The story
Ingalls was a land-run farm town that made a fateful side business of hospitality to the Doolin-Dalton gang, whose members drank, courted, and resupplied there more or less openly. On September 1, 1893, fourteen deputy U.S. marshals rode in after them; the Battle of Ingalls killed three marshals and two bystanders, and most of the gang shot their way out.
The outlaws were hunted down within a few years, and Ingalls's economy proved as mortal: bypassed by rails and eclipsed by Stillwater, it faded to a scatter by statehood. A stone monument to the dead marshals stands among the last foundations.
What remains today
The 1938 battle monument, a preserved period building or two, and foundation traces on the plains east of Stillwater.
Questions from the field
- What was the Battle of Ingalls?
- An 1893 gunfight between fourteen deputy U.S. marshals and the Doolin gang, who had made Ingalls a haven. Three marshals died; most outlaws escaped, though nearly all were killed or captured in the years after.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Ingalls — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Ingalls's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Sources consulted
- — USGS GNIS feature 1094105
- — U.S. Marshals Service historical records
- — Payne County histories