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Story That Former Kansas Convict Was Taken In Oklahoma

To Bill Bottorff: Do you think the story will ever end on Wright & Norton re killing of Siverd? Am sending a copy of story below blocked out...See Traveler 4...labeling Kay gave paper. MAW

[TO BE ADDED TO STORY ABOUT CAPT. HUGH H. SIVERD]...

Arkansas City Daily Traveler,
Tuesday, October 18, 1921.

WRIGHT WRONG

Story That Former Kansas Convict Was Taken In Oklahoma.

The liquor trail by which Morgan Wright went wrong, and which led him to kill Capt. Hugh H. Siverd, here in October, twenty-eight years ago, appears to have enticed his feet into crooked ways again, it might be gathered from a story in the Oklahoman. A special dispatch from Ponca City is authority for the statement that Wright was recently taken by federal officers in a raid near that place. The charge against him is left to inference.

The raid was on a log farm house somewhere in that locality, it would seem from the story which is hazy as to time and place. Wright and several other men were taken. The officers found a still in the house, the story says. Whether Wright was making whiskey or was only drinking in the place, is not stated.

Wright and Wilbur Norton were convicted of the murder of Captain Siverd. The killing took place on the corner of the Cowley County National, where a bronze star marks the spot. They were sentenced to be hanged; but under the laws then existing, this meant only a life sentence. After serving about twenty years, they were pardoned, or paroled. Wright went to his people in Oklahoma; Norton to Illinois.—Courier.

Mary Ann Wortman, Arkansas City, May 8, 1997

Cowley County Historical Society Museum