WPaul Ward Beck was an officer in the United States Army, an aviation pioneer, and one of the first military pilots. Although a career Infantry officer, Beck twice was part of the first aviation services of the U.S. Army, as de facto head of the flying section of the Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps in 1911 and as a senior officer of the Air Service in 1920–1922. He is generally credited as being the first military officer to advocate an air force for the United States separate from the control of other branches of the Army.
WBlack Kettle was a prominent leader of the Southern Cheyenne during the American Indian Wars. Born to the Northern Só'taeo'o / Só'taétaneo'o band of the Northern Cheyenne in the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota, he later married into the Wotápio / Wutapai band of the Southern Cheyenne.
WWilliam "Tulsa Jack" Blake was an American outlaw of the Old West, and member of the Wild Bunch gang. He had been a cowboy in Kansas through the 1880s, before drifting into Oklahoma Territory, where in 1892 he met outlaw Bill Doolin, and joined Doolin's Wild Bunch gang, sometimes called the Oklahombres, or the Doolin-Dalton Gang.
WOn September 16, 2016, Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old black motorist, was shot and killed by police officer Betty Jo Shelby in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was unarmed, standing near his vehicle in the middle of a street.
WMason Frakes Dalton, called Bill Dalton, was an American outlaw in the American Old West. He was the co-leader of the Wild Bunch gang and he was the brother of the founders of the Dalton Gang, Gratton, Bob and Emmett.
WWilliam Doolin was an American bandit outlaw and founder of the Wild Bunch, sometimes known as the Doolin-Dalton Gang. Like the earlier Dalton Gang alone, it specialized in robbing banks, trains, and stagecoaches in Arkansas, Kansas, Indiana, and Oklahoma during the 1890s.
WA.C. Jackson was an African American surgeon who was killed during the Tulsa race massacre in 1921. According to the Greenwood Cultural Center, Jackson was considered as the "most able Negro surgeon in America" by the Mayo brothers, founders of the Mayo Clinic.
WWanda Jean Allen was sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of Gloria Jean Leathers, 29, her longtime girlfriend. Allen was the first black woman to be executed in the United States since 1954. She was the sixth woman to be executed since executions resumed in the United States of America in 1977. Her final appeals and the last three months of her life were chronicled by filmmaker Liz Garbus in the documentary The Execution of Wanda Jean (2002).
WRoger Dale Stafford was a convicted spree killer and serial killer executed for the 1978 murders of the Lorenz Family and six employees of a Sirloin Stockade restaurant in Oklahoma. Stafford never acknowledged his guilt, but Stafford's wife, Verna, implicated him in a total of 34 murders in seven different states.
WThe 2020 American true crime documentary streaming television miniseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness features a large cast of characters, with the majority of its subjects being American citizens and big cat enthusiasts. Netflix and viewers described the cast as eccentric. The series is a documentary on the life of zookeeper and convicted felon Joe Exotic, who operated the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma from 1998 to 2018. Although Exotic is the main focus of the documentary, Tiger King also features two other primary subjects; animal rights activist Carole Baskin and animal trainer Bhagavan "Doc" Antle. The series also features a large number of former employees and associates who worked with either Exotic, Baskin or Antle.
WElmer J. McCurdy was an American bank and train robber who was killed in a shoot-out with police after robbing a Katy Train in Oklahoma in October 1911. Dubbed "The Bandit Who Wouldn't Give Up", his mummified body was first put on display at an Oklahoma funeral home and then became a fixture on the traveling carnival and sideshow circuit during the 1920s through the 1960s. After changing ownership several times, McCurdy's remains eventually wound up at The Pike amusement zone in Long Beach, California where they were discovered by a film crew of The Six Million Dollar Man and positively identified in December 1976.
WEdward Capehart O'Kelley was the man who murdered Robert Ford, who had killed the famous outlaw Jesse James to receive a bounty. He was the subject of a 1994 book by O'Kelley's great-great-niece.
WWanda Jean Allen was sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of Gloria Jean Leathers, 29, her longtime girlfriend. Allen was the first black woman to be executed in the United States since 1954. She was the sixth woman to be executed since executions resumed in the United States of America in 1977. Her final appeals and the last three months of her life were chronicled by filmmaker Liz Garbus in the documentary The Execution of Wanda Jean (2002).
WMajor Ridge, The Ridge was a Cherokee leader, a member of the tribal council, and a lawmaker. As a warrior, he fought in the Cherokee–American wars against American frontiersmen. Later, Major Ridge led the Cherokee in alliances with General Andrew Jackson and the United States in the Creek and Seminole wars of the early 19th century.
WMyra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr, better known as Belle Starr, was an American outlaw who gained national notoriety after her violent death.
WDNA Doe Project is an American non-profit volunteer organization formed to identify unidentified deceased persons using forensic genealogy. Volunteers identify victims of automobile accidents, homicide, and unusual circumstances, and persons who committed suicide under an alias. The group was founded in 2017 by Colleen Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press.
WJerome Richard Tiger (1941–1967) was a highly influential Native American painter from Oklahoma. Tiger produced hundreds of paintings from 1962 until his death in 1967.
WWilliam Matthew Tilghman Jr. was a career lawman, gunfighter, and politician in Kansas and Oklahoma during the late 19th century. Tilghman was a Dodge City city marshal in the early 1880s and played a role in the Kansas County Seat Wars. In 1889 he moved to Oklahoma where he acquired several properties during a series of land rushes. While serving as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in Oklahoma, he gained recognition for capturing the notorious outlaw Bill Doolin and helping to track and kill the other members of Doolin's gang, which made him famous as one of Oklahoma's "Three Guardsmen".
WThe Tulsa race massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US. Alternatively known as the Tulsa race riot or the Black Wall Street massacre, the event is considered one of "the single worst incident[s] of racial violence in American history". The attacks burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood – at the time one of the wealthiest Black communities in the United States, known as "Black Wall Street".
WWeleetka is a town in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, United States. It is approximately 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Okemah, the county seat. The name is a Creek word meaning "running water." The population was 998 at the 2010 census, a decline of 1.6 percent from the figure of 1,014 in 2000.
WRoger Milton Wheeler Sr. was an American businessman, the former chairman of Telex Corp. and former owner of World Jai Alai. He was 55 years old in 1981, when he was murdered in his car.