Culpepper "Cub" Colbert, Deputy Sheriff

Panola County Sheriff's Office

Panola County was in the Chickasaw Nation of Indian Territory, an area that encompassed portions of the current Bryan and Marshall counties west of Durant. Deputy Colbert was assigned to keep the peace at a dance that went into the early morning hours of Saturday, December 14, 1878. About 4 A.M. Deputy Colbert took a gun away from a drunk man named Ben Kemp. Kemp hit the deputy in the head with a cane and Colbert shot him in the side, inflicting a flesh wound. As Deputy Colbert was leaving one of Kemp’s sons shot the deputy in the left side with a shotgun, nearly severing his left arm and killing him almost instantly.