Wilson, Enus (d. 1937)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1937 Jul 28 p. 1

Birth date:

text of obituary:

RICHEST INDIAN OF OKLAHOMA DIED RECENTLY

According to a press report from Tulsa, Okla., the title "world's richest Indian" probably has died with Enus Wilson, the young Creek full-blood, who had $1,270,000 in cash and bonds and an $80,000 home.

The government knows which Indian is richest but it won't tell. It doesn't want its wards on the "sucker list."

Osages always have been called the world's richest tribe but at the Pawhuska agency C. L. Ellis, acting superintendent, pooh-poohed the idea that an Osage had a million dollars.

"I won't talk about specific cases because the government has found it's such bad policy to popularize our oil-wealthy wards," he smiled. "People pester them about money. We won't have them exploited."

It is the same at Muskogee, headquarters of the Five Civilized Tribes comprising the creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Seminoles, "Jackson Barnett was by far the wealthiest of the 35 Creek Indians who received land allotments in Creek county in areas that became the Cushing and Drumright oil fields," said an agency official who refused his name.