Newspaper Clipping    GRAND OLD MAN OF GREER COUNTY OKLAHOMA

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GRAND OLD MAN OF GREER COUNTY OKLAHOMA

FROM PAGE ONE GRANITE ENTERPRISE,  MARCH 30, 1939

"ASK S. H. TITTLE, VETERAN  EX?SHERIFF, IF YOU WANT INFORMATION CONCERNING
Greer County since the late eighties," is a statement that has been heard many 
times by citizens of western Oklahoma.

Mr. Tittle is in every sense of the word a pioneer of the "Empire of Greer," having 
lived in the county when it was a part of Texas, during the Indian Territory days, 
and since statehood.  He has served the county as sheriff for 25 years.

Not only is Mr. Tittle well known in western Oklahoma  but the histories of the 
state have recorded his life and in the Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C. he is known 
as the "grand Old Man of Greer County,"

Coming here in the year of 1880, Mr. Tittle has seen the country change from a 
trackless prairie, with sparsely settled ranch houses, to the thickly populated farm 
homes that it has today.  He has watched the steady progress from the trading posts to
the thriving towns, and has seen the trails made by jogging cattle and saddle horses, 
erased by ribbons of concrete, that takes the driver of a fast automobile as far in a 
day, as the covered wagon traveled in six months. 

Mr. Tittle was born in Rusk, Cherokee Co., Tx. in November 1858, and lived in the 
county until he was 18 years of age, when he went to Taylor County to work on a ranch.  
Four years later he came to Greer County driving a herd of cattle from Clay
County, Texas for Haney and Powers, ranchers who handled thousands of head of cattle.  
He experienced all the hardships known to the cowboy, with blizzards in the winter, 
that would drive the cattle south to the Red River line.

In the year 1886 in November,  Mr. Tittle was appionted county commissioner of 
Greer County which began a long and distinguished life of public service, as an officer 
of Greer County.

He became sheriff of the county one year after the county was created in 1887, and 
from that date until 1933 he held the office at different periods for 25 years.

Mr. Tittle was appointed sheriff when the sheriff, a man by the name of Williamson 
was relieved of his duties because of improper conduct.  He held the office until 1906, 
and retired for 4 years.  His next experience in politics was in 19?? when he
was elected county clerk, but did not accept the office, as he found it necessary 
to move to Texas to hold title to land that he had acquired there.

In 1904, Mr. Tittle was appointed registrar of deeds to fill the unexpired term of 
T. G. Russell, and three years later was in the race for sheriiff at the insistance of 
his many friends.  This was the case many times when Mr. Tittle was a candidate for 
office.  He did so at the request of friends, that he could not turn down.  He retired 
in 1933, which closed a quarter century as a peace officer for the county. 

Mr. Tittle recalled that one of the most notorious outlaws captured during his years 
a an officer in the early days of old Greer County, was Bill Brooking, horse thief.  
The sheriff received information that Brooking was in the vicinity of what is now
Retrop.  He organized a posse and with the sheriff of Wilbarger County, they started 
for the hideout of the criminal.  The officers arrived at the camp, Brooking was caught 
by surprise and taken without his gun.  He was brought to Mangum, and later taken to 
Seymour, where he was convicted of murder.

It is said by old timers of the county that during his 25 years as an officer that he 
never shot a man, never struck a prisoner, never allowed a prisoner to escape, and 
never failed to arrest a man for whom he had a warrant.  Many times in his long
career, Mr. Tittle risked his life in protecting a prisoner, from mob violence.  
In the last years of his career as peace officer, he saved a prisoner's life when 
he outran a posse to the Oklahoma State Reformatory at Granite, when the irrate 
citizens would have taken the law into their own hands.

The generosity of Ex?sheriff Tittle is well known.  He has always shown a 
sympathetic understanding for all persons in distress and much of his salary while 
in public life, it is said, has been turned over to the needy of the community.  In 
the early days he helped many settlers to pay their taxes and assisted them in many 
other ways to hold their land in the county.