Elijah Gersham Cravens (possibly Oct 20, 1867 – last seen Jan 1, 1902) from Okmulgee, Oklahoma was last seen on January 1, 1902.
Cravens was a farmer who lived outside Okmulgee, OK. When he went missing he was approx. between 30 and 40 years old. There is no official last address on file.
Case
He left on horseback to attend a ‘Woodmen of the World’ meeting. It is unknown if he ever arrived there but he was never seen again.
If you Google “Woodmen of the World” you will find that “WoodmenLife (officially Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Society) is a non-profit fraternal benefit society founded in 1890, based in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, that operates a large privately held insurance company for its members.”
I wonder if anyone contacted the organization to ask how far back their records go.
NamUs
His NamUs file was created on January 5, 2011. There you can find that his date of birth might have been October 20, 1867. If this is correct, Cravens was 34 years old when he went missing. There is therefore every chance that he could be buried somewhere as a John Doe or under a misspelled name.
As you can see on his NamUs profile we miss a lot of information about Cravens. We know he was a white male, between 5′ 0″ – 6′ 0″ (60 – 72 Inches) with an approx. weight between 100 – 300 lbs. No hair color, no distinctive physical features such as moles or scars, no eye color, nothing.
Contact information
If you have any information about this case please contact the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner Eastern Division at 1(918) 295-3400. Cravens’ Agency Case Number there is OCME MP11-001. His NamUs file number is NamUs #MP9137.
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In the series “Case of the Month” I highlight old cold cases. These posts are not an in-depth analysis and of course, often more information can be found online and in newspaper archives.
The goal of these posts is to get the cases back in the spotlights, to get people talking again, and if anything to make sure that we do not forget the victims. Just because their cases are unsolved does not mean that we can forget about them.
If you have any thoughts about this case I encourage you to post them on your own social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. Every time that we mention Elijah Gersham Cravens’ name online we enhance his digital footprint.
We must make sure that he keeps her web presence if we ever wish to find answers in his case. You can help by linking to or sharing this post.
Thank you for remembering Elijah Gersham Cravens with us.
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