1

An Ethnohistory of the Relationship between the 

Community of Sulphur, Oklahoma and Chickasaw 

National Recreation Area

by

Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts

July 29, 2004

Chickasaw National Recreation Area

1008 W. 2nd Street

Sulphur, Oklahoma 73806

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
2

As the Nation’s principal conservation agency, the Department of the Interior has a

responsibility for most of our nationally-owned public lands and water resources;

protecting our fish, wildlife, and biological diversity; preserving the environmental and 

cultural values or our national parks and historical places; and providing for the

enjoyment of life through outdoor recreation. The Department assesses our energy and 

mineral resources and works to ensure that their development is in the best interests of

all our people by encouraging stewardship and citizen participation in their care. The

Department also has a major responsibility for American Indian reservation

communities and for people who live in the island territories under U.S. administration.

Editing services provide by Intermountain Support Office – Santa Fe

National Park Service

5.9.03
3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 5

FOREWORD 9

STUDY BACKGROUND

PURPOSE 13

METHODS 15

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 18

INTRODUCTION 20

OVERVIEW 23

Chapter One

INDIAN OCCUPATION 25

Chapter Two

"FREE TO ALL COMERS IN PERPETUITY’

THE CREATION OF PLATT NATIONAL PARK 30

Chapter Three

THREATS TO THE PARK 50

Chapter Four

EARLY LANDSCAPE DESIGN 58

Chapter Five

THE VOICE OF THE 8O8TH 63

Chapter Six

AFRICAN-AMERICANS AT PLATT NATIONAL PARK 83

FREEDMEN 83

COLORED TOWN 83

"IT JUST DOESN’T SEEM REAL" 84

"COLORADO PEOPLE ONLY" 85

"KEEP A STEPPING" 86

EXCLUSIVE USE 87

CONNOTATIONS 90

Chapter Seven

IT’S THE WATER 93

CITY OF SPRINGS 106

Chapter Eight

A MECCA FOR REUNIONS AND OTHER GATHERINGS 112

Chapter Nine

BUFFALO PASTURE 122

Chapter Ten

SPEND THE DAYS 130
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Chapter Eleven

COMMUNITY AND PARK TODAY 132

PARK USES AND USER GROUPS 137

LOCAL COMMUNITY 137

PARK AND COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS AND ROLES 142

Chapter Twelve

RECOMMENDATIONS 147

REFERENCES 149

APPENDICES

A. PLACES, PLACE NAMES, AND RESOURCES 168

 WATER RESOURCES 168

 PLACES AND PLACE NAMES 180

B. PLANTINGS BY THE CCC COMPLETED BY MARCH 1934 185

C. VISITATION 187

D. PARK SUPERINTENDENTS 190

E. LIST OF INTERVIEWEES 191

F. ETHNOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW OF AMERICAN INDIAN OCCUPATION AND USE 

 OF THE CHICKASAW NATIONAL RECREATION AREA 

 by Clara Sue Kidwell 195

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 196

ABSTRACT 196

MANAGEMENRT SUMMARY 196

RESEARCH DESIGN 201

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION 203

Chapter Two

THE ARCHAEOLGY OF THE AREA 205

Chapter Three

ETHNOHISTORY OF THE AREA 206

Chapter Four

HISTORICAL OCCUPANCY OF THE PARK 208

Chapter Five

HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THE AREA 211

Chapter Six

CONTEMPORARY ETHNOGRAPHIC IMPORTANCE OF THE SPRINGS 218

Chapter Seven

CONCLUSIONS 221

REFERENCES 222

APPENDICES 

I. HISTORICAL EVENTS 226

II. MAPS 227

III. CHICKASAW AND OTHER TRIBAL TREATIES 240

IV. INDIAN LAND ALLOTMENTS 280
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ILLUSTRATIONS

PHOTOS

All photos by Jacilee Wray, 1996, unless otherwise noted

1. 1904 FAMILY REUNION (CHIC Archives 0128)

2. GARFIELD FALLS 

3. PLATT ENTRANCE SIGN WITH WILKINS KIDS, 1964 (Courtesy Kelly D. Wilkins)

4. "Early development Pavilion Springs, upper right then known as Big Tom and 

Lower Left known as Beauty Springs, about 1907" (CHIC Archives 0002)

5. "Stephen Tyng Mather and Superintendent Ferris, Oct. 1921" (Harpers Ferry

69-572)

6. RETHA CONDRIFF 

7. KIDS IN TRAVERTINE CREEK NEAR NATURE CENTER 

8. "Visitors on Burros, circa 1900" (CHIC Archives 0133)

9. "Camping in Platt, 1910s" (CHIC Archives 0110) 

10. BUS CAMPING AT COLD SPRINGS (Harpers Ferry 60-JB-252)

11. HAROLD LONG 

12. FRONT VIEW OF CCC CAMP (CHIC Archives 0029)

13. CCC STAFF Vernon H. Fielding, Edmund B. Walkowiak, Sam G. Whittelsey, and 

Jerome C. Miller

14. JAY PINKSTON 

15. TABLE AT TRAVERTINE ISLAND 

16. "Working on Buffalo Springs" (CHIC Archives 0003)

17. "Rock Crew-CCC Boys" (CHIC Archives 0027)

18. "Buffalo Springs after CCC Completed Work" (CHIC Archives 0005)

19. KEN RUHNKE INTERVIEWING FRANK AND VINITA BEAVER 

2O. PAVILION SPRING 

21. RECREATIONAL DAM, GARFIELD FALLS

22. LITTLE NIAGARA 

23. "Tree Crew at Work" (CHIC Archives 0024) 

24. CCC STONE STEPS Pavilion Springs/Travertine Creek Trail
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25. "Tree Surgery" (CHIC Archives 0037)

26. CENTRAL POOL 

27. LONNIE AND FRIEDA SHAFFER 

28. KIDS IN MONKEY TREE 

29. GARFIELD FALLS POOL 

30. BUFFALO SPRING 

31. STROLLING ACROSS BRIDGE NEAR BUFFALO SPRING 

32. ANTELOPE SPRING

33. FRANK AND VINITA BEAVER 

34. DELBERT AND EVELYN GILBERT 

35. INA LITTLE 

36. "Jugs in hand, two visitors head for Bromide Pavilion for a supply of 

mineral waters, for which Platt National Park is famed," 1960 (Harpers 

Ferry 60-JB-245)

37. "Visitors applying mud, pool, Flower Park" (CHIC Archives 0328)

38. LITTLE NIAGARA 

39. "Swimming in Travertine Creek, circa 1910" (CHIC Archives 2520)

40. PICNIC AT BUFFALO SPRINGS 1955 (Harpers Ferry WASO-D-798)

41. FIVE GENERATIONS OF ASHTON WOMEN, 1996 Carmie Allen, Mae Goss holding 

Isabel Alvey, Donna Hendrickson, and Rayna Alvey. 

