Fred S. Clinton

Fred Severs Clinton was one of the first medical doctors in Oklahoma, beginning to practice while the area was still Indian Territory. Born near the present city of Okmulgee on 15 April 1874, he was listed on the Dawes Rolls as one eighth Creek by blood. He studied pharmacy at the Kansas City College of Pharmacy, graduating in 1891, and medicine at University Medical College, now part of the New York University School of Medicine, graduating in 1897. In Tulsa, then a raw frontier town, he treated many cowboys and railroad workers injured in accidents and fights, at first with no formal office. He built the first hospital in Tulsa and campaigned for better water and sewer systems, public health facilities and fireproof buildings. He presided over the Oklahoma State Hospital Association from 1919 to 1926 and, as a financial partner of Dr. J. C. W. Bland, helped pay for drilling the Sue A. Bland No. 1, the first oil well at Red Fork. Failing health in the early 1930s, including loss of sight in his right eye, ended his work as a surgeon, and he turned to writing local history of public health and medicine. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1932 and died in 1955.