He first came to Oklahoma soon after the opening of the Cherokee Strip and became a deputy sheriff, but previously was sentenced to prison for bank robbery (but escaped).
A December 1975 tornado that "just dropped out of the sky" cut a half-mile swath through east Tulsa, disproving the belief that such storms always occur in the spring.
Matt Kimes, whose criminal career began in the 1920s, eluded FBI agents and police officers in four states after robbing a bank while on leave from Oklahoma penitentiary in 1945.