42. WILKINS' 60th REUNION, 1999 

43. FIRST WILKINS REUNION, 1939, AT BUFFALO SPRINGS (Courtesy Kelly D. 

Wilkins) 

44. OUTDOOR KITHCEN, 1957 (Courtesy Kelly D. Wilkins)

45. BISON AT PARK

46. "Orphan Buffalo Calf hand-raised by rangers," 1956 by Paul F. Spangle and 

W.V. Appling (Harpers Ferry WASO-D-804)

47. VISITORS TODAY CONTINUE TO ENJOY THE BISON

48. "Picnicking in the Park" (CHIC Archives 0143)

49. CHILD WADING AT BEACH SPRINGS 

50. LILY POND 

51. COLD SPRING 
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52. GARFIELD FALLS 

53. LAKE PLACID

54. VELMA RATLIFF 

55. FRANK AND VINITA BEAVER AT VENDOME WELL 

MAPS

1. AREA MAP

2. PARK MAP 

3. LANDS CEDED BY THE CHOCTAW NATION, 1882 (NARA 1882)

4. CLIFFSIDE PARK SHOWING ORIGINAL BROMIDE PAVILION ACROSS THE CREEK

 (DOI 1908c)

5. SHOWING FIRST COLORED CAMP ECW PROGRESS MAP, October 1, 1934 to March 1,

1935 (Platt NP 1935b)

6. PLAN FOR CENTRAL PARK RECREATIONAL DAM (Platt NP 1935c)

7. NEW "NEGRO AREA" FROM MASTER PLAN (NPS 1950)

8. SANTA FE AND FRISCO RAILROAD LINES (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1921)

9. CAVE ISLAND FALLS (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1927)

10. OLD BUFFALO PASTURE AND ELK ENCLOSURE (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1927)

11. NEW BUFFALO PASTURE (NPS n.d.:6-7)

12. WILDCAT BEND (DOI 1908d)

FIGURES

1. JAMES HUDLER'S CCC CERTIFICATE FOR PROFICIENCY ELEMENTARY MASONRY, 1936 

2. JAMES HUDLER'S CCC COMPLETION TOUR OF DUTY, 1937 

3. ADVERTISEMENT KU KLUX KLAN GATHERING (Platt NP 1924b)

4. ADVERTISEMENT FOR POLIO INNOCULATIONS, 1960 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

5. RECIPE FOR SAD CAKE (Courtesy of Mae Goss 1996)
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Sulphur Springs Reservation was established in 1902 and expanded in 1904

...for the people of the United States because of the many medicinal springs

found here which have been known and used for their medicinal properties

as far back as we have any record of them. The ancient Red man brought his 

sick and afflicted here so they might drink of the waters and be cured of all

their afflictions and be restored to health. Platt National Park with its woods 

and streams, its trees and springs, its flowing wells and swimming pools, its

birds and flowers, its cliffs and boulders of historic interest, is becoming so

well known for its wonderful springs of water and its delightful drives and

shady nooks that it will soon be the Mecca for the sick and afflicted of a

continent, as well as for pleasure seekers

 [Supt. Robert G. Morris](Platt NP 1924).
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FOREWORD

As with any special place that achieves pilgrimage status with its devoted 

visitors, the Platt District of Chickasaw National Recreation Area is many 

things to many people. I first visited this serene recreation landscape in 

1985, less than a decade after it changed from Platt National Park to a 

Chickasaw National Recreation Area, when its area increased by a couple of 

thousand shoreline acres around Lake of the Arbuckles, itself constructed only 

about 20 years earlier. At the time I needed a little help understanding how 

the classic American small town of Sulphur, the Native American name of 

Chickasaw, the huge federal Bureau of Reclamation lake, the National Park 

Service and its wonderful 1930s New Deal buildings here all fit together. Yet 

upon my first visit the magic of "Platt" inspired another pilgrim. I've 

journeyed back many times now, always impressed, always learning something new.

From what Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts have conveyed to me about their 

encounters with Platt, I believe we all suffer the same intoxication. Initially 

we each learned just one of the many lessons of Platt: the place can be as 

alluring to its old neighbors in Oklahoma as it is to newcomers from far away. 

Spend a little time in Sulphur, and drive or hike the Platt parkscape, and you'll 

understand why Will Rogers so loved his home state, why Richard Rodgers and Oscar 

Hammerstein set their impressions to music and dance in the Broadway musical 

Oklahoma, and why native-born Hoyt Axton also put into song, "Well I never been 

to heaven, but I been to Oklahoma." 

The place simply has good karma... perhaps a result of all those artesian 

formations at work beneath your feet. Or maybe the subliminal attractions to this 

pocket of rural America, particularly for travelers in the 21st century, are its 

crystal clean air and virtually no light pollution on any night of the year. 

Jacilee and Alexa first approached Platt with academic intentions, bringing their 

backgrounds in anthropology, ethnography and National Park Service tenure to this 

middle-America retreat. They found a rich multi-layered history of mineral 

springs, Native American attitudes toward their land, well-meaning circa 1900 

Washington politicians and their questionable local agents, and a federal park 

service bureaucracy born after Platt's own national park designation. They also 

instantly encountered a controversy as old and emotional as the park itself, what 

might be called the "Platt problem." While people who adore this place are easy 

to find, others come forward throughout its history with rude disdain for this 

particular latitude and longitude. In short, Platt (and from my experience I'll 

add Oklahoma itself) remains a hard sell to those who haven't been here. 

