J. H. Swinford, a 29-year-old man serving as city marshal of Kiefer, Oklahoma, spent the summer of 1909 policing a volatile oil-boom town whose rapid growth had brought wealth, crowds, and a reputation for violence. In the years around 1909, Kiefer had exploded from a quiet settlement into a shipping point for the Glenn Pool oil field, its streets choked with wagons, rough transient workers, saloons, gambling rooms, and an undercurrent of armed confrontation that made law enforcement a dangerous
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