09-04-2025
Cherokee Nation donates $100,000 to U.S. Marshals Museum
FORT SMITH, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — The Cherokee Nation donates $100,000 to the United States Marshals Museum to help open the 'Tragedy at Goingsnake Theater' exhibit.
According to a press release, the 'Tragedy at Goingsnake Theater' will be located inside the Frontier Marshals Gallery and will tell the story of the Goingsnake Tragedy of 1872, the deadliest day in U.S. Marshals Service history.
'We are honored to partner with our friends at Cherokee Nation to ensure that the events of 1872 are accurately and authentically depicted,' said president and CEO of the U.S. Marshals Museum Benjamin Johnson. 'This is a complicated and important story to tell as we look to inspire new generations to understand our shared past.'
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The release says historians from the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Marshals Museum and Cherokee Nation, collaborated on this project to remember the many who were wounded and the 11 people killed in the fatal shooting at the trial of Zeke Proctor, a Cherokee man accused of shooting a couple resulting in the death of the wife, Polly Beck, a Cherokee woman.
Proctor was arrested and tried by Cherokee law enforcement for the wounding of Jim Kesterson and the killing of Beck. The victims' families turned to the U.S. courts in an attempt to have Proctor charged with assault.
Deputy U.S. Marshals went to arrest Proctor if he was acquitted, but before the trial reached a verdict, shots were fired, leading to the deaths of 11 people, including three Cherokee citizens and eight posse members. Several others were wounded.
More information can be found on the United States Marshals Museum's website.
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