Intrigued rather than repelled by this pathology, the ethnographers first happily 

documented those who know the place firsthand and love it. For example, Tanya 

Wilkins, Cherokee from her father's side, remembered from summer family 

vacations, "This was the biggest thing in our world, coming from the panhandle"

of Oklahoma. Brenda Ringer of Sulphur told the interviewers, "The park was 

always a part of our family.... You know what the park did? It brought the world 

to us."

The Platt landscape so familiar to multiple generations dates from the 1930s, 

and this study gives much needed attention to its New Deal transformation 

courtesy of the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC worked here for seven 

years, an unusually long assignment for such a small area and the typical 

practice of moving CCC camps from job to job in order to maximize their land 

conservation assignments. Most Depression enrollees were Oklahoma boys, also 

unusual for an agency that prided itself in moving companies of 200 young men 

from one end of the nation to the other. "In that old camp in the summer time 

Jay Pinkston told the authors, "after bed check it was too hot to sleep. We’d 
10

get up and put our clothes on and go to Black Sulphur Springs." Another CCC 

alumnus still living nearby, Harold Long, revealed bigger impressions as a 

teenager. "If it hadn't been for the CCC we would've had to pack up my nine 

brothers and sisters and go to Arkansas."

Mixed within these personal-growth stories and mid-20th century nostalgia 

revolving around Platt is the history of reclaiming a natural landscape, and 

its coincidental conversion into a recreation landscape. Surveyors platted the 

town of Sulphur in the late 1800s during the nation's transition between the 

need for flowing water as a natural sanitizer and the ability to achieve this 

necessity through technical innovation. The natural springs within the town had 

suffered profound abuses by the reservation's founding in 1902, thus early park 

development concentrated on physically moving the town back several hundred 

yards. This remediation formula, while widespread today, found no sympathy 

among managers of the newly created National Park Service in 1916, and there 

the "Platt problem" grew into a virtual internal policy.

In the early 20th century, the U.S. government busied itself managing vast public 

lands in the West, plus one sprawling estate in the east called Washington, D.C. 

Most federal land managers knew little of the territory in between from Maryland 

to Kansas, including Oklahoma. Stephen Mather, wealthy lobbyist for and then 

first director of the National Park Service crafted a lasting American impression 

of national parks as great western scenery: Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion for 

examples. By the time Grand Canyon became a national park in 1919 and Carlsbad 

Cavern in 1924, Mather and his assistant Horace Albright figured they controlled 

all the national parks the nation had to offer.

So astonished were Jacilee and Alexa by what Albright recorded about Platt's 

position—or vengeful absence in Albright's vision—in this pantheon, they wrote a 

separate article about the controversy. Their resulting "In Praise of Platt—or 

What Is A 'Real' National Park" appeared in a 1997 George Wright Society Forum, 

a journal primarily for National Park Service professionals. The late 20th 

century ethnographers found that the early 20th century managers of the park 

service, if Albright reflected his fellow "Mather men" of the founding cadre, 

despised Platt and a handful of other reservations designated without their 

input as national parks and otherwise unlucky in location, size, and presumed 

mediocrity of scenery. 

"Platt was a travesty," Albright grumbled to his biographer in 1985, "a tiny 

mineral springs in southern Oklahoma, well below national park standards, and 

we had been trying to get rid of it for years." In their Forum article Jacilee 

and Alexa painstakingly disassembled Albright's criticisms and compared them 

with the detractor's own language in the park service's official "basic creed"

of 1918, which reads in part:

This policy is based on three broad management principles: First that the 

national parks must be maintained in absolutely unimpaired form for the 

use of future generations as well as those of our time; second, that they 

are set aside for the use, observation, health, and pleasure of the 

people; and third, that the national interest must dictate all decisions 

affecting public or private enterprise in the parks.

Detecting no omission there of Platt National Park under any conceivable 

definition, our researchers found instead only a person of limited vision who 

complained that the Secretary of the Interior, his boss, once threatened 

Albright's banishment to Platt as its superintendent. 

Fortunately for Platt, and for the National Park Service, Albright "retired" as 

park service director in 1933, as unable to comprehend the coming benefits of 
11

the New Deal as the tremendous public appeal of Platt National Park. In this 

ethnographic study the authors quote 1990s park service director Roger Kennedy 

saying that Mather and Albright rightly developed broad partnerships and a 

"practical commitment to our American constituency." Yet the two latter gentlemen 

were flat wrong about Platt, because it met their ideals and they refused to 

recognize it. Fortunately one of Mather's other men, Albright's successor Arno 

Cammerer, proved open to a new vision of the National Park Service, and of Platt. 

The 1930s director approved a role for Platt as a model "national recreation 

area," an entirely new concept in the late 1930s but well suited to the maturity 

of the park service as the nation's standard-bearer for outdoor recreation 

policy.

That next new era for Platt, launched under the initial affront of bringing the 

park "up to National Park standards," proved a godsend for the park between 1933 

and the Second World War. The ensuing program of comprehensive landscape design, 

continuing the vegetative restoration begun in 1902 but now placing Platt in the 

hands of the most progressive recreation practitioners of their time produced a 

durable and even more popular park serving a huge region. National Park Service 

designers such as Tom Vint and Herb Maier, guiding CCC work in the national and 

state parks throughout the West and Southwest, didn't mind that Platt was not one 

of the great scenic wonders of the West. Instead they maneuvered a landscape 

design here that provided what all national park visitors wanted: escape, 

relaxation, refreshment. Maier accomplished wonders with this concept repeated in 

state park systems under his design direction and CCC construction. Visit Robbers 

Cave State Park in Oklahoma, Bastrop State Park in Texas, or Devil's Den State 

Park in Arkansas and you'll see the familiar arrangement of scenery and 

facilities so prominent and well maintained at Platt.

