Heck Thomas And The Three Guardsmen
Public DomainThe Wild West lawman Henry Andrew “Heck” Thomas.
Henry Andrew “Heck” Thomas was born on Jan. 6, 1850, in Oxford, Georgia, the youngest of 12 children born to Lovick Pierce and Martha Ann Fullwood Bedell Thomas. Starting his life shortly before the start of the Civil War, Thomas was exposed to violence at an early age, serving as a courier in the Confederate Army and even witnessing the Second Battle of Bull Run.
After the war, Thomas went on to work in law enforcement, starting as a police officer in Atlanta before moving to Texas, where he worked as a messenger for the Texas Express Company and an assistant to company detectives. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, Thomas played a particularly pivotal role in tracking down the infamous Sam Bass gang.
His skill led to him becoming a deputy U.S. marshal by 1886, working primarily in Oklahoma and Indian territories. In 1889, he teamed up with fellow deputy U.S. marshals Chris Madsen and Bill Tilghman, who together came to be known as the “Three Guardsmen.” Over the next decade, they were credited with arresting over 300 outlaws and were instrumental in dismantling notorious gangs, including the Doolin-Dalton Gang.
In August 1896, Thomas and his posse tracked down outlaw Bill Doolin after he had escaped from jail. They eventually found him near Lawson, Oklahoma and attempted to arrest him — but the attempt turned into a violent gunfight that ultimately resulted in Doolin’s death.
Years later, as settlements in Oklahoma grew, Thomas ended up in Lawton, where he became the town’s first police chief. He served in this capacity for seven years before accepting another appointment as deputy marshal for the Western District of Oklahoma in 1910. But then, Thomas died of heart failure just two years later, on August 14, 1912.
