Magazine

My great-great-grandmother Kelley had two brothers who were sharp-shooting sheriff s in the early days of Indian Territory, Oklahoma. According to the stories, Alfred Grall was the first marshal of Shawnee, Oklahoma; he served two terms and then resigned to pursue a line of work that was, shall we say, a conflict of interest—moonshining. When his younger brother, Frank, became chief of police in Shawnee, he wanted to reform his wayward brother and spent a lot of time looking for Alfred’s still.

My cousins and I had always been told that pictures of Uncle Alfred and Uncle Frank hung on a wall at the Shawnee Police Department. So one day, my cousin Kathie and I decided to travel to Shawnee, hoping to find the real story of our great-great uncles.

The Shawnee Police Department was our first stop, and, yes, pictures of Alfred and Frank did hang on the wall. We learned that Alfred Grall served as the first marshal of Shawnee from 1 November 1894 to 10 March 1896. Frank Grall served as chief of police from 4 April 1902 to 10 April 1903. Now we had proof for at least part of the family story.

While searching for an obituary for Frank’s son at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City, I stumbled upon an article in the Wewoka Daily Times Democrat dated Sunday, 11 January 1931. The article was titled “Frank Grall, For 38 Years a Peace Officer, Retires From His Office.”

Our Frank’s life read like an old western movie. When Alfred was appointed marshal of Shawnee, Frank worked as a deputy. There was no jail, so the pair chopped down trees and built Shawnee’s first jailhouse with their own hands. Frank also served as sheriff in Seminole County. He was justice of the peace at Cromwell during the oil boom and ended his career as evidence officer. There were tales of shootouts on Kickapoo Street and riding in posses to hunt down train robbers. According to the article, there were brawls, and bridges were set afi re when the town of Tecumseh was shunned and the railroad chose to build a line through Shawnee instead. “It was a great fight, this fight to conquer the country and the outlaws,” Frank was quoted as saying, “and we won both battles because the people were always behind the law officers and the officers have always played fair with the people.”

Beyond Frank, I still wanted to know more about the rest of my family—and what had happened to Alfred.

Was he found? Convicted? Living on the lam? I searched the Internet for “court cases GRALL Oklahoma,” and discovered what I was looking for: Grall vs. State, Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. Alfred had been caught, although Frank hadn’t made the arrest. In this 1924 case, Alfred was appealing a 1922 conviction of bootlegging, saying he was at the still site to drink the whiskey, not to make it. The sheriff ’s argument? If Alfred wasn’t guilty, why was he throwing jugs of whiskey down a sinkhole when he realized the sheriff was there? The judgment was upheld and Alfred was fined $500 and 60 days in jail.