In doing research throughout Oklahoma, I keep coming across articles about "city marshall" or "town marshall". The time frame is from statehood to circa 1925-1930.

At first I thought both terms meant the same, but now I'm not so sure. Do both terms mean the same thing and they are just used interchangeably? Or does "town marhsall" refer to a town of a certain size and does "city marshall" refer to a city? I have yet to come across where both terms were used to refer to the same person.

For all practical purposes a city marshal and a town marshal are the same. These are appointed positions by the municipality, irregardless the size of the town or city. In the frontier days, many small towns would only have one city marshal. Many of the frontier towns had an appointed city marshal and would also be policed by the elected county Sheriff. The Sheriff's duties would preclude him from just worrying about a town in his county, whereas that was the focus of the town marshal. Larger towns could have a number of deputy town or city marshals, depending on the nomenclature used. Today some municipalities have city marshals, which are used as auxillary. Some ares are outlawing this use, do to training and being certified as a police officer.

Also, marshal is spelled with one l, although many people and organizations incorrectly use two l's.