Stone Gardens: Cherokee politician was killed by a former US Marshal who married the victim's daughter five days later
- Dennis McCaslin
- Oct 13, 2025
- 2 min read
Lawson "Los" Runyon was born around 1840 in the Delaware District of the Cherokee Nation. His father, John Runyon, a white settler, married into the Cherokee community, and Runyon grew up on a farm near Tahlequah.
Fluent in Cherokee and English, he became an interpreter and community leader. He married Mary "Polly" Foreman, a full-blood Cherokee, and they raised eight children, including Cora, born around 1873.
Enrolled as one-quarter Cherokee on the Dawes Rolls, Runyon worked the land granted by the 1866 Cherokee Treaty, building a life rooted in tribal traditions.
Runyon’s public service began in the 1870s during the Cherokee Nation’s post-Civil War recovery. As an interpreter for the Cherokee Delegation to Washington, D.C. in 1871-72, he helped secure funding for schools and roads. Elected councilor for the Delaware District in 1877-78 under Principal Chief Charles Thompson, he fought against illegal white squatters and land loss.
In the 1880s, he served as a Justice of the Peace and interpreter in Fort Smith, bridging tribal and federal systems. In the 1890s, he opposed the Dawes Act of 1887, which threatened Cherokee sovereignty with land allotments, earning him respect as a fair and dedicated leader.
Everett Milo "Milo" Creekmore, born on October 21, 1870, in Arkansas to Randolph B. and Frances Creekmore, followed his father’s path into law enforcement.
Commissioned as a U.S. Deputy Marshal in the Western District of Arkansas in May 1889 at age 18, he gained recognition for arrests, including a 1891 capture of whiskey peddler Ben Billey and horse thief Tom Barnett with Bass Reeves, and a 1892 siege on outlaw Ned Christie’s stronghold.
By 1893, however, rumors of misconduct and minor robberies led to his resignation.
Their lives converged over Cora Runyon. Creekmore, then 23, began courting Cora, around 20, despite her father’s disapproval. Runyon, determined to marry her to another suitor, clashed with the young former lawman.
On October 23, 1893, near Tahlequah, Creekmore visited the Runyon home for a secret meeting.
An argument escalated, and when Runyon drew a pistol, Creekmore shot him with a shotgun, killing the 53-year-old instantly.
Creekmore fled, surrendered in Fort Smith, and was acquitted of murder on self-defense grounds.
Cora married him five days later on October 28, 1893, a choice that stirred the Cherokee community.
Runyon was buried in Oak Hill Memorial Cemetery in Tahlequah, mourned as a steadfast leader. His death, debated as murder by some and a tragic necessity by others, influenced the 1906 lawsuit Cherokee Nation v. Hitchcock.
Creekmore’s life took a darker turn, joining the Henry Starr Gang for store heists and serving a five-year prison term in New York starting around 1895. Released by 1899, he married Alma Yarbrough in 1902 and worked as a locomotive engineer in Texas.
He died on May 10, 1931, at age 60, and was buried in New Hope Cemetery in Wells, Texas.
Today, 132 years after the fatal encounter, Runyon’s legacy as a defender of Cherokee sovereignty lives on through his descendants and tribal history. Creekmore’s journey from lawman to outlaw to reformed worker reflects the frontier’s shifting tides.
Their intertwined story reveals the human cost of love, law, and land in a changing era.
