Henry Grammer

Henry Grammer was a rodeo star, gunslinging bootlegger, and longtime acquaintance of William K. Hale whose reported role in the Smith house bombing placed him among the people who might have exposed Hale’s criminal plans. Ernest Burkhart said Grammer had promised to provide a man for the job and identified Asa Kirby as the bomber; by the time investigators pursued that lead, Grammer was dead. His story joins the bombing plot to the investigation’s growing unease over witnesses who could no longer speak for themselves.

Background and Connection to Hale

Grammer was known both for rodeo competition and for a violent reputation. The narrative describes him as a gunslinging bootlegger who seemed, every year or so, to draw down on another man after a dispute; a newspaper headline reduced that recurring notoriety to the blunt announcement that Grammer had shot again. He was not presented as one of Hale’s regular associates, since the two generally moved in different circles, but they had known each other for years, dating to Hale’s arrival in Osage territory around the turn of the century.

Their connection had a public, even celebratory, trace. In 1909, Hale and Grammer competed together with the Osage Cowboys against the Cherokee Cowboys in a roping contest. A surviving photograph showed the two men on horseback, holding coiled ropes. By 1925 Hale had shed much of his earlier public identity, but the photograph preserved an image of their association from years before the investigation turned to the Smith bombing.

The Smith House Bombing

In the period before the Smith house was destroyed, Hale told friends he was leaving town for the Fat Stock Show in Fort Worth, Texas. When Tom White examined the alibi, he learned that Grammer had traveled with Hale. A witness had also overheard Hale speaking with Grammer before the murders and referring to readiness for an Indian deal. Together, the travel and the overheard conversation gave investigators a lead connecting Hale and Grammer to the plot, though neither circumstance alone established what Grammer had done.

Burkhart’s account supplied a more specific allegation. He said Hale had first approached Blackie Thompson and Curley Johnson about carrying out the killing. When they did not do it, Hale turned to Al Spencer, who refused, and then to Grammer. According to Burkhart, Grammer promised to provide a man for the job and later told Hale that Asa Kirby would do it. Burkhart further said Hale went with Grammer to Fort Worth to create an alibi, then sent instructions through Burkhart to John Ramsey for Kirby. In this account, Grammer was not described as the bomber himself: his alleged part was to find and relay the person who would carry out the attack.

Death and Investigative Significance

Grammer could not testify to the account. On June 14, 1923, three months after the Smith house bombing, his Cadillac spun out of control and overturned. He bled to death on an empty country road. People who knew him later told White that they believed the car’s steering wheel and brakes had been tampered with. That report established suspicion, not proof that the crash was deliberate.

The circumstances nevertheless gave Grammer’s death particular weight in White’s inquiry. Other possible witnesses had also died: Al Spencer had been killed by a posse, and Curley Johnson had died suddenly, reportedly after drinking poisoned alcohol. White learned as well that a potential witness in the Henry Roan murder case had been bludgeoned to death. The pattern led him to suspect that people capable of implicating Hale were being eliminated, but the evidence presented does not resolve whether Grammer’s crash was an accident or murder. His role in the investigation therefore remains double-edged: Burkhart’s testimony made him a link in the alleged bombing conspiracy, while his death turned him into one of the missing witnesses around whom suspicion gathered.