In the 1920's a murder plot took place in Osage County to kill certain Osage Indians for the oil "headrights" and the case became known as "The Reign of Terror of the Osage Hills." The US Dept. of Justice, division of investigation (later to become the FBI) conducted an investigation (with some help from local and state lawmen) and eventually the person behind the plot was brought to justice.

I found this evening 2 web sites that have the FBI's file on the investigation of the Osage murders. At http://www.paperlessarchives.com/osage.html you can find the file for sale on CD.

And, at http://foia.fbi.gov/osageind.htm you apparently can download the file in segments. I am checking it out.

Has anyone tried either of these sites?



Dee Cordry
okhombre@ionet.net
Oklahombres.org webmaster

Dee,
I have downloaded the Barker file, the Elvis file, and a couple of other files off of the FBI site.
It just takes awhile for the dowload, due to the volume of the files, but it does work well.

Chuck
Chuck

Hi,

If I recall correctly that series of crimes were recounted in the 1959 movie "The FBI Story" starring Jimmy Stewart. If my foggy memory serves me correctly the movie changed the names to "Ute City" in "Webb County". I knew it was Osage County and always wondered was it actually Webb City, a notorious community in the early 1920's.

I do remember an FBI agent once telling me this case was one of the early examples of the FBI having agents do covert investigations and the solving of the cases one of the Bureaus early investigative success storys.

Alan