USA > Oklahoma > Oklahoma County > Oklahoma City > The story of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma : "the biggest little city in the world" > Part 4
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He waited with the hundred thousand at the eastern line of the promised land and when the canon boomed, his spir- ited mount charged majestically through the quickly dis- arranged lines of horsemen. The country was familiar to Lake. He knew the short-cut routes of the timberland, and the crossable fording places of the large streams. He trav- eled many miles alone over a southward swing, correct in the assumption that the hordes would center fire to the west or shoot diagonally to the northward. He conserved horseflesh and human strength, a precaution that never entered the minds of thousands of eager riders. He rode at a moderate speed over the middle section of the route, stopping occa- sionally to let his steed blow and cool. He rode at last tri- umphantly upon the old ranch. South of the river he staked a claim, with not a man to contest him. When he was fully established, with mount habiliments, a frying pan and a few vietuals as wherewithal of settlement proof, he peered through the trees to the northward. He beheld the eloth and pine beginnings of a city, outspread over the near environs of the ranch house.
The relative quietude of his virgin homestead lasted for but a few minutes, for out of the Chickasaw Country came a horde of mad men racing northward. Tree high rose the creamy clouds of dust beaten out of the grass-carpeted lands by the steeled hoofs of ten thousand snorting, panting, sweat- ing steeds. Heavy thunders rose out of the mighty cavalcade. The vanguard burst out of a lower line of timber npon the prairie valley of the Lake homestead.
Lake watched their approach eagerly. He sensed as an observer the almost savage wildness of their protagonistie desires. Suddenly they were upon him. Their dust enveloped him so that he was hid from the sight of the rear divisions. Ile fled to a large elm tree twenty rods away for protection.
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Out of the ontstripping rank a man dropped and dismounted by the tree. They faced each other half blinded.
"No competition here, sir," said the arrival. It was a familiar voice to Lake.
"And none here," replied Lake.
"Holy hemlocks!" exclaimed Louis Mason. "We meet again and on the old ranch."
"And a mighty welcome chap you are," laughed Lake. "What are you after ?"
"Town lots," replied Mason.
The heavy cavalcade approached the river.
"I'll be back and bunk with you," Mason said at parting. He remounted and his respited horse plunged spiritedly into the sand and then into the water of the stream.
Reaching the boundary of the embryo city Mason turned his horse into a public corral of barbed wire, received from the keeper an identification card and hurried toward the reg- istration booth. Before the booth stood a line of waiting men and women hundreds of yards long. It was at this booth that applicants for town lots stated their qualifications to purchase.
Mason made another link in the waving and weaving In- man chain. The advance was a few inches at a time. After two hours he was within ten yards of the booth. The line here was on the main street of the tent city. Gamblers, high- waymen, confidence men, contest attorneys, claim jumpers, traders, real estate dealers, the marks of whose professions were writ unmistakably upon their faces, mingled and milled along the line, each awaiting his human prospect.
"How much for your place in line ?" yelled a coarse voice out of the din of the jumble. Mason's face veered toward the sound. "Hello, kid, I want to trade with you," called Bill Bryant.
"I'll trade with you after the show," laughed Mason.
"Give you a thousand, " roared Bryant.
Mason edged forward, urged by the toes of boots at his heels, toe nudging the heels before him. Now visible before him, printed in large black letters, was a sign above the regis- tration window containing rules made and posted by the Sec- retary of the Interior. Mason read it. Out of his face went the enthusiasm of the quest. Castles tumbled, crashed and were
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wrecks in a maelstrom of darkness. He suddenly collected himself, deliberated for a dozen seconds, envisioned the sweet and smiling face of Mary Lake, turned half about and called to Bill Bryant.
"Bring along your thousand," he said, "I've had enough of this."
Bryant hastened to him, counted out the thousand dollars in dirty currency, and took Mason's place in the line. "Got a bad foot," said Bryant. "Couldn't 'a' stood it all day."
Robert Lake and his wife and daughter in due time settled on their homestead beside the river, just outside the city limits. Early came Mason to visit them.
"How's the locating business ?" asked Lake.
