𝐎𝐂𝐒𝐎 𝐈𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐏𝐔𝐑𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐒

The Osage County Sheriff’s Office is proud to recognize Investigators Brett Barnett and Anthony Barrett, who were presented with Purple Heart Awards during the Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association Annual Conference held this past week in Oklahoma City.

Both investigators were wounded by gunfire in the line of duty while responding to a domestic disturbance call in late 2025.

The Purple Heart Award recognizes law enforcement officers who have been wounded or seriously injured in the line of duty. It is a reminder of the dangers our deputies face and the sacrifices they are willing to make in service to their communities.

We are extremely proud of Investigators Barnett and Barrett for their courage, dedication, and continued commitment to serving the citizens of Osage County.

Please join us in congratulating these two deserving investigators on this well-earned recognition.

#OsageCountySheriff #PurpleHeartAward #OklahomaSheriffsAssociation #LawEnforcement #HonoringOurHeroes #OsageCounty … See MoreSee Less

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐲 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐬
𝐎𝐮𝐭𝐥𝐚𝐰, 𝐂𝐨𝐰𝐛𝐨𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬

In the early decades of the twentieth century—when Oklahoma’s oil boomtowns rose overnight and law struggled to keep pace—a hard-luck cowboy named Henry Wells stepped from obscurity into infamy. He was neither the most violent nor the most successful of the era’s bank robbers, but he endured longer than most, leaving behind a life that traced the uneasy line between frontier crime and fading legend.

Born in Missouri around 1880, Wells ran into trouble early and, like countless young men of his generation, drifted west to outrun his past. By about 1910 he had settled in Osage County, Oklahoma, where he found honest work cowboying for Charles Johnson on a spread between Bartlesville and Pawhuska. Wells married, built a small home in Lost Creek Canyon near Okesa, and for a time seemed intent on respectability.

But Osage County was changing. Oil money flowed through rural towns, banks sat poorly guarded, and the distance between temptation and opportunity narrowed by the day.

𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝗝𝗼𝗯𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗛𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗚𝗮𝗻𝗴

By late 1914, rural Oklahoma was swept by a rash of daylight bank robberies. Small brick buildings, stuffed with oil cash and protected by little more than a lock and local goodwill, became irresistible targets. Wells soon fell in with a loose circle of outlaws—many tied, directly or indirectly, to the orbit of Henry Starr, the most notorious bank robber of the period.

Wells’ first confirmed robbery came on January 29, 1915, at the Avant State Bank in southern Osage County. Disguised as workmen, Wells, Charles Johnson, and Bill Bunnell entered the bank in mid-afternoon, drew their guns, locked the employees in the vault, and escaped into the Osage Hills with roughly $1,700. When a posse gave chase, Johnson’s horse broke its leg. Thinking quickly, Johnson abandoned the animal, smeared himself in oil at a nearby rig, and calmly redirected the pursuers in the wrong direction.

The Avant robbery succeeded cleanly—and it marked Wells’ full entry into the fraternity of professional bank men.

𝗞𝗮𝘄 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗘𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲

In April 1915, Wells rode with Bill Putnam and C.C. “Big Boy” Currie—both veterans of Starr’s operations—to rob the Farmers National Bank in Kaw City, just across the Kay County line. The job followed a familiar pattern: guns drawn, vault locked, and a fast escape toward the hills.

This time, however, the town fought back. Armed citizens pursued the bandits in automobiles. During a brief exchange of gunfire, Wells’ horse was shot from under him. He vaulted onto Currie’s saddle and escaped riding double into the timber.
Months later Wells was arrested and charged with the robbery, but manufactured alibi testimony carried the day. He walked free.

Later that year, Wells rode with outlaws Silas Meigs and Al Spencer when deputies caught their trail in the Osage timber. A sharp gunfight followed, another horse went down beneath Wells, and once again he escaped on foot. The site of that running battle would later become part of Woolaroc. Years afterward, Wells donated his saddle, the horse’s skull, and its shoes from that fight to the Woolaroc collection—silent relics of a violent afternoon.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝘆𝗻𝗼𝗻𝗮 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗼𝘂𝘁

Wells’ last major bank job came on May 25, 1916, in the tiny Osage County town of Wynona. His partner was Frank Kitterman, a recent escapee from the Arkansas State Prison. The plan was routine: tie the horses behind the bank, strike fast, and vanish into the hills. But Wynona resisted. Merchant L. L. Whitely spotted the robbers and opened fire, killing both horses before they could mount. Trapped, Wells and Kitterman ran for cover, exchanging shots with an angry crowd. Wells fired his prized automatic Luger as bullets clipped his hat and shattered the rowel from one of his handmade spurs.

“We’d just made off with a sack of money,” Wells later joked, “and now I was out a good Stetson and a pair of spurs I was proud of.”

Surrounded and outnumbered, the pair surrendered when Sheriff H. M. Freas and County Attorney Tillman arrived. Only $94.25 of the stolen money was recovered. On December 5, 1916, Wells and Kitterman were sentenced to ten years in the Oklahoma State Prison at McAlester.

𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻, 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗱𝗼𝘄 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗮𝗹

McAlester was crowded with men like Wells—cowboys turned criminals whose ambitions had outrun their luck. After serving part of his sentence, Wells was paroled and returned to Osage County. In 1922, he was again arrested in Pawhuska for alleged involvement in the Dewey bank robbery. Once more, Wells produced a convincing alibi and was acquitted in Washington County. It would be his last serious brush with the law.

𝗪𝗼𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗰, 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝗣𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗽𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗻 𝗨𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽

In the 1930s, Wells formed an improbable friendship with oilman Frank Phillips, founder of Woolaroc and a man fascinated by the fading frontier. Phillips hosted the annual Cow Thieves and Outlaws Reunion, where former lawmen and criminals mingled in uneasy fellowship.

Wells, with his handlebar mustache and easy grin, became a regular guest. Despite his past, he was welcomed as a living artifact of the old Osage Hills. Phillips later credited Wells with warning him of a kidnapping plot by Pretty Boy Floyd.

“It was the only time I ever ratted on any of the boys,” Wells admitted. “But I told Pretty Boy I’d rather somebody kidnapped my daddy than Frank Phillips.”

𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗮𝘆𝘀

Wells claimed to have robbed thirty-two banks and to have stood trial fourteen times, yet he was convicted only once. In old age he lived quietly on an old-age pension, supplementing his income with small wagers at the pool table and stories told for the price of attention.

Hospitalized late in life, he entertained nurses with tales of the Osage Hills, recalling how he once tossed gold coins into the air at Lost Creek and shot their centers nine times out of ten.

Henry Wells died in Bartlesville on October 31, 1963, at the age of eighty-two—far removed from the gunfire and galloping horses that had defined his youth. He never became a national outlaw icon, but in Osage County his story endured: a man shaped by opportunity, chance, and contradiction, whose life marked the long twilight of Oklahoma’s outlaw age. … See MoreSee Less