Weston Wednesday: Tom Mix and Olive Stokes, Part 2

Editor's Note: In collaboration with the Bartlesville Area History Museum, the Examiner-Enterprise has revived the late Edgar Weston's 'Revisiting the Past' columns that ran in the newspaper from 1997-99. Weston's columns recount the history of Bartlesville as well as Washington, Nowata and Osage counties.

Tom and Olive Stokes Mix returned to the Stokes Flying Z Ranch after honeymooning at Miles City, Montana. They had been married by Nels Nichols, a Justice of the Peace, on January 19, 1909.

Tom had finally met someone who loved adventures as much as he did. Olive, a Scotch-Cherokee cowgirl, had learned to ride and rope on her family’s ranch in the Osage Hills of Oklahoma. Olive was a performer in her own right. They took part in some Wild West Shows where Tom met Will Dickey under contract to the Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago, IL, which later opened the door to moving pictures.

The 101 Ranch employed Tom intermittently through 1911. Tom returned to the Miller Brothers Wild West Show late in 1910 and appeared in Mexico City where he, Stack Lee and Bill Pickett staged the same thrilling stunts that started Will Rogers on the road to fame. The show was held at a Mexican Bullfight Ring and Tom and Stack turned loose a bull in the grandstand among the screaming spectators. Astride his horse, Bill roped the bull and pulled him from the bleachers before he could do any harm. This was the same Bill Pickett, the famous black cowboy, who invented the sport of “bulldogging” while billed as Champion Bulldogger for the 101 Ranch Wild West Show.

Tom Mix carried on with his job as Deputy Town Marshall at Dewey. Many of the derring cowboy stunts were learned by Tom at the 101 Ranch. He had mixed emotions as to whether to pursue the Wild West Shows or engage in movie making. Selig hired Tom during the production of “Ranch Life in the Great Southwest” to handle the livestock and act as safety man. Tom wanted a chance to “act” in the film and asked Director Francis Boggs, who consented, and Tom was featured in a “bronco busting” sequence – his first role in the motion picture industry. This was the beginning of Tom’s career as a regular Selig actor.

Olive tried to influence Tom to stay on the Stokes Ranch and become established there. Her efforts were not successful and after building the summer home upon the Osage hill, on the ranch, Tom insisted that he wanted to establish a name for himself and someday to own a large ranch out in the west. Olive saw that Tom could not be influenced to stay on the Flying Z Ranch, and she accepted his decision.

Tom made several movies in Missouri and Illinois with Selig Company, then they tried Colorado where the scenery was great, but the season too short. A movie colony was set up in Prescott, Arizona and several men from the Dewey and Washington County area went to Prescott. One that remained with Selig was Sid Jordan from the Ramona area. He was the son of the first Sheriff of Washington County, John Jordan, they were Cherokees.

Tom’s daredevil attitude and exceptional horsemanship were the perfect combination for silent western films. His movie career spanned from 1909-1935 with a reported list of contracts at

Selig, Fox Film Booking, Universal and Mascot studios. To his credit, he made 336 feature films, produced 88, wrote 71 and directed 117 films.

Old Blue was Tom’s original “faithful steed” and movie companion. Tom retired the horse in 1914 and Tony the “Wonder Horse” was the replacement. Tony was retired in 1932 to the Mix stables in Universal City and Tony Junior became Tom’s “side kick” for the rest of his movie career. Tony Jr. was trained as a circus performer and the duo performed together in the Sells-Floto Circus in 1929 and 1931. They then made movies 1932-1933 before returning to the circus 1934-1938 when Tony Jr. accompanied Tom on his European tour in 1938.

The only daughter of Tom and Olive Mix was Nadine “Ruth” Mix, born in Dewey in 1912. Following in her father’s footsteps, Ruth began her acting career in the mid-1920s, starring in several silent films. She made a total of twelve westerns, namely “The Tonto Kid,” “Fighting Pioneers,” “Saddle Aces” and “Gunfire,” all made in 1935. In 1936 she starred in three cliffhanger serials, “The Black Coin,” “The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand,” and “Custer’s Last Stand.” She also played the female lead in a few B-westerns, starring alongside Wally Walls and Hoot Gibson. She then retired from acting and began taking the lead role for her father’s circus and Wild West Show. That business went bankrupt by the end of the 1930s, during the Great Depression. After that, she all but disappeared from acting circles.

Tom and Olive divorced in 1917 and Tom married four additional times. He also had a daughter with Victoria Ford, named Thomasina Mix. Tom died October 11, 1940 in a highway car accident between Tucson and Florence, AZ. In recognition of his life contributions to the film industry, Tom Mix has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; his hand and boot prints are at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood; he has been inducted into the Western Performer’s Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in OKC; books have been written; and there are two museums in his honor, Dewey, OK and Mix Run in Pennsylvania.

Olive once said she liked Tom when they married but fell in love with him later. Tom had a restless soul that could not be tamed. After their divorce, she never married again. Her short film career, 1911-1917, included “Dad’s Girls” (1911), “Told in Colorado” (1911), “Why the Sheriff is a Bachelor” (1911), “A Cowboy’s Best Girl” (1912), “The Scapegoat” (1912), “The Diamond ‘S’ Ranch” (1912), “Saved from the Vigilantes” (1913) and “The Single Code” (1917). In 1957, she collaborated with Eric Heath to publish her firsthand account of Tom’s life in a book titled “The Fabulous Tom Mix.” She died at Los Angeles in 1972 at the age of 85.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Weston Wednesday: Tom Mix and Olive Stokes, Part 2