USA > Oklahoma > Oklahoma County > Oklahoma City > The story of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma : "the biggest little city in the world" > Part 18
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Ladies of the Grant Relief Corps of the Grand Army of the Republic on June 13 formally presented to the county a new flag containing forty-six stars. This was the first flag bearing an official endorsement or received by public officials that had added the star that represented the new state of Oklahoma. A presentation speech was made by Mrs. Mary J. Woods and an acceptance speech for the county by County Attorney E. E. Reardon. Other features of the program were an invocation by Dr. H. E. Colby, pastor of the Reformed Church, a reading by Mrs. Laura Corder, the singing of the Star Spangled Banner by Mrs. Abbie Hunter and the singing of America by the audience of about two hundred that was assembled on the courthouse plaza. The participants in chief were attended by a fife and drum corps of veterans of the Civil war.
Negotiations were started toward the end of the year for securing the establishment here of two large packing plants.
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Secretary McKeand of the Chamber of Commerce, having heard that representatives of Schwarzschild & Sulzberger of Chicago contemplated a visit to Fort Worth with a view of establishing a packery, wired them an invitation to stop in Oklahoma City. The invitation was accepted and they ar- rived here in the latter part of November. They were enter- tained by members of the Chamber and these men proposed that the city would raise as a bonus $200,000 in cash if the company would establish a plant in Oklahoma City. The visitors indicated that the proposition would be acceptable. "We have got to trade Johnny on the spot!" shouted G. B. Stone. No set of business men ever thought faster and more seriously nor acted more quickly than these. It was a momen- tous hour in the city's history. A committee was appointed to raise the bonus. It consisted of A. H. Classen, O. D. Hal- sell, C. F. Colcord, E. K. Gaylord, William Mee, Samuel Levy, Frank P. Johnson, J. E. O'Neil. R. N. Myers and W. T. Corder. Active MeKeand permitted no idle moments to pass. He kept business moving, typewriters clicking and telegraph wires singing, and he announced before the initial apprecia- tion of the first coup had been dulled by the labor of raising funds that Nelson Morris & Company, another large Chicago packing firm, was looking with favor upon Oklahoma City.
By ordinance of the council. twenty-two additions to the city, having a total population of about 3,000, were included within the city limits. These were MeKinley Heights, Put- nam Heights, University Heights, Las Vegas Heights, Uni- versity View, Aurora Heights. Military Park, part of Wei- nan's Addition, part of University Park Addition, part of Young and Englewood Additions, Jefferson Park, Grand View, Pleasant View, part of the Margaret MeKinley Subdi- vision, the Culbertson Second Addition, Bath Highland, Bath Orchard, East View, Edgmont, Guernsey Park, Fairlawn Cemetery and McKinley Place.
A banquet at the Grand Avenue Hotel, exercises at Wheeler Park, a parade and a program of speeches consti- tuted the program of the Eighty-niners Association on April 22. One hundred members of the association were in line of march and 125 attended the banquet. Addresses at the park were made by Mayor Scales and Dr. J. H. O. Smith, pastor
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of the First Christian Church. At the business session O. A. Mitscher was elected president. In the parade, D. C. Pryor rode a horse that belonged at that time to H. H. Schultz and was reputed to be the first horse that crossed the line in the run of '89. Later the horse was in the service of George Thornton, the city's first marshal. The meeting was attended by Mrs. Preston Sutton, whose maiden name was MeKeane, who was said to have been the only woman in a section of the assembled hosts at the border to make the run on horseback and locate and hold a homestead. She became a teacher after the founding of the city and taught in a little building on Reno Avenue. During the festivities of the cele- bration C. H. Mead, a member of the association, who had for some time been ill, died, at the age of fifty-five. He was a cigar manufacturer.
These were such busy commercial days that the city's builders forgot in a measure to look after things touching civic beanty. It was of consequence, therefore, that during the year a civic club was organized by an enthusiastic set of for- ward-looking and intelligent men and women. They called it the Oklahoma City Civic Improvement Association and its chief purpose was beautification through the planting of trees, shrubbery, and flowers and creation and extension of public parks. C. A. MeNabb, who had been secretary of the Terri- torial Board of Agriculture, was elected president, Will Il. Clark, who probably was the most accomplished landscape artist in the city at that time, vice president. R. A. Klein- schmidt, a lawyer and member of the city council, secretary. and O. A. Mitscher, treasurer. These men and T. F. Me- Mechan, Mrs. J. B. Taylor, wife of the city superintendent of schools, and A. H. Classen constituted the executive com- mittee.
