On June 27, 1887, William D. Morgan, a white coal miner who lived in the Choctaw Nation just north of the Texas border, left home to travel to south Texas in search of a climate better suited to his tuberculosis.
His body was found the next day near Blue Tank, Indian Territory. He had been strangled, robbed, and beaten.
Gus Bogle, a Black man from Texas, was arrested on June 30. Surviving records do not indicate how he became a suspect. He denied all knowledge of the killing.
At trial in Fort Smith, witnesses testified that Bogle was among a group of Black men seen on a train with Morgan. Bogle was convicted of murder on June 10, 1888, and sentenced to death on June 26. Gus Bogle was hanged on July 6, 1888.
The Federal Death Penalty Project 