Further Reading on Judge Isaac C. Parker of Fort Smith

About this list

Much has been written about Judge Isaac C. Parker since his death in 1896. The Park Service's Fort Smith National Historic Site offers this list of sources, fiction and nonfiction, grouped by kind. Some newer works may not be on it yet.

Biographies and histories

Fully documented works by professional historians and other scholars:

• Jeffrey Burton, Indian Territory and the United States, 1866–1906: Courts, Government, and the Movement for Oklahoma Statehood (University of Oklahoma Press, 1995).
• S. W. Harman, Hell on the Border: He Hanged Eighty-Eight Men (Phoenix, 1898; reprinted by University of Nebraska Press, 1992).
• Sidney L. Harring, Crow Dog's Case: American Indian Sovereignty, Tribal Law and United States Law in the 19th Century (Cambridge University Press, 1984).
• Fred Harvey Harrington, Hanging Judge (Caxton, 1952; reprinted by University of Oklahoma Press, 1996).
• Frances Mitchell Ross, United States District Courts and Judges of Arkansas, 1836–1960 (University of Arkansas Press, 2016).
• Roger Tuller, "Let No Guilty Man Escape": A Judicial Biography of Isaac C. Parker (University of Oklahoma Press, 2001).

General works

Written for a general audience — and, the Park Service cautions, some of those from the 1950s contain errors and misinformation:

• Homer Croy, He Hanged Them High (1952).
• J. Gladstone Emery, Court of the Damned (Comet Press, 1959).
• Julie Galonska and Eric Leonard, In His Own Words: Quotations of Judge Isaac C. Parker (Eastern National, 2001).
• Guy Nichols, Leo Allison and Thomas Crowson, Judge Isaac C. Parker: Myths and Legends Aside (National Park Service, undated).
• Glenn Shirley, Law West of Fort Smith: A History of Frontier Justice in the Indian Territory, 1834–1896 (University of Nebraska Press, 1957).

Articles

From historical journals to Old West magazines:

• Harry P. Daily, "Judge Isaac C. Parker," Chronicles of Oklahoma (March 1933).
• Robert T. Dawson, "Judge Parker and the Allen Rule," The Journal of the Fort Smith Historical Society (April 1997).
• G. Byron Dobbs, "A Lawyer's Appraisal of the Parker Court," The Parapet (February 1969), and "Murder in the Supreme Court: Appeals from the Hanging Judge," Arkansas Law Review.
• Sarah Fitzjarrald, "Judge Isaac C. Parker 'On Trial'" (April 1988) and "Judge Parker Must Have Led a Charmed Life" (September 1993), The Journal of the Fort Smith Historical Society.
• Fred Harvey Harrington, "Hanging Judge Parker: The Man and Not the Myth," Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Spring 1946).
• Bradley W. Kidder, "Goodbye, Tall Old Oak," The White River Valley Historical Quarterly (Summer 1998).
• John E. Miller, "Isaac Charles Parker," Arkansas Historical Quarterly (1972).
• Isaac Charles Parker himself, "How to Arrest the Increase of Homicides in America," North American Review (June 1896).
• William H. Rehnquist, "Isaac Parker, Bill Sikes and the Rule of Law," University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Journal (1983).
• William F. Semple, "Isaac C. Parker, Judge of the United States Court," The Journal of the Oklahoma Bar Association (August 25, 1951).
• Mary M. Stolberg, "The Evolution of Frontier Justice: The Case of Judge Isaac C. Parker," Prologue (Spring 1988), and "Politician, Populist, Reformer: A Reexamination of 'Hanging Judge' Isaac C. Parker," Arkansas Historical Quarterly.
• Roger Tuller, "Bigamy in the Indian Territory, 1878–1890," West Texas Historical Association Yearbook (1992).

Theses and dissertations

An often overlooked source:

• Roger Henderson Hadley, "Isaac C. Parker: The Speeches and the Image" (University of Oklahoma, 1971).
• Bradley W. Kidder, "Who Took the Trees? A Review of Timber Trespass Litigation in the Federal Court for the Western District of Arkansas Under the Administration of Judge Isaac C. Parker, 1875–1896" (University of Arkansas, 1996).
• James O. Murphy, "The Work of Judge Parker in the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas — 1875–1896" (University of Oklahoma, 1939).
• Mary M. Stolberg, "Politician, Populist, Reformer: A Reexamination of Hanging Judge Isaac Parker" (University of Virginia, 1986).
• Roger Tuller, "'The Hanging Judge' and the Indians: Isaac C. Parker and U.S. Indian Policy, 1871–1896" (Texas Christian University, 1993), and his dissertation, "'Let No Guilty Man Escape': A Judicial Biography of Isaac C. Parker" (1996).

Sources

Based on "Further Reading on Judge Parker," Fort Smith National Historic Site, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.