Ms. Calhounsaid card sharks and other schemers were flocking to Indianterritory

Tag : Paper Flocking

WASHINGTON -- Sometime around 1900, Archie Wright made his way fromMississippi to Indian country around present-day Muskogee, Okla.,and proceeded to raise Cain: "Arch Wright Given Jail Sentence,"read a headline in the Muskogee Times-Democrat in 1908. "Lots ofBooze," the same paper reported six months later after deputysheriffs raided Mr. Wright's house.
That man -- described in the local press at the time as a"well-known debonnair, dead-game sport" -- was the maternalgrandfather of Sen. John McCain. While much has been made of Mr.McCain's paternal lineage, the upstanding admirals of the Navy,less appears to be known about Arch Wright, who made a fortune onliquor, gambling and oil in Indian territory before relocating toLos Angeles with a sprawling clan in tow, including Mr. McCain'smother, Roberta Wright. He died there in 1971, when Mr. McCain wasbeing held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
Mark Salter, a top McCain strategist and the co-author of severalbiographical books with the Republican presidential candidate, saidin an e-mail that he does not "know much about the guy," other thanthat he had come west from Oklahoma, retired young and "didn't wantRoberta to marry Jack McCain."
Mr. Wright arrived in Muskogee a gambler and bootlegger and left awealthy wildcatter who owned some of the most valuable property inthe region. He bartered for that land with gold coins and liquor,as Native Americans were receiving parcels of property from thefederal government, according to Murray Clifford "Cliff" Smith III,a District of Columbia cab driver whose grandmother was Mr.Wright's wife's sister. Mr. Smith's mother, Margaret Lawson Smith,was a cousin and playmate of Roberta Wright.
Oklahoma, carved from federal territory and Indian lands, enteredthe union in 1907, and as compensation, every Native American waspromised land. The Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminolewere pushed from the southeastern United States onto reservations,then systematically robbed of their promised reward by some ofMuskogee's most prominent citizens, and one of them was probablyMr. Wright, according to local historians
"I would 'wager' (ha) a guess that he won land with the card gamesand then sold it for the money," Sue Tolbert, director of the ThreeRivers Museum in Eastern Oklahoma, said in an e-mail, adding: "Theevidence against him is strong."
Nancy Calhoun, a local historian at the Muskogee Public Library,said: "He stood out in a town full of rascals."
To a generation of relatives who knew Mr. Wright after his days inMuskogee, such stories come as a surprise.
"In all of our estimation, he is up there with the angels and thesaints," said Joan Higgs, 72, a cousin of Mr. McCain's who spenther teenage and early adult life with her grandfather, Archie, andnow lives in New Mexico. Ms. Higgs confirmed Mr. Smith'srelationship to the Wright family.
To Mr. McCain's biographers, Mr. Wright is "the man not spoken of,"said Elizabeth Drew, who wrote "Citizen McCain."
But Mr. Wright's days of booze, gambling and scrapes with the lawseem to have infused his daughter Roberta with her own cantankerousside. Roberta McCain, at 96, is still campaigning for her son,still living in the District of Columbia and still making trouble.She told a television interviewer that Republicans were "going tohave to take" her son, but that they would do so "holding theirnose."
Archibald Wright was born in 1875 in the village of Kossuth, inAlcorn County, Miss. He appears in the Muskogee City Directory in1905 along with his wife, Myrtle Fletcher, with his occupationlisted as "farmer" -- unusual, because his address -- 708 S. MainSt. -- was downtown. In January 1908, under the headline, "Two BigOnes Are Fined," the Times-Democrat reported that "Arch Wright andTom Owens, under bond the last two weeks for running a gamblinghouse, were convicted in Judge Jackson's court yesterday and fined$100 and costs."
On Nov. 27 of the same year, the paper said that Mr. Wright hadbeen fined $100 and costs and sentenced to serve 30 days in thecounty jail for "running a gambling place over the Mistletoe bar onNorth Main Street."
Days later, Mr. Wright was back in court, but this time, the paperreported, he was pulling "down the stake" of $1,000 in a "legalgame" of cards with three deputy sheriffs.
The next week, under the headline, "Big Bunch of Gams Pinched,"("gams" being short for "gamblers"), the paper noted that "a squadof deputy sheriffs made a successful raid on Arch Wright's gamblingjoint last night and arrested 40 gamblers," and added: "Wright putup $1,685 in cash (around $37,000 in today's dollars) to insure theattendance of the gang before Justice Bailey this morning. The raidwas effective because the 'buzzer' failed to work and give thealarm of the approach of the officers, the result being that themen were caught dead to rights in the net of gambling."
On Jan. 17, 1910, he was taken into custody "to answer to the 126indictments returned against him" for "selling casks and barrelscontaining beer." Mr. Wright, "after consulting with Superior JudgeMcCain," who was no relation, decided to cough up $13,000 cashbond. Yet four months later, the authorities raided his house againto confiscate liquor.
His big break came in 1911, when Mr. Wright bought the TurnerHardware company property at Broadway and Main, one of the mostvaluable business corners in Muskogee, for $135,000 -- nearly $3million today.
"He paid $135,000 for THE prime piece of downtown Muskogeeproperty," Ms. Calhoun marveled in an e-mail: "He didn't make thatamount of money selling chickens off the farm or aspirins from hisdrug store."
On Feb. 8, 1912, under the headline, "Arch Wright Proud Father ofTwins," the Muskogee Phoenix began, " 'This is the most importantpiece of news you ever printed in your paper,' said Arch Wrightover the telephone to the Phoenix last night. This is the news:Born to Mr. and Mrs. Arch Wright, two fine baby girls.' " One ofthe twins was named Roberta, who would become John McCain's mother.
Where Mr. Wright's money came from remains a mystery. Ms. Calhounsaid card sharks and other schemers were flocking to Indianterritory at the time of statehood, looking to get rich on oil andland. Ms. Higgs said it was "common knowledge" that Mr. McCain'smaternal grandfather made his money buying and selling oil leases,but there is no way to prove how those lands and leases came intohis possession.
To impart life lessons on his granddaughter, Arch McCain told ofthe exploits of Uncle Eichard and Aunt Ida, fictional relatives androgues from Muskogee, but, Ms. Higgs said, their misdeeds "weresomething you would never, ever want to do."
Beyond that, all she knew of Muskogee was the servant hergrandfather brought with him, whom she says Mr. Wright treatedgenerously.
"To us, our grandfather was kind and loving and loyal and atremendously generous grandfather," she said. "We certainly neverknew him as a rogue."