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Greer County had courtroom surprise
NORMAN, Okla. — District Judge Gibson A. Brown was presiding over a trial when the big news came.
It came from Washington by way of Quanah, Texas, which had the telegraph line closest to Mangum. The messenger rode a horse.
The judge read the message.
“We opened court in Greer County, Texas,” Brown said, “but we will close court in Greer County, Oklahoma.”
Judge Brown was the great-great-grandfather of Hart Brown of Norman, who has researched the judge’s influence on pioneer developments in Northwest Texas and Southwest Oklahoma.
The March 17, 1896, courtroom surprise dealt with the end of litigation known as the Greer County case. It had been argued, off and on, for decades. When county residents observed the centennial of the decision Hart was narrator for a pageant in which the current district judge played Judge Brown.
Greer County is triangular, with the Texas Panhandle its west border and the two forks of the Red River its north and south borders. In 1860 Texas organized it, based on an erroneous survey that called the north fork the main channel of the river. The federal government filed suit against the state of Texas and had finally prevailed in a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Residents of Greer County were worried about how the decision would affect their property rights. They chose Judge Brown to present their case to Congress. He teamed with Dennis Flynn, the Oklahoma Territory’s non-voting delegate to Congress, and the U.S. attorney general.
“They succeeded in getting preference rights for homes with 160 acres and the option to purchase an additional 160 acres,” Hart Brown said.
Judge Brown was known as God Almighty Brown in his legal community. Hart found the nickname was given to him by Temple Houston, the well-known Woodward defense lawyer and youngest son of Sam Houston, father of Texas independence.
That was when the two men became friends in the Texas Panhandle where Brown had a private practice before becoming a judge. Houston was an attorney, then prosecutor, then state senator before he moved to Woodward.
Hart agrees with author Glenn Shirley of Stillwater that Temple was the model for Edna Ferber’s lead character in the novel “Cimarron.”
In Texas Brown also was a neighbor and friend of the legendary Colonel Charles Goodnight. Brown represented Goodnight and other cattlemen in a famous lawsuit involving grazing rights.
Judge Brown was district judge of Greer County from 1907 until 1914 when he was elected to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. He died in 1915 at the age of 66.
Hart Brown, a Texan, came to Norman in 1989 to enroll in the University. He was a deputy sheriff for 15 years, achieving the rank of captain. His degree is in history. He now teaches in the Moore public school system.
Ed Montgomery writes for The Norman (Okla.) Transcript.
