‘World’s richest Indian’ dies in L.A.
May 29, 1934: Jackson Barnett, a Creek Indian whose Oklahoma tribal land was the site of a lucrative oil strike in 1912, died in Los Angeles at 93.
“Jackson Barnett, reputedly the world’s richest Indian, was found dead yesterday in his palatial Colonial mansion at Wilshire Boulevard and Rossmore Avenue,” The Times reported on the front page. It said Barnett had been a man of simple tastes who liked to direct traffic in front of his home.
Barnett, who had sustained a head injury falling from a horse, had a childlike mind. After the oil strike, the government declared him incompetent, giving him $40 a month for nearly a decade, with his fortune held in trust. At 79, he married a 40-year-old who got the allowance raised to $2,500, but officials repeatedly took the couple to court. After a final dispute over his burial, Barnett was interred at Hollywood Cemetery.
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