"More than I can do," answered Mason. "Wish I had a dozen of our old cow punchers to help me. I know the trails; the new-comers don't. I can place five men to their one. Never saw such opportunity to make money."
It was a season of sociability in the Lake cottage. They forgot business and the newness and roughness and down- right erudeness of things and harked back to the days before dust, almost impassable streets of mud, assaults, robberies, killings and the hundred and one minor inconveniences and travesties. In the late evening Louis and Mary spoke quietly and alone on an old white log in the pasture. They discoursed on momentous nothings until the subject melted into moon- beams, and then proceeded to settle once and for all that more practical but equally momentous question of a cottage for two.
The Daily News thirty days later announced the organiza- tion of the Commerce National Bank, of which Robert Lake, "former'cattle king," was chosen president, and Louis Mason, "one of the city's most excellent young business men." was chosen cashier.
Sixty days later the Daily News reported at column length the wedding of Mr. Louis Mason and Miss Mary Lake, the latter "the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Mr. Rob- ert Lake and one of the fairest flowers of the land of the fair god."
In the cottage for two one balmy evening of the honeymoon
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they were taking an inventory of recent events. "You never told me," said Mary, "why you did'nt get that coveted Main Street lot of which you talked before the run."
"Oh, I had forgotten that, " Louis laughed. "The truth is, my conscience wouldn't let me take the risk. A sign over the registration window said: . No person of Indian blood shall be permitted to register.' That's why I sold my place in the line, a place I held in all good faith until I neared the window, and a place sold in all good faith to an Arkansawyer with a disabled foot."
Among the early callers at the bank was Bill Bryant. He came, he said, to express good wishes for the new institution and incidentally to borrow a couple of hundred for thirty or sixty days.
"That'll be all right, Mr. Bryant." said the accommodat- ing cashier. "I take it that you can give us a mortgage on the lot you drew."
"No, I can't," replied Bryant sadly. "You see, I didn't get to keep the lot. Went to court and all that, but the con- testant won and I was put off."
"On what grounds ?" asked Mason.
"They proved that I was a sooner," replied Bryant, "and sooners are in bad repute hereabouts."
3
THE FOUNDING OF OKLAHOMA CITY
BY DR. A. C. SCOTT
Monday, April 22, 1889, was a perfect day in the Oklahoma Country. Not a cloud flecked the sky all day long. Scarcely the whisper of a breeze could be noted, or the bending of a blade of grass. The wine of spring was in the air, and the freshness of spring was evident to all the senses. A certain area upon which today stands a city of 100,000 people was, on the morning of that day, an unbroken prairie, low and level in the loop of the North Canadian River to the South, but rising and more rolling to the North. The land had been burned clear, and the soft new grass of spring, sprinkled with multitudinous wild flowers, made the view a peaceful and a charming one. But this was in the morning, and up to noon. By evening the grass and flowers were erushed beneath the feet of thousands of hurrying and excited men, and the deeper sears of horses' hoofs and wheels of innumerable ve- hicles. In six hours the natural beauty of the scene was com- pletely obliterated-beyond recognition or hope of repair.
For Oklahoma City was born that day. The Romans reck- oned time for many centuries from the founding of the city. The 22d of April, 1921, was for Oklahoma City, A. U. C. 32. Many cities, it is to be presumed, had their start on a cer- tain day; but few, if any, have started with such a rush and so dramatically. On the morning of April 22, 1889, Okla- homa City had a name but no inhabitants; in the evening it had a population of 10,000 persons, and was permanently on the map. To one looking over it that evening, as this writer had the privilege of doing, it was a bizarre and motley sight ; a city of tents; tents as far as the eve could see; some old and soiled, but for the most part new and very white, and giving forth a spectral aspect as the twilight fell. A very transient and fleeting appearance it had, too, as if it might
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break camp and move on in the morning. But it was in reality by no means transient. It is interesting to reflect that these slight canvas tenements rooted their owners to the soil and gave them titles which no man could take away. The tents were soon replaced by wooden structures, and these in turn gave way to briek, granite, concrete and steel.
