{"product_id":"9780807021392","title":"Ghosts of Crook County","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe true—and unsolved—story of unabashedly greedy men, their exploitation of Muscogee land, and the hunt for the ghost of a boy who may never have existed \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For readers of David Grann’s award-winning \u003ci\u003eKillers of the Flower Moon\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the early 1900s, at the dawn of the “American Century,” few knew the intoxicating power of greed better than white men on the forefront of the black gold rush. When oil was discovered in Oklahoma, these counterfeit tycoons impersonated, defrauded, and murdered Native property owners to snatch up hundreds of acres of oil-rich land.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWriter and fourth-generation Oklahoman Russell Cobb sets the stage for one such oilman’s chicanery: Tulsa entrepreneur Charles Page’s campaign for a young Muscogee boy’s land in Creek County. Problem was, “Tommy Atkins,” the boy in question, had died years prior—if he ever lived at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eGhosts of Crook County\u003c\/i\u003e traces Tommy’s mythologized life through Page’s relentless pursuit of his land. We meet Minnie Atkins and the two other women who claimed to be Tommy’s “real” mother. Minnie would testify a story of her son’s life and death that fulfilled the legal requirements for his land to be transferred to Page. And we meet Tommy himself—or the men who proclaimed themselves to be him, alive and well in court.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough evocative storytelling, Cobb chronicles with unflinching precision the lasting effects of land-grabbing white men on Indigenous peoples. What emerges are the interconnected stories of unabashedly greedy men, the exploitation of Indigenous land, and the legacy of a boy who may never have existed.","brand":"Russell Cobb (CA)","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback Trade paperback (US)","offer_id":49979264729445,"sku":"9780807021392","price":28.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/2651\/2997\/files\/BNCImageAPI_694c2110-3af2-4f75-9aa9-82d255629b72.jpg?v=1759417251","url":"https:\/\/www.commonplaceingersoll.ca\/products\/9780807021392","provider":"Commonplace Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}