Hulbert Tales and Trails
by Gloria Youngdeer
Excerpts from an interview
with Fielden Salyer Hill,
Tahlequah, OK
"In 1890 the road we called the Salina Road left Tahlequah northwest and came by the Triplett Spring and by the Grease Spring, then on by Jess Locust's place on Fourteen Mile Creek. Then it went up the Jess Locust Mountain, on to Peggs Prairie, then down Spring Creek and crossed the creek somewhere near where the bridge is now. It then wound on to Salina and by the old orphan school near Salina and further on in this same direction.
I knew plenty of outlaws away back there. I never will forget when Ellis Gourd led a posse after the old Cook gang who was reported staying one day in a log cabin on the banks of Fourteen Mile Creek near Hulbert. This log hut was on the west bank of the creek near where the new bridge is located. Ellis Gourd rounded up a brave bunch of boys here in Tahlequah to go get the bad boys. It was just about noon in the year of 1894, and he surrounded the log cabin and yelled at the boys to give up. Cherokee Bill called back to him. "We'll never do it, but we'll swap out with you." About then, Jim Cook raised a winchester and at the blaze of the gun Sequoyah Houston fell dead. The fight was on, and the Cook gang ran into the log hut and began knocking out mud daubing for holes to poke their guns through. They fought from about noon until dark. Several men were badly hurt but no more were killed. After dark the Cook gang came out of the hut shooting and running at the same time and they all got away again.
Roads in those days were pretty sorry. We always took a good axe along so that we could cut limbs out of the way. I voted for statehood all right, but if I had my way about it now I would like to have it back as a Territory. I tell you I would be willing to leave here and go anywhere if I could find any place today where things are as they were in those days."
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