Okla-homey
4/22/2009, 06:15 AM
I know some of the pictures are HUGE, but they have great detail and I thought you might enjoy nosing around in them.
April 22, 1889: Biggest Oklahoma land rush begins
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/7999/o2215496550x550mbartr0yk0.jpg
120 years ago today, at precisely high noon, thousands of would-be settlers make a mad dash into the newly opened Oklahoma Territory to claim cheap land. It was to be the first of many land runs, but later land openings were conducted by means of a lottery because of widespread cheating.
There were five land runs in Oklahoma:
1. Land Run of 1889 took place on this day at high noon in 1889 and involved the settlement of the Unassigned Lands (most of modern day Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties).
2. September 22, 1891: Land run to settle Iowa, Sac and Fox, Pottawatomie, and Shawnee lands. (Your correspondent's great gandfather Jim Lester made that one. Unfortunately, he got hooked out of his claim five years later because he hadn't "made the required improvements to the land." See, you didn't get to keep your claim unless you threw up appropriate buildings on it. He just farmed his, and being single, lived in a shack. No biggy, he ended up buying a quarter section in Okfuskee County from a Creek freedwoman and made a go of it, eventually acquiring a whole 160 acre section just northeast of Okemah. That area is still known as Lester Township. My great grandpa is buried in the Welty cemetery. His daughter (my granny), raised on that place married a boy from Lone Grove, OK and they settled in Ardmore in the 1920's.)
3. April 19, 1892: Land run to settle the Cheyenne and Arapaho lands.
4. September 16, 1893: Cherokee Strip Land Run. The Run of the Cherokee Strip opened nearly 7,000,000 acres to settlement. The land was purchased from the Cherokees for $7,000,000.
5. May 23, 1895: Land run to settle the Kickapoo lands
The nearly two million acres of land opened up to white settlement was located in Indian Territory, a large area that once encompassed much of modern-day Oklahoma.
The United States had entered into two new treaties with the Creeks and the Seminoles. Under these treaties, tribes would sell at least part of their land in Oklahoma to the U.S. to settle other Indian tribes and freemen. This land would be widely called the Unassigned Lands or Oklahoma Country in the 1880s due to it remaining uninhabited for over a decade.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/656/okterritoryjs9.png
In 1879, part-Cherokee Elias C. Boudinot argued that these Unassigned Lands be open for settlement because the title to these lands belonged to the United States and
"whatever may have been the desire or intention of the United States Government in 1866 to locate Indians and negroes upon these lands, it is certain that no such desire or intention exists in 1879. The Negro since that date, has become a citizen of the United States, and Congress has recently enacted laws which practically forbid the removal of any more Indians into the Territory".
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/3847/o470pxeliascorneliusbouug8.jpg
Elias Boudinot
In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison agreed, making the first of a long series of authorizations that eventually removed most of Indian Territory from Indian control.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/8403/o473pxbenjaminharrison2dg6.jpg
President Harrison
To begin the process of white settlement, Harrison chose to open a 1.9 million-acre section in the central part of modern Oklahoma that the government had never assigned to any specific tribe.
On March 3, 1889, Harrison announced the government would open the 1.9 million-acre tract of Indian Territory for settlement precisely at noon on April 22. Anyone could join the race for the land, but no one was supposed to jump the gun.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/1831/owest138ud6.jpg
Waiting on the big day in Arkansas City, KS.
With only seven weeks to prepare, land-hungry Americans quickly began to gather around the borders of the irregular rectangle of territory. Referred to as "Boomers," by the appointed day more than 50,000 hopefuls were living in tent cities on all four sides of the territory.
The events that day at Fort Reno on the western border were typical. At 11:50 a.m., soldiers called for everyone to form a line. When the hands of the clock reached noon, the cannon of the fort boomed, and the soldiers signaled the settlers to start.
With the crack of hundreds of whips, thousands of Boomers streamed into the territory in wagons, on horseback, and on foot. All told, from 50,000 to 60,000 settlers entered the territory that day. By nightfall, they had staked thousands of claims either on town lots or quarter section farm plots. Towns like Norman, Oklahoma City, Kingfisher, and Guthrie sprang into being almost overnight.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/1139/o2708275690054938111uebig6.jpg
"Hell's Half Acre" in Perry, OK in the weeks afteer the 1889 run.
An extraordinary display of both the pioneer spirit and the American lust for land, the first Oklahoma land rush was also plagued by greed and fraud. Cases involving "Sooners"--people who had entered the territory before the legal date and time--overloaded courts for years to come.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/3776/owest136oc3.jpg
Once you staked your claim, you had to guard it until you had registered your title in the land offices that sprang into being.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/6926/o111sc87369po5.jpg
Troop 'C,' 5th Cavalry, which arrested sooners and squatters prior to opening of Oklahoma, ca. 1888.
In 1893, the government purchased the rights to settle the Cherokee Outlet, or Cherokee Strip, from the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Outlet was part of the lands ceded to the government in the 1866 treaty, but the Cherokees retained access to the area and had leased it to several Chicago meat-packing plants for huge cattle ranches.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/1271/owest135cb3.jpg
"Lordy, there must be a decent spot to cop a squat around here somewhars".
The Cherokee Strip was opened to settlement by land run in 1894. The government attempted to operate subsequent runs with more controls, eventually adopting a lottery system to designate claims.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/7505/owest179qu9.jpg
Disputes over land were inevitable. Thus, with the Boomers came lawyers. In 1890, there were more lawyers in the Territory than doctors, school teachers and preachers.
