Tulsa Police Station Location Circa 1921

"By half-past nine o’clock on Tuesday evening, the white mob outside the county courthouse had swollen to nearly two thousand persons. They blocked the sidewalks and the streets, and spilled over onto the front yards of nearby residences. There were women as well as men, children as well as adults. And with each passing minute, there were more and more guns. Willard M. McCullough, Tulsa County’s new sheriff, tried to talk the would-be lynchers into going home, but the mob hooted him down. McCullough had, however, organized his handful of deputies into a defensive ring around Dick Rowland, who was being held in the jail on the top floor of the courthouse. The sheriff positioned six men, armed with rifles and shotguns, on the roof of the building. He also disabled the elevator, and ordered his men at the top of the stairs to shoot any intruders on sight. Tulsa police chief John A. Gustafson later claimed that he, too, tried to talk the lynch mob into going home. But, at no time on the afternoon or evening of May 31st did he order a substantial number of his sixty-four-man police force to appear, fully armed, in front of the courthouse. Indeed, by 10:00 p.m., when the drama at the courthouse was nearing its climax, Gustafson was no longer at the scene, but had returned to his office at Police Headquarters." HIll, K- 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre (pg 263)

Police Chief John Gustafson: Hired in April 1920 despite a previous dismissal from the force and a checkered background. He and the department were subjects of state attorney general investigation at the time of the race massacre.

Tulsa County Sheriff W.M. McCullough: Served as sheriff twice previously and was elected again when voters turned out James Woolley in 1920 over the Belton lynching.