And this was the way it happened: On March 3, 1889, by a "rider" on the Indian Appropriation bill, Oklahoma had been declared open to settlement. President Harrison had an- nounced April 22d as the opening day, and 12 o'clock noon the earliest at which one could legally enter the land. And it was in fact just the "land." It was not a territory; it was not a state; it was just "the Oklahoma country." It had no or- ganization, no government, and no laws except such as were generally applicable to Federal territory. It is important to remember this in reading the story of the founding of Okla- homa City, since there were no laws providing for the organi- zation of municipalities and no power to make them. There was not even any legal authority to lay out streets and alleys, blocks and lots. There was one Federal law, however, appli- cable to the case and that was that if a certain mimber of people went upon a subdivision of public homestead land with the purpose of forming a town or city, that act segregated the land in question from the ordinary homestead land and made of it homestead lots-which means that any man could enter upon a certain number of lots and hold them, providing he was the first to "settle." In other words, the lots were to be had for the taking: and since there was a very general im- pression that Oklahoma City was to be the chief city of the coming State, getting in on the ground floor seemed to offer a rare opportunity of obtaining something for nothing.
And that was why 10,000 people rushed to this particular spot-a mere station on the Santa Fe Railroad-as soon after noon of April 22d as they could get there. Some even rushed to it sooner-more stealthily, however: and that explains how the word "sooner" came into instant and universal vogue in Oklahoma, and even got into the dictionaries. There were "trenches" in those days as well as in these, and when the hour of twelve arrived these trenches discharged many a man who made swift tracks for the choicest lots.
13-64
$
R
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1
C. W. Price, Colo. W. Il. Ebey, Kan. John A. Blackburn, Mo. A. L. Mendlick, Wis. A. C. Scott, Kan. O. H. Violet, Cal. M. U. Barney, III.
J. B. Wheeler, Mich. B. N. Woodson, Texas.
GROUP OF PIONEERS
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The first legal settlers came, probably, from the nearest point on the South Canadian River, about eleven miles dis- tant. They came tumultuously, on horseback and in wagons, reaching the townsite 20 minutes before 1 o'clock. On their heels followed other multitudes from points of entrance slightly more distant. Then came the avalanche, trainloads upon trainloads, by the Santa Fe from North and South. Every coach was filled to suffocation, and the roof of every car was packed with men. The passengers began to fall off or out of the cars long before the trains came to a stop. Every man carried stakes and an axe, because, however little he knew about the law in the case, he knew that the way to get lots was to "stake" them, and to stake them first. And every man hit the ground running, for he knew there was a possibil- ity of staking a lot that would be worth $5,000 within a week. As a matter of fact, many a man did stake property that after- noon which has since sold for a more than comfortable fortune.
That was a long and strenuous afternoon. It seemed as if some thousands of human beings had gone mad. All over the townsite men were furiously driving stakes and setting up tents. Not that a man could hold all the lots he could stake. There was a limit under the Federal law, but few knew what it was, and many staked, or "settled," all they could in the hope that they would get all the law allowed in the final out- come. This went on until about 7 o'clock, when it seemed to occur to everybody at once that it was supper time. A truce to rivalry seemed to be declared by common consent. and ac- tivities suddenly ceased. The odor of frying bacon and brew- ing coffee rose in the air most delectably from thousands of camp-fires or rudely improvised camp-stoves. Then was the city of tents seen at its best and most dramatic moment : and as the night came on and innumerable camp-fires and lanterns gave fitful illumination to the scene, one might well have fancied that this was a military encampment or the setting of some Inge frolic.
Not a few worked on through the night, but for the most part the weary altitude slept with such measure of comfort as they could command. About midnight a loud, slow call floated over the townsite from the North: "Oh, Joe, here's your mule!" It was taken up by voice after voice, and the Vol. 1-5
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multiplied cries passed over the town and on like a flock of migratory birds. It afterwards developed that this homely call resounded over a great part of Oklahoma Country that night, and there are many who aver that it arose in the north- west portion as a bona fide piece of information to a man who had lost his mule, and was taken up by man after man in the densely populated region-though peopled in a single after- noon-and thus traversed the course of nearly a hundred miles. At any rate, utterly insignificant as this incident is, it is easily the most universally remembered event of the first- day history of Oklahoma.