Sheriff George W. Garrison, while seeking to arrest Alf Hunter, a negro accused of murder in Oklahoma County, was shot and mortally wounded by the negro in Blaine County on June 5. The tragedy produced a profound sensation in the city and the state, for Sheriff Garrison was one of the best known law enforcers of the Southwest. Posses of officers from several counties of the western part of the state joined in search for the negro. He eluded them, however, but some
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weeks later was apprehended in the eastern part of the state and duly tried and executed. On June 10th the county com- missioners appointed Harvey Garrison, son of the deceased officer, to the office of sheriff.
Since only a corporation commissioner and two members of the Supreme Court were to be elected this year, politics was not as animated as in the previous year, although it was a presidential period. W. L. Alexander had the honor of participating as a delegate in the first national convention in which the new state had first and full representation. Mr. Bryan, the democratic nominee for president, carried the state by about 15,000 majority, and Richard Morgan of Wood- ward defeated Congressman E. L. Fulton for reelection in the second district. Champ Clark stumped sections of the state for democrats and Uncle Joe Cannon sections for re- publicans. United States Senator Beveridge spoke in behalf of Mr. Taft, the republican nominee, in Oklahoma City and the eastern part of the state. Governor Haskell was com- pelled to resign as treasurer of the Democratic National Cam- paign Committee because of charges made against him by W. R. Hearst and his speech in Oklahoma City after the resigna- tion was characteristic of the man when aroused by political and personal animosity. It was an event.
In the election of November 3 the city voted bonds in the sun of $325,000, of which $300,000 was to be used in construc- tion of a high school.
Other events of the year included the resignation of T. G. Chambers as city attorney and the appointment of W. R. Taylor as his successor; the purchase by W. B. Skirvin of a lot at First and Broadway as a site for the Skirvin Hotel, from G. W. Turley, for $40,000, the lot having cost Turley in 1889 only $12; the approval by Congress of a bill appropriating $200,000 for a Federal building: the formal opening in June of the Lakeside Country Club, of which J. M. Bass was presi- dent, Joseph Hnekins, Jr., vice president, E. T. Hathaway, secretary, and G. K. Williams, treasurer; the retirement of Dr. David R. Boyd as president of the University of Okla- homa, the election of Dr. A. Grant Evans of Tulsa as his successor and the appointment of Lee Cruce, W. R. Rowsey, Judge Clifton J. Pratt, Dr. N. L. Linebangh, Dr. J. Matt
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Gordon and J. P. Hickam as a board of regents; the award- ing of paving contracts involving the expenditure of $800,000, which would increase the number of paved miles to fifty-eight ; the destruction by fire of the Lee Hotel on August 15, the loss being $125,000, and the breaking of dirt on December 12 for the present ten-story Huckins Hotel; the announcement of the Oklahoma State Fair Association of an increase of capital stock from $100,000 to $200,000, of its intention to ask the state for an appropriation of $100,000 to be used in building construction, and of the fact that nearly 65,000 paid admis- sions to the second fair had been received and that the asso- ciation had netted $14,000 out of the exposition ; and reports that bank elearings for the year, totaling nearly $50,000.000, had exceeded those of the previous year by over $20,000,000. and that building permits had totaled $2,700,000 which was more than double the total of the previous year.
Of the career of George B. Stone a writer of this period says :
"George B. Stone, to refer briefly to the principal event in his own career, was born at Mattoon, Ill., February 23, 1865. His parents were both born in Belmont County. Ohio. In 1849 his father went around the Horn to California, and in that state followed the trade of millwright as well as miner, and was one of the few who returned with some considerable addi- tion to their material prosperity. Subsequently he was a contractor and builder in Illinois, Iowa and Kansas, also en- gaged in the live stock business, and during 1875-76 was at Cheyenne. Wyo., engaged in selling horses and mules to the Goverment for use in the Black Hills country. On account of ill health he removed to Old Mexico, and in the winter of 1878 established his home in West Texas.
