# Ghosts of Crook County: An Oil Fortune, a Phantom Child, and the Fight for Indigenous Land - Hardcover

by **Russell Cobb** (Author)

**The true--and unsolved--story of unabashedly greedy men, their exploitation of Muscogee land, and the hunt for the ghost of a boy who may never have existed**

For readers of David Grann's award-winning _Killers of the Flower Moon_

In the early 1900s, at the dawn of the "American Century," few knew the intoxicating power of greed better than white men on the forefront of the black gold rush. When oil was discovered in Oklahoma, these counterfeit tycoons impersonated, defrauded, and murdered Native property owners to snatch up hundreds of acres of oil-rich land.

Writer and fourth-generation Oklahoman Russell Cobb sets the stage for one such oilman's chicanery: Tulsa entrepreneur Charles Page's campaign for a young Muscogee boy's land in Creek County. Problem was, "Tommy Atkins," the boy in question, had died years prior--if he ever lived at all.

_Ghosts of Crook County_ traces Tommy's mythologized life through Page's relentless pursuit of his land. We meet Minnie Atkins and the two other women who claimed to be Tommy's "real" mother. Minnie would testify a story of her son's life and death that fulfilled the legal requirements for his land to be transferred to Page. And we meet Tommy himself--or the men who proclaimed themselves to be him, alive and well in court.

Through evocative storytelling, Cobb chronicles with unflinching precision the lasting effects of land-grabbing white men on Indigenous peoples. What emerges are the interconnected stories of unabashedly greedy men, the exploitation of Indigenous land, and the legacy of a boy who may never have existed.

### Author Biography

**Russell Cobb**, a fourth-generation white Oklahoman, is professor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta and the author of _The Great Oklahoma Swindle_, which won the 2021 Director's Award in the Oklahoma Book Awards. His journalism has appeared in the _New York Times_, _The Guardian_, _Slate_, _The Nation_, and on NPR. His reporting appearing on _This American Life_ was turned into the film _Come Sunday,_ distributed by Netflix_._ He is also the host of _History X_, a podcast about buried histories and nonfiction mysteries, broadcast on 88.5FM in Edmonton, Canada, and across all major podcast platforms.

**Number of Pages:** 304

**Dimensions:** 1.3 x 9.1 x 6.3 IN

**Publication Date:** October 08, 2024

## Details

- **Price:** 32.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 32.95 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Ghosts of Crook County: An Oil Fortune, a Phantom Child, and the Fight for Indigenous Land - Hardcover

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