Wichita Agency Jail

Now lying on the KCA Reservation, the former Wichita Agency Jail is overgrown, neglected and close to becoming rubble.

The first Indian agency of this area was known as the Wichita Agency, located on Leeper Creek just north of the Washita River near Fort Cobb. It was destroyed by Ben Simmons and some of his Indian accomplices. In 1871 the agency was moved to where the Riverside Indian School sits still North of the Washita River.

Around this time the Kiowa, Apache and Comache Tribes were being administered at Fort Sill. In 1878 the Fort Sill Agency was consolidated with the Wichita Agency and moved south of the Washita River, where this building and the present Anadarko Agency still remain.

A red stone jail had been built here back in 1894 to house prisoners captured on the reservation by Indian police and US Marshals. Prisoners would be kept here until they could be taken to El Reno for trial.

After 1915 the jail was used for a handful of other purposes but ultimately stopped being used and fell into disrepair which is how it remained for almost five decades. That was until the 1950s when the Anadarko Philomathic Club worked with the Indian Service and the City of Anadarko to fully restore the jail to its almost original appearance.

A news story from The Daily News and Star, June 14, 1913 –

It continues on with….”

Removed to Old Jail

The sheriff’s force here had been notified that the mob was forming and when assurances had been received that it had actually started for this city, the African American was removed to the old federal jail in “old town” (the agency jail). Little difficulty was experienced by the mob leaders, however, in locating him, the guards who had been placed over him there made only a perfunctory resistance when the mob reached the jail and demanded the prisoner.

——

Jail is Stone

The agency jail, where the brute was found is one mile from Anadarko, it is built of stone, four feet thick and has no windows.  When the crowd reached the jail a rail jammed through the door, brought shouts from the man who was within. The infuriated mob thus enthused over the thought of soon reaching their prey lent added excitement to the occasion. By the aid of an axe, the floor was broken open and the man was taken. Jailor John Ashton was helpless. The man was his only prisoner, having been brought from Anadarko by the Sheriff’s assistants when the mob fear arose Wednesday.

The sheriff’s assistants who left the man in the agency jail said they returned to Anadarko to further their plans of hiding the assaulter. They believed the agency prison being government property, to be not a likely place for the mob to search, they say.

Gallery Below of Agency Jail

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