"It was at this time that the active career of George B. Stone began. From 1878 until 1882 he rode the range, a veri- table cowboy, and was in the employ of one of the large cattle outfits operating over the West Texas country. He was not only fearless and industrions, as most cowboys of the time were, 'but was also reliable in a business way, and conse- quently in 1882 his employers put him in charge of their ranch outfit, barns and transportation facilities at Colorado City, Texas. From there he removed in 1884 to Fort Worth, Texas.
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and started to feed cattle for the market. He suffered from a disastrous fire and in 1885 removed to El Paso, and for a time was a salesman for the firm of L. B. Frudenthal & Com- pany, wholesale dry goods and groceries. In 1887 Mr. Stone removed to Wolf City, Texas, and there first became actively identified with the real estate business. He constructed the first brick building in Wolf City, rented the lower floor for a bank, retaining his own office in the same building. In 1889 he removed his business headquarters to New Birming- ham, Texas, and there had charge of the real estate depart- ment for the New Birmingham Iron & Land Company. In the spring of 1890 Mr. Stone identified himself with Wichita Falls, Texas. He was in that city during its greatest period of development, when it became a railroad and business center, was in the real estate business and made himself in many ways an active factor in the upbuilding of the city. In 1897 Mr. Stone served as delegate from Texas to the Trans-Mis- sissippi Congress at Salt Lake City. There he was instru- mental in having the congress advocate a new measure in which he saw great prospective benefit and which provided that the state of Texas should so amend its constitution as to permit bonds to be issued against land in arid sections for irrigation purposes.
"Before coming to Oklahoma Mr. Stone had actively as- sisted in the expansion of its original territory for settlement. In February, 1899, he went to Washington, D. C., to advocate the opening of the Kiowa and Comanche country on the theory that it was a natural stock raising district and that by the use of silos could be made one of the most useful regions for the production of live stock in the United States. It was in 1900 that Mr. Stone removed to Oklahoma City, where he has since been engaged in the real estate and insurance business.
"Since its organization in 1907 he has been a director of the Oklahoma State Fair Association and has been vice presi- dent since 1913. He is a director of the American National Bank of Oklahoma City: a member of the Oklahoma City Men's Diner Club, and a member of the First Presbyterian Church."
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1909-COMING OF THE PACKERS
A more dramatic hour never was experienced in the city's history than one of a May day in 1909 when representative business men in a mass meeting, perceiving an industrial op- portunity the importance of which seldom comes to a com- munity and never to but few communities, signed pledges for nearly $500,000 to secure a packing plant costing in the neigh- borhood of $3,000,000. Secretary MeKeand's 2-cent stamp and a little message of invitation were getting results.
A representative of Nelson Morris & Company, a Chicago packing firm, being impressed with the advantageous location of the city and its railroad facilities, told these business men that his company would erect a packery here if it was given a cash bonus of $300,000 and some minor concessions. A handful of boosters listened intently. Almost with one accord they said, "We'll do it." A mass meeting was the initial consequence. When the opportunity was offered for sub- scriptions, Anton H. Classen, the town booster from away back, asked to be registered as giving $10,000. Oscar G. Lee, the hotel builder, said he'd take $10,000. So did C. F. Col- cord and C. G. Jones. A little man with a modulated voice, as animated and as eager as the rest, said, "Gentlemen, I am not a rich man, but I know what this means to all of us and I want to make my subscription $25,000!" It was Sidney L. Brock, the department store owner and president of the Chamber of Commerce. "Three cheers for Brock!" some one shouted, and he got it, unanimously, whole-heartedly. The tension tightened as animation increased, the tension of grit, of perseverance, of heroic determination. A stock exchange with a disturbed market had been transplanted here. A ledge of gold of fabulous possibilities had been touched by a pros- pector's pick. An oil gusher drilled into a pool of potential millions had been uncapped and allowed to flow.
