Charles Francis Colcord - Later Years and Death

Later Years and Death

By the 1920s, Colcord was a wealthy man. He learned of opportunities for cattle ranching in southern Delaware County, Oklahoma and built a 2,000-acre (810 ha) ranch there. Nearby a little community was springing up that was named after the rancher in February 1930. Mr. Colcord employed many local residents of Colcord, Oklahoma and was very important to the spirit and economy of the growing town.

In 1933, Colcord had his last episode with lawbreakers. A close friend of his, Charles Urschel, was kidnapped by Machine Gun Kelly and his gang and held for ransom, not uncommon in those Depression days. Colcord called a meeting at the Colcord Building of the richest men in Oklahoma City and put together a large reward. Kelly was eventually captured, and Charles Urschel was returned unharmed.

A Democrat in politics, Colcord was president of the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce in 1914 and president of the Oklahoma Historical Society during the 1920s and 1930s until his death. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1929 and had achieved the thirty-second degree of the Masonic Order. He was also a member of the Oklahoma Consistory of the Valley of Guthrie, the Indian Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and the Golf and Country Club.

A few months before his death, as president of the Historical Society, Oklahoma's "First Citizen" gave an address at a reunion of the Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty pioneers that gave remarkable insight into the history of the Great Plains.

He died in 1934 at age 75 at his Delaware County ranch; with a police honor guard, his body lay in state in the rotunda of the Oklahoma Historical Society building. At his death, his estate was unofficially valued at $1.5 million, the equivalent of about $24 million in 2009. He is buried with his wife, Charles F. Colcord Jr. (1888–1900), W. R. Colcord (1827–1901), Sidney B. Clay (1847–1918) and Rena (Piner) Colcord (1886–1938) in Oklahoma City's Fairlawn Cemetery.

His tombstone reads:

"His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up —
And say to all the world, 'This was a man'."