The next morning operations were renewed with vigor. Some wooden "shacks" began to appear, hastily thrown to- gether from lumber or ready-framed parts of houses pre- viously shipped in. But the question began to rise very in- sistently to every lip, "Where are we getting with all this struggle ?" Every man was after lots, but the trouble was, there were no lots. The town was not laid off in lots and blocks. Every stake driven represented a gamble. It might be on a lot, when lots should be established, and it might with almost equal chance prove to be in a street or an alley. So about noon a small group of men, strangers to one another, but thrown together in the common confusion, decided that the best way, and indeed, the only way, to get things headed toward some sort of solution was to call a mass meeting. This was no sooner thought of than done. Half a dozen boys were found, placed on ponies, provided with bells, and instructed to ride all over the townsite calling the people to a meeting at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.
Nobody stayed away from that meeting. Men gathered by thousands and by acres. The writer of this sketch was elected chairman: and to have this part over, he presided also over the second great mass meeting, held the next Saturday, to which reference will be made. This fact is mentioned to give assurance that these incidents are narrated by one who had them sharply impressed upon his memory. He had .one in- dispensable asset, as it proved-a strong and carrying voice.
Well, this Tuesday afternoon meeting raged for three homs, and at the end the chairman's voice suddenly went out
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EARLY SETTLERS
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in a whisper. It was not a riotous meeting, but it was a tu- multnous one. At the beginning a very large and long box was found and placed on end, and the chairman hoisted to the top of it. A secretary was elected and lifted to the top of a similar box beside the chairman. Then the big talk began. There were some warm words for the "sooners" and for a certain town company which had made a pre-opening plat of the town and was trying to sell lot locations; but chiefly the question was how we should lay out the town when there was no law for it. It was finally determined to elect a committee of fourteen men; with power to divide the townsite into streets, alleys, blocks, and lots, beginning at a certain desig- nated spot, and to name the streets. The committee was in- structed to proceed to its task at once. The manner of electing these fourteen men was curious, to say the least, and probably unique in the history of election. It is to be remembered that these thousands of men, coming from every part of the coun- try, were almost universally strangers to one another. There- fore when the first man was nominated, the instant ery was, "Let's see him." So he was hustled through the crowd to the boxes where the chairman and secretary stood, then boosted from below by those on the ground and pulled from above by the two officers on the boxes until he, too, stood exposed to the gaze of the multitude. And this proceeding was followed in the case of every man placed in nomination. If the crowd liked his looks they voted him up; if not, they voted him down-and this without the slightest compunction. It was tough to be voted down just on one's looks, But ser- eral were thus rejected. Among those voted out was Gen. James B. Weaver, once a candidate for President of the United States. But it wasn't on account of his looks, since he was a notably fine-looking man. It was by reason of some passing prejudice against him, the nature of which the writer has forgotten if he ever knew. There was no possibility of taking a "division" on contesting votes: the chairman had to judge as best he could by the size of the roars for the differ- ent sides, for the crowd voted altogether by roars. But there was another limitation upon eligibility to this committee besides looks, and that was that no two men should hail from the same State. So when this most stremions and personal
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election was over, the Committee of Fourteen represented fourteen states of the Union.
The committee went to work that very night and continued its labors until far beyond midnight. It met in a large, flap- ping tent-for the April breeze had awakened-and its pro- ceedings were conducted by the light of lanterns and torches. It laid off Oklahoma City exactly as it stands now, except for one important correction rendered necessary by the force of circumstances within the week, the story of which is a story of near-tragedy that will be told in its place. Of course, how- ever, the land then laid off is but a small fraction of the area occupied by Oklahoma City today, and is now almost wholly covered by business structures. The committee employed a surveyor, and he, with his party, was instructed to begin sur- veying and measuring off the lots and blocks the next morning. This was the thing that would reveal who had drawn prizes and who had drawn blanks. This work was energetically undertaken on Wednesday morning.