Like a gambler who stakes his all on the last draw, Anton
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Classen, brimful and radiant of enthusiasm, shouted: "Raise my subscription to $40,000!" Adventurers followed suit and in very little more time than is required to tell the story the chief backers of prosperity subscribed over $400,000. Then it was announced that Mr. Broek and G. B. Stone had seenred an option on 575 acres of land for a consideration of $180,000 and that they had put up $25,000 to bind the deal. Where- upon a temporary organization of an industrial district com- pany was perfected with a view of selling lots out of the proceeds of which to raise the bonus of $300.000 as a reim- bursement of their own outlay. The temporary directors were A. H. Classen, Oscar G. Lee, Sidney L. Brock, C. B. Ames, G. B. Stone, Seymour Heyman, J. F. Harbour, C. F. Colcord, C. H. Ruth, O. P. Workman and J. M. Owen.
The temper of this gathering spread quickly throughout the city. It radiated in every business house, office and shop. Within twenty-four hours the gas and electric company an- nounced that it would double the capacity of its plant by an expenditure of over $600,000. The telephone company an- nounced that its capacity would be increased with an outlay of hundreds of thousands of dollars. John Shartel reported that Henry M. Daugherty of Ohio was due to arrive in the city to go over plans with the officials of the street railway company for constructing interurban lines. These were real oracles of prosperity and what the oracles prophesied came true.
Mr. Daugherty arrived in due time and in due time inter- urban construction began. In view of the fact that eleven years later this Ohio lawyer-financier became attorney gen- eral in the cabinet of President W. H. Harding, it is not unpardonable-on the contrary. it is pertinent-to quote a brief expression he made: "Personally. I think this is the greatest town in the United States. I haven't the slightest doubt about its growth and its stability. It is a city of en- terprising men who exercise business judgment."
When, a few days later, an industrial company was formed. Mr. Brock was elected president. Mr. Stone, vice president. Mr. MeKeand, secretary, and Mr. Jones, W. T. Hales, Ed- ward HT. Cooke (who had telegraphed his subscription from Enid on mass meeting day), Mr. Classen, Mr. Lee. Mr. Ames,
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Mr. Coleord and Mr. Heyman, directors. On the 14th of the following JJune a representative of the Schwarzschild & Sulz- berger Packing Company of Chicago came to town, and with him negotiations were started that resulted some time later in his company concluding to match the Morris enterprise in what was soon to become Packingtown. Activities relative to packeries during the next few months touched the platting of lots, securing rights of way for railroad trackage and loops, and the actual construction of the Morris plant.
This was a year of unparalleled commercial and industrial progress on the one hand and of official scandal, lax law en- forcement, grand jury investigations and petit jury trials and removals from office on the other hand. It was a con- glomerate year, but one in which individual and public progress outstripped sordidness, misanthropy and corruption and in which public decency and civic ideals ascended to a measure of triumph. It opened with the boost spirit and atmospheric element. Jobbers said that in twelve months their business had increased from $18,500,000 to $20,000,000. Bank deposits increased over $2,000,000 in less than two months. Prosperity seemed to be growing on the trees, pop- ping out of the bushes and forming like dew upon the grass. And while this spirit was prevalent the board of park com- missioners, W. F. Wahlberg. William H. Clark and Kay W. Dawson, took advantage of it and proposed a bond issue of $400,000 for park purchases and improvements, and their will prevailed in the April election. Out of the proceeds they se- cured the site for, laid out and graded and bridged a twenty- seven mile speedway completely encircling the city, known soon as Grand Boulevard, and purchased and began improve- ments on a tract of about seven hundred acres which the resi- dents know for some years as Northeast Lake but which was appropriately and patriotically christened Lincoln Park. It was an enterprise of magnificent possibilities and more scien- tific improvement of it was under way in 1921. But always prosperity and a spiritualized civic sense could not continue uninterruptedly and, for the lack of funds, the lack of per- ception of a necessity, and because of public and financial vicissitudes of the future, including war, the boulevard in the rough was in large measure neglected. Its possibilities
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remain, and some of this generation may witness realization of the hopes of its promoters, that it be famed as the ideal motor race course of the country.