When Cammerer and his gifted colleague Maier first proposed in 1938 to change the 

status of Platt to a national recreation area, Platt might have been at the 

vanguard then of the New Deal's park service. However, politics—always central to 

Platt's continued federal support primarily by an enthusiastic Oklahoma 

delegation in Congress—worked against the park this time, and brought it another 

four decades of internal criticism as a "substandard" national park. It finally 

became a national recreation area under completely different circumstances in 

1976, a somewhat bittersweet victory for all parties.

Despite Platt's continued success as a recreation park by any title-no surprise 

to the patrons interviewed by Jacilee and Alexa-the "Platt problem" incredibly 

still persists. Not long ago I encountered a long-tenured National Park Service 

retiree who commented on a related study, "Oh, Platt...that's that place that never 

should have been a park." Another high-ranking park service official recently 

told me, on the topic of Platt's potential designation as a National Historic 

Landmark, that the extensive CCC work at Platt cannot be viewed as special, 

significant or unique. These veteran and well-traveled park professionals, you 

see, have never visited Platt. Any Platt patrons quoted in the ethnographic 

interviews of this study, and all Platt pilgrims, understand that the provincial 

critics are the losers here.

Alexa, Jacilee and a dedicated staff at Chickasaw National Recreation Area find 

no remaining reasons to weep over the lost "national park" title today. The 

honorably named Platt District of the larger recreation area just keeps on 

serving the public interviewed in this study through well-built and wellmaintained facilities definitely up to national park standards. Only now this 

landscape yields another fascinating layer of history—a seldom-told chapter in 

the evolution of the National Park Service itself—that makes such places so 

rewarding to study and visit. 
12

The story of Platt proves that Americans and our visitors feel a deep personal 

attachment to places -- particularly national parks -- that invigorate the soul 

and realign the weary perspective.

James Wright Steely

Professional Historian

Phoenix, Arizona

January 2004
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STUDY BACKGROUND

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study is to assist park management in making informed 

decisions by providing an understanding of the park's relationship with the 

town of Sulphur. The study focuses on the values attached to the park and its 

resources by members of the traditionally associated community of Sulphur. 

During a strategic planning session at the park in February 1996, park staff 

identified management issues that have arisen because of the historical 

relationship between the town and the park, as the town and its residents have 

been closely linked since the 1880s. These issues provided the baseline for the 

initiation of ethnographic fieldwork in September 1996.

During general discussions for development of the park's strategic plan, park 

staff noted that one of the main aspects of the park's significance is that it 

"has been the setting for generations of traditional family activity that 

represents part of our American heritage" (Chickasaw NRA 1996:3). Park staff

also concluded that the ties of various cultural groups to the history of the 

park is one of five concepts that are "central to Chickasaw NRA's purpose and 

significance" and visitors should have access to important places in their past 

"every time they come to the area" (ibid:4). In order to provide access, the 

park recommended that one action it must take is to "identify ethnographic 

resources and traditional uses by groups culturally affiliated with the park or 

area" (ibid:8).

One of the traditionally associated groups is the community of Sulphur. 

Staff members noted that coming to the park year after year is a family 

tradition, evidenced by annual family reunions, some going on for 60 years. 

Chickasaw is a family park to which people come for that tradition. Management 

decisions that could affect this use should be addressed in light of the 

effects they would have on the local community's customary use of the park.

The community of Sulphur regards Chickasaw NRA with a sense of patrimony, 

because they have fought diligently through the decades to keep it within the 

National Park Service. This attachment has carried forward from the inception 

of the Sulphur Springs Reservation to the establishment of Platt National Park 

in 1906, when the well-known mineral springs drew visitors from across the 

nation. Tourism engendered development of bathhouses and elegant 

accommodations, giving the town a sense of pride, and hope that Oklahoma's 

"oasis" could rival Yellowstone and Hot Springs national parks (Brown and 

Garrity 1981). In a time when people were poor and daily life was a challenge, 

the park was a safe, special place where everyone was welcome. By the 1930s, 

the invitation for all to come was expressed in the rustic architecture built 

by the Civilian Conservation Corps, many of whose workers were from the local 

area. The community helped build the park, and the park, in return, offered a 

haven and a sense of hope for a prosperous future. 

This symbiotic relationship continued through the 1970s, when the Bureau of 

Reclamation's Arbuckle reservoir was added to the park and the status was 

changed from a national park to a national recreation area. The name was even 

changed to honor the former occupants of this land, the Chickasaw Indians. The 

visitation, use, and image of the park changed as a result. The effects of 

these changes are addressed in this study, in order to answer the question: Did 

the change make much difference in the use of what was once Platt National Park 

and is today the Platt district of Chickasaw National Recreation Area. We know 
14

from issues raised by park management that there is a perception that the 

recreation area and the former park are distinct and valued differently. 

The recreation area took the sense of belonging away. The lake is nothing 

special. There are lots of lakes, but there was only one Platt. The 

affection local people have for Chickasaw NRA is left over from Platt; 

it's not for the lake. It was the shade, the CCC architecture, the pools, 

and the special atmosphere. The lake doesn't offer any of that. Platt was 

the place for the family reunions. That is what is still in peoples' 

traditions, that is the traditional use. It wasn't just the change from a 

park to a national recreation area that affected the local people; it was 

also the name change from Platt to Chickasaw and everything the change 

represents. NPS needs to understand the impact of these changes on the 

local community and the various kinds of park uses in order to respond 

with appropriate management strategies (Chickasaw NRA 1996a).