By 1905, white Americans owned most of the land in Indian Territory. Two years later, the area once known as Indian Territory entered the Union as a part of the new state of Oklahoma.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/5846/owest148hs2.jpg
Anadarko, c.1901
April 22, 1889: Biggest Oklahoma land rush begins
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/7999/o2215496550x550mbartr0yk0.jpg
120 years ago today, at precisely high noon, thousands of would-be settlers make a mad dash into the newly opened Oklahoma Territory to claim cheap land. It was to be the first of many land runs, but later land openings were conducted by means of a lottery because of widespread cheating.
There were five land runs in Oklahoma:
1. Land Run of 1889 took place on this day at high noon in 1889 and involved the settlement of the Unassigned Lands (most of modern day Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties).
2. September 22, 1891: Land run to settle Iowa, Sac and Fox, Pottawatomie, and Shawnee lands. (Your correspondent's great gandfather Jim Lester made that one. Unfortunately, he got hooked out of his claim five years later because he hadn't "made the required improvements to the land." See, you didn't get to keep your claim unless you threw up appropriate buildings on it. He just farmed his, and being single, lived in a shack. No biggy, he ended up buying a quarter section in Okfuskee County from a Creek freedwoman and made a go of it, eventually acquiring a whole 160 acre section just northeast of Okemah. That area is still known as Lester Township. My great grandpa is buried in the Welty cemetery. His daughter (my granny), raised on that place married a boy from Lone Grove, OK and they settled in Ardmore in the 1920's.)
3. April 19, 1892: Land run to settle the Cheyenne and Arapaho lands.
4. September 16, 1893: Cherokee Strip Land Run. The Run of the Cherokee Strip opened nearly 7,000,000 acres to settlement. The land was purchased from the Cherokees for $7,000,000.
5. May 23, 1895: Land run to settle the Kickapoo lands
The nearly two million acres of land opened up to white settlement was located in Indian Territory, a large area that once encompassed much of modern-day Oklahoma.
The United States had entered into two new treaties with the Creeks and the Seminoles. Under these treaties, tribes would sell at least part of their land in Oklahoma to the U.S. to settle other Indian tribes and freemen. This land would be widely called the Unassigned Lands or Oklahoma Country in the 1880s due to it remaining uninhabited for over a decade.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/656/okterritoryjs9.png
In 1879, part-Cherokee Elias C. Boudinot argued that these Unassigned Lands be open for settlement because the title to these lands belonged to the United States and
"whatever may have been the desire or intention of the United States Government in 1866 to locate Indians and negroes upon these lands, it is certain that no such desire or intention exists in 1879. The Negro since that date, has become a citizen of the United States, and Congress has recently enacted laws which practically forbid the removal of any more Indians into the Territory".
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/3847/o470pxeliascorneliusbouug8.jpg
Elias Boudinot
In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison agreed, making the first of a long series of authorizations that eventually removed most of Indian Territory from Indian control.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/8403/o473pxbenjaminharrison2dg6.jpg
President Harrison
To begin the process of white settlement, Harrison chose to open a 1.9 million-acre section in the central part of modern Oklahoma that the government had never assigned to any specific tribe.
On March 3, 1889, Harrison announced the government would open the 1.9 million-acre tract of Indian Territory for settlement precisely at noon on April 22. Anyone could join the race for the land, but no one was supposed to jump the gun.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/1831/owest138ud6.jpg
Waiting on the big day in Arkansas City, KS.
With only seven weeks to prepare, land-hungry Americans quickly began to gather around the borders of the irregular rectangle of territory. Referred to as "Boomers," by the appointed day more than 50,000 hopefuls were living in tent cities on all four sides of the territory.
The events that day at Fort Reno on the western border were typical. At 11:50 a.m., soldiers called for everyone to form a line. When the hands of the clock reached noon, the cannon of the fort boomed, and the soldiers signaled the settlers to start.
With the crack of hundreds of whips, thousands of Boomers streamed into the territory in wagons, on horseback, and on foot. All told, from 50,000 to 60,000 settlers entered the territory that day. By nightfall, they had staked thousands of claims either on town lots or quarter section farm plots. Towns like Norman, Oklahoma City, Kingfisher, and Guthrie sprang into being almost overnight.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/1139/o2708275690054938111uebig6.jpg
"Hell's Half Acre" in Perry, OK in the weeks afteer the 1889 run.
An extraordinary display of both the pioneer spirit and the American lust for land, the first Oklahoma land rush was also plagued by greed and fraud. Cases involving "Sooners"--people who had entered the territory before the legal date and time--overloaded courts for years to come.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/3776/owest136oc3.jpg
Once you staked your claim, you had to guard it until you had registered your title in the land offices that sprang into being.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/6926/o111sc87369po5.jpg
Troop 'C,' 5th Cavalry, which arrested sooners and squatters prior to opening of Oklahoma, ca. 1888.
In 1893, the government purchased the rights to settle the Cherokee Outlet, or Cherokee Strip, from the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Outlet was part of the lands ceded to the government in the 1866 treaty, but the Cherokees retained access to the area and had leased it to several Chicago meat-packing plants for huge cattle ranches.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/1271/owest135cb3.jpg
"Lordy, there must be a decent spot to cop a squat around here somewhars".
The Cherokee Strip was opened to settlement by land run in 1894. The government attempted to operate subsequent runs with more controls, eventually adopting a lottery system to designate claims.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/7505/owest179qu9.jpg
Disputes over land were inevitable. Thus, with the Boomers came lawyers. In 1890, there were more lawyers in the Territory than doctors, school teachers and preachers.
By 1905, white Americans owned most of the land in Indian Territory. Two years later, the area once known as Indian Territory entered the Union as a part of the new state of Oklahoma.
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/5846/owest148hs2.jpg
Anadarko, c.1901