 In 1875, the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas had jurisdiction over one-third of the state of Arkansas and all of the Indian Territory to the west that eventually became the state of Oklahoma.This area comprised over of some of the most wild and violent lands in the postbellum United States.At the request of Powell Clayton and other prominent Arkansas Republicans, President Grant appointed Isaac Charles Parker, a Republican office holder from Missouri with an impeccable reputation, to the Court in order to clean up the prior stain of corruption and to bring law and order to the Western District.