Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Sixkiller

Sam Sixkiller

Deputy Marshal Sam Sixkiller was shot and killed when he was ambushed while off-duty and unarmed.

Deputy Marshal Sixkiller was under the weather and was picking up medicine in Muskogee when two criminals ambushed him. He was stepping up on the platform on the north side of the Patterson Mercantile Store when the two fired on him with a shotgun and pistol, without notice; supposedly, they held a grudge for a previous run-in they had with the lawman. Deputy Marshal Sixkiller fell to the ground mortally wounded, and the criminals made good their escape on fast ponies.

One of the suspects was later shot and killed.

On February 12, 1880, Deputy Marshal Sixkiller became the first captain of the United States Indian Police headquartered at Muskogee, Indian Territory. As Captain, Sixkiller had forty men under his command. Besides this position, Deputy Marshal Sixkiller also held a commission as a deputy U.S. marshal and a special agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Deputy Marshal Sixkiller's duties included policing the streets of Muskogee, one of the most dangerous towns in the "Wild West." There were more lawmen killed in a fifty-mile radius of Muskogee than anywhere west of the Mississippi River during the frontier era.

Deputy Marshal Sixkiller had previously served with both the Union and Confederate Armies during the Civil War. He was survived by his parents and sister.