1904 FAMILY REUNION

(CHIC Archives 0128)

In response to these issues, park staff identified the need to develop

partnerships among the park, the community, the Chickasaw Nation, and other 

traditionally associated communities and contemporary park users. Proposals for 

desired futures, strategies, and actions to develop and maintain partnerships 

include improved communication with the public, development of advisory

committees, and so forth (Chickasaw NRA 1996:14-15). This information, combined 

with the baseline ethnographic information mentioned above would contribute to 

the knowledge of the traditional associations between the community and the 

park, which in turn will contribute to the development of appropriate 

management strategies and strengthen local partnerships. 
15

METHODS

Following the strategic planning session, it was decided by park

superintendent, John Welch and the Southwest Support Office anthropologist, 

Alexa Roberts to conduct the study "in-house" rather than contracting the

project to an external institution or private contractor. Ethnographic research 

is rarely conducted by NPS staff due to the scarcity of anthropologists 

available service-wide, but the discussions at the strategic planning session 

led to the conclusion that NPS staff have a better understanding of the 

management issues that the research is intended to address, as well as 

understanding the interface of NPS and community values. 

In December 1995, Chickasaw National Recreation Area received $26,500 from 

NPS Special Emphasis Ethnography funds to conduct the first phase of an

ethnographic study documenting the relationships between the park and the 

various communities traditionally associated with it. An additional $15,000 was 

added to the project in September 1996 from end-of-year funds identified in the 

service-wide ethnography program budget. The first phase was designed to focus 

specifically on the relationship between Chickasaw and the town of Sulphur, 

Oklahoma. The second phase of this ethnographic study was conducted under 

contract to the National Park Service by Dr. Clara Sue Kidwell, with the 

University of Oklahoma. Her research focused on the associations that 

historically affiliated American Indian communities have to the park and its 

resources. Her report is included here as Appendix F.

The Chickasaw study was seen as a unique opportunity to apply the services of 

the NPS Applied Ethnography Program, particularly in the relatively rare 

situation of a southwestern park in which the research focuses on an Anglo 

community. Conducting the study in-house was also a good opportunity to provide 

NPS anthropologists with a project that was subject to the same time and 

financial constraints faced by private contractors, allowing NPS staff a chance 

to review the conditions normally applied to ethnographic contracts and the 

ways in which limited funding needs to be spent.

Alexa Roberts, anthropologist in the Southwest Support Office-Santa Fe, and 

Jacilee Wray, anthropologist at Olympic National Park, Port Angeles, conducted 

the study. Two researchers were used in order to combine park-based and support 

office-based experience, as well as to gain the greatest amount of information 

in a limited amount of time. Further, Ms. Wray had previous experience in 

researching Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) history, the period during which 

most of Chickasaw's infrastructure was developed.

Prior to initiation of fieldwork, Wray conducted one research trip to the 

National Archives in College Park, Maryland, to review CCC archives, and began 

a review of literature related to the history of the park. Wray and Roberts 

made a second visit to the National Archives in Washington D.C., attempting to 

locate records pertaining to the establishment of the park but finding little 

information. Additional archival research was conducted during fieldwork at the 

National Archives in Fort Worth, Texas; the Oklahoma Historical Society in 

Oklahoma City; and files and archives housed at Chickasaw National Recreation 

Area. Further research at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and 

College Park, conducted by Wray and park ranger Judy Kahlor in November of 

1997, resulted in a wealth of information. This was followed by research in 

March 1998 by Dr. Fred York, Pacific West Region anthropologist, at the 

Connecticut State Library, repository for the Platt papers.

The main interviewing phase of the project began on September 14, 1996, and 

concluded on October 15, 1996, with two additional phases of interviews
16

conducted in the spring and summer of 1997 and 1999. A total of 52 individuals 

were interviewed. Identification of potential interviewees began with referrals 

from park staff, many of whom are from the area originally, have worked at the 

park for many years, and know the members of the community most knowledgeable 

about local history. The interviewing phase began with an introduction to 

community members at the meeting of the Arbuckle Historical Society (Sulphur 

Chapter), where we gave a brief presentation about the project and inquired if 

anyone would like to speak with us further. Several people agreed to be 

interviewed at a later date. Each interviewee was also asked for additional 

names of people they would recommend we speak with, contributing to a working 

list of about 50 individuals.

Formal interviews were almost always tape-recorded, unless the interviewee 

requested otherwise. Some people asked that the tape be turned off at various 

points during the interview. Seven individuals initially contacted declined to 

be interviewed at all. Consent forms were used for all those who agreed to be 

interviewed. No financial reimbursement was provided to interviewees, but each 

was given a book about the park or other small tokens of appreciation.

Initially the tapes were transcribed by a local contractor and copies of both 

the tapes and transcripts were provided to the park and the interviewees. Kathy 

Means of Ardmore was the transcriber; however, ill health forced her to cancel 

her contract. The subsequent transcriber was not satisfactory, and her 

transcriptions were re-done by a third transcriber. A list of questions was 

developed to guide the interview, but interviews were generally open-ended, 

concentrating on each individual's specific knowledge and the stories she or he 

wished to tell. Each interview lasted one to three hours, and seven 

interviewees accompanied one or the other interviewer on vehicle tours of the 

park, speaking as they identified specific places. A few interviews were 

conducted by both interviewers together, but most were conducted individually. 

Interviews were conducted at family reunions, in peoples' homes, at their 

places of business, or driving through the park. 

Most of the individuals initially recommended by park staff and other 

interviewees were elderly native residents, CCC workers, and retired park staff 

knowledgeable about the history of the park and the community. While gaining an 

understanding of the historical associations between the park and the town was 

a major project goal, we also wanted to be sure to gain an understanding of 

contemporary relationships, including economic, political, and recreational; 

the make-up of the various user groups; and the nature of the park's image and 

significance to the various segments of the community today. In addition to 

those with historical knowledge, we also interviewed people with the chamber of 

commerce, the city council, the public school system, and Goddard Youth Camp. 

We attended meetings of the Sulphur Rotary Club, Chickasaw Nation Historical 

Society, and Sulphur Historical Association, family reunions, and the Oklahoma 

State Fair, and spoke informally with people we met at various places and at 

various times in the park, at stores, restaurants, and other businesses in 

town.