Also, at its session that Tuesday night, the Committee of Fourteen appointed a sub-committee of five to follow the sur- veyors, and hear and determine the rights of contesting claim- ants to the lots : for in many cases there were from two to half a dozen settlers on a single lot, and the question was, who legally got there first ? As soon as the surveyors got fairly under way. marking off the lots as they went, this sub-committee began its work, passing from lot to lot, hearing the evidence of the parties, and summarily deciding the cases on the spot. An immense crowd attended the committee, and the press of the throng soon became so great that it was found necessary to nail three long boards together, thus forming a triangle within which the committee could be protected from the crowd. This triangle the inner circle of the spectators and litigants good- naturedly bore along, and thus the peripatetie tribunal went more or less comfortably on its way.
Of course, there was no legal warrant for this procedure. and many who were ousted subsequently presented their claims to a commission appointed by the President under an act of Congress passed about a year later. But for the most part the contestants accepted the decisions of the sub-commit- tee. Those who found their stakes and tents to be in streets
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المطلبا فطبية طاه بالسليدر ماخشيتك الب ساط
CAPTMIN W. L. COUCH
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and alleys packed up their belongings and left, and within two or three days the streets began to be clearly defined.
But trouble was brewing for the Committee of Fourteen. Reference has already been made to a town company which came to the opening with a prearranged plat of Oklahoma City. This was the Seminole Town Company of Topeka, Kan. While the Committee of Fourteen was strenuously pushing its survey up from the South, the Seminole Town Company was urging people to settle according to its plat on Main Street and to the North. And it was succeeding. Friday came, and the citizen's survey had reached Grand Avenue, the street just south of Main. And then the "situation" sud- denly developed. The Seminole Town Company's plat had been made with reference to the course of the Santa Fe Rail- road-that is, its streets ran at right angles to the Santa Fe tracks-and that road did not run exactly North and South through the townsite. Therefore the citizen's survey, made in accordance with the Government township lines, did not fit into the Seminole survey. To go forward would be to dislocate the settlements made on Main Street and to deprive many men of "possessory rights" already worth thousands of dollars. The Main Street settlers warned the Committee of Fourteen that it must not prosecute its survey farther. The committee telegraphed to General Noble, Secretary of the Interior, and received a reply to the effect that the Seminole Town Company had no rights whatever in the townsite. A meeting of the committee was held that night, and after long discussion it was determined on the strength of the Wash- ington telegram to proceed with the survey in the morning.
The surveying party went to work bright and carly Sat- urday morning, but it had not gone far when a group of quiet men from Main Street, with Winchesters in their hands, ap- peared upon the scene and suggested that it would be just as well for the party to discontinue its work then and there. This . was reported to the Committee of Fourteen, and that body immediately went into session. Its decision was that it was high time to call another mass meeting. Boys were procured as before, placed on horses and sout seurrying over the town- site with bells in their hands, calling a general meeting for 2 o'clock. The same huge crowd assembled. There were two
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factions now, and a good chance for a elash. The meeting was not so tumultuous, however, as that on Tuesday: but there was a tenseness of feeling which suggested that trouble would come unless wise counsels prevailed. The right of the matter was plainly with the Committee of Fourteen, but expedieney suggested compromise. The moderates prevailed. There was a north-side party and a south-side party, and it was voted that a committee of ten should be selected, equally divided between these parties, to try to patch up a peace. Each party withdrew to itself and nominated its five men, and then the two parties came together to ratify the action. It was di- rected that a report should be made at dusk of the same day.
The committee went immediately to work, with General Weaver as its chairman. A civil engineer was called in, the two plats were carefully compared. and it was found that by creating and throwing in certain irregular lots between Grand Avenue and Main Street, much as a mason throws fillers into a stone wall, the two surveys could be welded together and the breach be healed. This sounds easy, but it took hours of weary work.
And it left its mark on Oklahoma City. Not only were the irregular lots created, but the North and South-going streets at Grand Avenue did not "fit." and harsh jogs. or notches. were produced. Strangers wonder, as they travel down a street running from North to South, how it is that they come against a solid street face at Grand Avenne and must turn sharply to the left before they can go on. If they knew it. these irregularities are very literally the sears of a bloodless confliet.
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