May 6, 2007

In 1875, Ohio-born Isaac Parker was appointed the federal judge for Arkansas’s Western District, which consisted mostly of the Indian Territory. For approximately twenty-one years, Judge Parker presided over almost 14,000 cases, of which 344 were for capital offenses. He became known as the “hanging judge” for his 160 death sentences, of which seventy-nine were carried out by hanging. Parker died in 1896 and is buried in Fort Smith National Cemetery.