While there are many people who have not yet been interviewed, we believe that 

we interviewed, observed, or participated in the activities of a representative 

cross section of the community that use and value the park in various ways. We 

are confident that our results accurately characterize the changing

relationship between Chickasaw National Recreation Area and Sulphur, Oklahoma 

during the twentieth century.

It is now 2004 and we are just finalizing this project. Delays along the way, 

stemming from work loads at our permanent jobs, as well as various editorial 

delays, prevented the timely completion of this report; which helps us gain a 

better understanding of the research requirements contractors face while 
17

conducting ethnographic studies for the NPS. Although we began the research 

several years ago, the results provide an enduring context in which park 

management can make informed management decisions. 
18

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research has taken eight years to complete and we have seen several 

superintendents come and go in the process, all of whom were very gracious and 

a little too nice about our taking so much time; John Welch, Gerard Baker, 

Sarah Craighead, Rick Shireman, and Connie Rudd.

We would like to express appreciation at the kindness of the people of Sulphur 

and park visitors who are among the nicest people we have met in our careers. 

Sulphur, Oklahoma takes you back to a time when people truly cared for one 

another and family connections meant so much. It is a place of peace and 

friendliness.

Special thanks to park staff: John Bandurski, Tamie Bean, Randy Fehr, Joe 

Hawkins, Charlie Johnson, Rosalind Jones, Judy Kahlor, Jenny Lilla, Randy 

Lilla, Gail McCurry, Cal Meyers, JR Norton, Mary Beth Parker, Ron Parker, Joe 

Peterson, Donald P. Reed, Karen Rogel, Eric Rubin, Ken Ruhnke, Susie Staples, 

Phyllis Stromme, Jerry Underwood, Len Weems, Laura Wilson, and Don Wollenhopt. 

A special special thanks to Susie Staples and Judy Kahlor for their help in 

conducting research at Ft. Worth. Additionally Judy assisted with research in 

Washington, D.C., as well as her long distance help while we finalized the 

project. Thank you to Ken Ruhnke for all the times he was available to take 

calls when we needed to find a reference. A hearty thank you to Kris Kincade, 

who had a travel budget nightmare during Jacilee's first trip to Chickasaw --

as it spanned two fiscal years. And kudos to Kris again for doing the final 

edits on the document eight years later.

We are very grateful to the Wilkins family for allowing us to attend their 60th 

family reunion, and the Ashton family for letting us join their reunion and

especially Mae Goss for sending us her special recipes! Thank you to Terry 

Gibson for all the great historic Wilkins reunion photos.

Thank you to all of those people who so graciously shared their stories in 

interview sessions: The Ashton's, Clifford and Isabell Austell, Frank and 

Vinita Beaver, Cindy Bissett, Lorena Branch, Lonnie Brandon, Opal Brown, Ula 

Brown, Melvin and Inez Brown, Eugene Cade, Darryl Carter, Wesley Carter, Truman 

Cobb, Scott Colbert, Retha Condriff, Marian Corley, Gene DeLay, Gerald and Joy 

Drury, Wayne Edgar, Cleve Ervin, Virginia Fields, Delbert Gilbert, Vickie and 

Roger Graham, William Hicks, Butch Hill, Gene Hood, Joyce Kahlor, Fuzz Kennedy, 

Joe and Maud Lansford, Kathy Laxton, Ina Little, Clayton Lodes, Harold Long, 

John Paul, Jamie Pettiti, Jay and Ruby Pinkston, Earl Pollard, Velma Parker 

Ratliff, Brenda Ringer, Lonnie and Frieda Shaffer, Odessa Sterling, King and 

Julia Stockton, Phyliss Stromme, Jerry Underwood, Gene Vanderburg, and the 

Wilkins family.

Thank you to Jim Steely for his support and honoring us by writing the 

foreword.

In Santa Fe, special thanks go to the staff of the former Cultural Resources 

Program team, especially Bob Spude, Victoria Barela, and Jim Bradford, all of 

whom helped more than they know.
19

This project would never have happened without the faith and funding provided 

by the late Dr. Muriel Crespi; former Chief of the Applied Ethnography Program. 

We hope she would be pleased with the final report. Laura Gates, Richard 

Greene, Jane Harvey, Nancy Hori, Kathy Means, Kay Sallee, Sharon Shugart, and 

Fred York all contributed to the research and development of the report in 

various and valuable ways.

Our thanks to Dr. Clara Sue Kidwell for her accompanying report.

Thank you to Mr. Jim McClure with the Oklahoma School for the Deaf for 

accommodating us on our revisit in 2000. 

And thank you to our families who enjoyed Chickasaw NRA as much as we did, 

vicariously over the phone, and during their visits: Larry and Shaelan Nickey

and John Stein. 
20

INTRODUCTION

Chickasaw National Recreation Area (NRA) is located in south-central Oklahoma. 

It is 80 miles south of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and 140 miles north of DallasFt. Worth, Texas. Chickasaw NRA was the only national park unit in the state of 

Oklahoma until November 12, 1996, when Washita Battlefield was established as a 

national historic site and, more recently, October 9, 1997, when the Oklahoma 

City National Memorial was established.

AREA MAP

Oklahoma has four principal mountain systems, the Ozarks, Ouachita, Wichita, 

and Arbuckle. The park is located in a geologically distinct area within the 

Arbuckle Mountains: "hills in altitude but mountains in structure" (Gould 

1939). The highest point of the Arbuckle Mountains is 1,450 feet at the summit 

of East Timbered Hills, south of Turner Falls. Within the park, the highest 

point is Mount Airy at 1,047 feet. 

Underlying the park are horizontal layers of limestone, sandstone, and shale 

known as the Simpson Formation, which facilitates the movement of the water 

that eventually rises to the surface from 31 mineral springs in the park. Two 

freshwater or non-mineral springs, Buffalo and Antelope, are believed to be 

derived from the Arbuckuckle Limestone and rise to the surface from beneath the 

Vanoss Conglomerate, which is the surface rock of the area (Interview Carter 

2004) 

Antelope and Buffalo Springs, the headwaters of Travertine Creek, release water 

that gently flows down slope over 75 waterfalls created by years of limestone 

mineral deposits (DOI 1908b). During the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps 

assisted nature by building dams at several of these natural barriers so that 

the pools would be deeper for swimmers. The pools create an oasis in the clear, 

cool water.
21

GARFIELD FALLS

The park unit began as the Sulphur Springs Reservation on November 19, 1902. 