On March 25 the Oklahoma City Civie Improvement Asso- ciation held its ammal meeting. The attendance of twenty- five members was recorded, which was a record in numbers for those days of engrossing business thought. The associa- tion resolved to buy 3,000 packets of seeds to be given to the Federation of Women's Clubs for distribution, and it dis- cussed practical ways of park extension and beautification. C. A. MeNabb was elected president, Curtis Bronson, J. H. Bell, A. B. Snell, the Rev. Thomas Harper, John H. Myers and J. A. Braniff, vice presidents, and Mrs. J. B. Taylor, sec- retary.
The getting acenstomed to prohibition was entered upon half-heartedly by anti-prohibitionists and local-optionists. The thought was repugnant to radicals among those elements whose influence openly flouted law enforcement. Radicals interpreted the belief of these elements as publie sentiment and bootleggers elevated it above the statutes. Bootlegging became open and notorious, so much so that suspicion attached to both county and city officials. It reached such notorious stages that Governor Haskell, after an investigation, con- cluded that officials of the Federal Government were conspir- ing to defeat the will of the majority in the new state. In a lengthy communication to President Taft he prayed that the Government make a probe. Distrust and dissatisfaction per- meated the city administration and an extended and acrino- nions controversy between Mayor Scales and Chief of Police Hubatka eventually terminated in the mayor discharging the chief. Hubatka, however, declined to remove his star and the battle waged again with more vigor than before. The discordant atmosphere of the city hall at length caused Dis- triet Judge George W. Clark to summon a grand jury.
Suspicion also attached to the county conrthouse, where bootleggers were said to have exercised an influence pro- duetive of laxity. It should be noted that law and order leagues and other associations of law-abiding residents had been formed during the reign of lawlessness and that their influence was gradually enlightening the law-breakers. These
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organizations quietly went to the governor and their visit in- spired the governor to instruct Attorney General Charles West to institute an inquiry. County AAttorney E. E. Reardon offered assistance of his office to the attorney general but coneluded to withdraw it after Mayor Scales had protested that the state officials should have a free hand. West con- vened a grand jury and it returned indictments against the chief of police and some other officials. The attorney general then said he purposed continuing sessions of the inquisitorial body to investigate the cause of the failure of the Columbia Bank & Trust Company of Oklahoma City. This was the first state bank failure after the adoption of the bank-guaranty law. Believing that the law was under fire of its enemies and that the financial situation was somewhat acute, Governor Haskell asked Mr. West to forego an investigation.
Enforcement advocates, however, were not satisfied with results and they petitioned the assembling of another grand jury. This was done on approval of state officials and Gov- ernor Haskell assigned John M. Hays, counsellor for the state enforcement department, to direct the probe. This roused the wrath of Mayor Scales and some rather intemperate com- munications were exchanged by the two executives. In the meantime District Judge Stilwell H. Russell of Ardmore, who had been assigned to the local bench for special cases, quashed indietments against Hubatka and other officials. The first grand jury had recommended the suspension of Sheriff Har- vey Garrison on the charge of bribery. and Judge Clarke, who issued the suspension order, appointed Samuel Calhoun sheriff for the term of the suspension. Calhoun resigned after a few weeks and was succeeded by U. S. Grant, a hotel keeper. Grant held the office but a short time and was succeeded by M. C. Binion, who served until May 13, 1910, when Judge Russell vacated the suspension order and restored Garrison to the office, the latter having offered convincing proof that his indictment was brought about by perjured testimony.
During the year an organization known as the Sons of Washington was formed in the state. While it advocated strict law enforcement, it opposed the principle of prohibition. Its influence became an important factor in political affairs, bringing about an initiated measure providing for repeal of
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the prohibition law and the announcement the next year of a candidate for governor who advocated local option. The meas- ure was defeated in the November election of next year by a majority of over twenty thousand and the candidate suffered defeat in the primary of the August preceding.
Mayor Scales was reelected in the April election, defeat- ing George Dodson, the republican nominee, and John Hu- batka was reelected chief of police. James S. Twyford, ic- publican nomince for city attorney, and Robert Parman, republican nominee for city clerk, were elected, as were J. T. Highley, democratic nominee for police judge, and E. C. True- blood, democratie nominee for city treasurer. In an autumn election bonds aggregating $185,000 for sewer extensions welt voted and other propositions relating to a city hall site and the construction of a city hall were defeated.
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