The reservation, containing 629.33 acres, was ceded by the Chickasaw and 

Choctaw nations through the Atoka Agreement (treaty). The treaty specified that 

the reserve could not exceed 640 acres, following the guidelines for town 

sites; however, it was expanded in 1904 to 848.22 acres to include a part of 

the town site to the south of the springs, because waste water was flowing down 

slope and affecting the springs’ purity. 

On June 29, 1906, a joint resolution was passed by Congress [34th Stat., 837] 

to change the name from Sulphur Springs Reservation to Platt National Park in 

honor of Orville Hitchcock Platt. Platt, the deceased senator from Connecticut, 

had been a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs and the Committee of the 

Five Civilized Tribes. Platt was also a relative through marriage of the first 

reserve superintendent, Joseph F. Swords. Swords honored Platt by securing "the 

support of the President through warm personal friends" to change the name to 

Platt National Park (DOI 1906a). 

PLATT ENTRANCE SIGN WITH WILKINS KIDS, 1964 

(Courtesy Kelly D. Wilkins)
22

In February 1965, the NPS began administering the 7,215-acre Arbuckle 

Reclamation Project constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation. The park was 

expanded in 1976 to include this 2,350-acre reservoir, Lake of the Arbuckles, 

and the park's status and name was changed to Chickasaw National Recreation 

Area. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed the 67-acre Veterans 

Lake between 1933 and 1936, and the city deeded it to the NPS in 1983. Today it 

is included within the 9,888 acres of Chickasaw National Recreation Area.

PARK MAP

Wildlife native to the area include bison, which were seldom seen in eastern 

Oklahoma after 1830 (Foreman 1930:184); white-tail deer; porcupine; beaver; 

bobcat; coyote; and wild turkey. The bison were reintroduced within a confined 

pasture in the park in 1920, as were elk, in two separate paddocks. Armadillo 

moved north into the park relatively recently, while wolves that were once 

native to the area are no longer found here. 

The park lies within a transition zone of deciduous forest and prairie 

grassland; much of the area was originally natural prairie. There are seven 

species of oak in the park unit. The early town had heavily denuded the local 

vegetation, and years of grazing and croplands left other areas barren. The 

Civilian Conservation Corps planted trees, shrubs, and grasses throughout the 

park in the 1930s. According to one former CCC enrollee, the CCC planted about 

30% of the existing trees and shrubs, primarily cedar, elm, and buckbrush.

Chickasaw’s infrastructure consists of extraordinarily well-preserved CCC 

buildings and other structures. Much of the CCC labor at Chickasaw consisted of 

local men. Many continue to live in the region, and maintain a special 

relationship with the location of the camp and the work they accomplished. 

The park is a testament to the work that the CCC accomplished "to preserve the 

beauty of everything for the people and the water," which has been so wellpreserved that the structures and facilities retain their original uses

(Interview Austell 1997). 
23

OVERVIEW

Sulphur Springs Reservation was set aside as a federal reserve in 1902 "... for 

the proper utilization of said springs and the waters of said creeks ..." and the 

name was changed to Platt National Park in 1906 (Chickasaw NRA 1996). The park 

was greatly expanded and became Chickasaw National Recreation Area in 1976, "to 

provide for public outdoor recreation, use and enjoyment of Arbuckle Reservoir 

and land adjacent thereto... and to designate the area in such a manner as will 

constitute a fitting memorialization for the Chickasaw Indian Nation..."

(Chickasaw NRA 1996). Chickasaw is a unique park area, in that it is nearly 

surrounded by the city of Sulphur, Oklahoma. People from the city and nearby 

communities visit the park extensively and have done so since the reservation 

was set aside in 1902. The use of the park by the local community is 

distinctive because it is an intimate relationship in which the town and the 

park were created and grew together over more than a century. The community 

feels this is their park, in their backyard, and it is only because of the 

community’s significant pride that it still exists as a park unit today. Over 

the years there have been numerous failed attempts by the National Park Service 

and Congress to remove the park from the system (Wray and Roberts 1997). 

Parks are for the people. Chickasaw National Recreation Area has always 

epitomized this philosophy, especially at a time when the "important" parks 

were viewed as large expanses of vast natural landscapes or monuments to 

scenery (Rothman 1989). The Sulphur Springs Reservation was created in concert 

by a community recognizing the springs’ medicinal potential and the Chickasaw 

and Choctaw Nation’s desire to have it forever available to all. The change in 

status from Platt National Park to Chickasaw National Recreation Area was one 

of NPS philosophy regarding park standards at the time, local economics, and 

political desires. It probably will always be thought of by those who regularly 

come here as Platt National Park. The name change did not alter the value 

people place on the park.

Former National Park Service (NPS) Director, Roger Kennedy, wrote of the 

ideology of the NPS commitment to people in his speech of October 31, 1996:

 Some people-some of them even in the Service itself-are heard to say 

that Mather and Albright were wrong, and that we ought to stick to our 

"real" work, like our "real" parks, and cease all this partnership 

stuff. Mather and Albright were right. The Parks cannot stand alone, nor 

are we in the Service alone. We have a moral commitment to the American 

community, and we have a practical commitment to our American 

constituency. We work with others to aid without owning, to encourage, 

to endorse, and to expand the areas in which the American community 

protects itself through common undertakings (Kennedy 1996).

Chickasaw National Recreation Area continues to represent this ideal of 

commitment to the American community. As expressed by Regional Director Thomas 

J. Allen while visiting Platt National Park in 1960, the park is a place where 

the National Park Service reaches a lot of people (Boeger 1987). Parks are not 

just about scenery; people make them important. At Chickasaw National

Recreation Area there is a particular approach to utilizing the park. It is one 

of true relaxation. People walk, picnic, swim, and very often just sit and gaze 

at the falls and pools along Travertine Creek. 

In many parks there is a sense of having to see it all within a short amount of 

time. Visitors approach this park differently. 

Subtlety, patience, and quietude are... qualities not often exercised by 

most visitors. In Platt, however, breathtaking vistas and dramatic 
24

phenomena have in their stead quiet, pleasant vignettes of nature’s 

ageless ways which can only be appreciated through the cultivation of 

these qualities of mind and methods of observation (Barker and Jameson 

1975:25).

Upon coming to the city of Sulphur and Chickasaw National Recreation Area and 

delving into their intertwined pasts, one cannot help but visualize the lively 

atmosphere of the historic health-seeking visitors reflected in today’s use. 

The water is what has always drawn people to this place, and although medical 

professionals no longer declare the water’s benefits, the community still does. 

In a recent book, The Culture of Oklahoma, there is a chapter on Sulphur titled 

"Spa in the Dust Bowl: Oklahoma’s Hidden Paradise," which "shows how the 

symbolism of water in Sulphur and throughout Oklahoma has a sacred, even 

revitalizing, as well as secular, practical connotation" (Henderson 1993:131). 

The author concludes that the sulphur water’s healing qualities revitalized the 

ravages of the drought years in surrounding communities. This is shown by park 

visitation records, which peaked in 1937-also the peak of the Dust Bowl. After 

this period, immunizations for disease became widespread and the Dust Bowl 

subsided, as did the use of the medicinal waters for healing (Henderson 1993). 

In order to understand the importance of Chickasaw, one must understand the 

attributes of the water. It is within the waters that the park's sacred and 

revitalizing qualities emanate, and from numerous springs that the park’s major 

significance flows. 

The following sections provide an understanding of the cultural use and 

significance of Chickasaw National Recreation Area, with a focus on the 

original Platt National Park.
25

Chapter One

INDIAN OCCUPATION

Various groups of indigenous people lived in south-central Oklahoma prior to 

1837, the year the Chickasaw were removed from Mississippi on the Trail of 

Tears. To the north of what is currently Chickasaw National Recreation Area 

were bands of Osage Indians. In the southwest, near the Wichita Mountains, 

lived small groups of Wichita, Caddo, Pawnee, Kiowa, and Comanche. Undoubtedly 

the Indians used the springs, because archeological evidence establishes human 

occupation in the area at least 7,000 years ago. The Kickapoo are reported to 

have used the springs more than 500 years ago for health remedies (Sulphur 

Community Bank n.d.:1; Arbuckle Historical Society 1988:158), and ancestors of 

the Caddo and Wichita tribes had used the waters "for centuries" according to 

Superintendent Branch (Branch 1938). At the time of the Civil War in 1861, 

there were Kickapoo, Commanche, Caddo, Apache, Cheyenne, Osage, and possibly 

some Delaware living around Fort Arbuckle, less than 20 miles away (Arbuckle 

Historical Society 1988:21). When the Choctaw and Chickasaw moved into the area 

they frequented the springs to visit and drink the "life-giving waters"

(Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1921; Littleheart 1908; Brown 1952:18). 

Superintendent Branch reported in 1939 that "Indians still visit the area for 

the purpose of using the medicinal waters and during the past year, members of 

several tribes were noted including the Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, 

Cherokee, shawnee [sic] and Pawnee tribes" (Branch 1939).

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 removed the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, 

and Chickasaw from their homelands east of the Mississippi River, to the west 

into an area set aside exclusively for Indian nations, then known as Indian 

Territory, and later becoming the state of Oklahoma. These tribes were referred 

to as the Five Civilized Tribes, because they had lived among and intermarried 

with whites, had established schools and churches, retained slaves, and had a 

sophisticated political system. Two of the Five Civilized Tribes, the Choctaw 

and Chickasaw, were relocated to southern Oklahoma on lands that include what 

is now Chickasaw NRA. 

The Chickasaw removal treaty1 of 1832 [7 Stat. 381] was amended by a subsequent 

treaty of January 17, 18372, [11 Stat. 573] in order to accommodate the 

Chickasaw on Choctaw lands in Indian Territory. The treaty, known as the Treaty 

of Doaksville, guaranteed that the Choctaw could manage their own affairs 

within their boundaries, and increased the existing Choctaw governing districts 

to include a fourth Chickasaw district. The Treaty of Doaksville absorbed the 

Chickasaw into the Choctaw Nation and allowed the Chickasaw to be represented 

in Choctaw government by a Chickasaw chief. The Chickasaw paid the Choctaw 

$530,000 for their right to share in the benefits of Choctaw citizenship. No 

land had been sold to the Chickasaw by the Choctaw, but they were allowed to 

reside in their own district between the Canadian and Red rivers, west of 

meridian 96 degree 20’ (Schmeckebier 1927:97). The Chickasaw believed they had 

purchased the land and a dispute arose between the Choctaw and the Chickasaw 

over the eastern boundary from the Canadian River to the Red River.

 

 

1Pontotoc treaty

 

2Treaty at Doaksville
26

LANDS CEDED BY THE CHOCTAW NATION, 1882

(NARA 1882)

The Chickasaw were supposed to move west of the Choctaw settlements; however, 

the southwestern part of the territory was a travel route for marauding bands 

of Indians and Spaniards from the north to the south (Gibson 1971:222). The 

Kickapoo and Shawnee had established villages in the Washita Valley in the 

heart of the Chickasaw district, and the Kiowa and Comanche roamed its western 

margins. Chickasaw leaders did not want to settle in dangerous territory and 

they remained in eastern Indian Territory near the Choctaw towns. During 1839, 

12 Chickasaw families moved into their own district, settling between the Blue 

and Washita rivers. The Delaware, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Cherokee, Caddo, Yuchi, 

and Koasati Indians stole livestock from the Chickasaw and captured their 

slaves. Military troops from Fort Gibson forced the Kickapoo to abandon their 

villages on Wild Horse Creek and Blue River and relocate to north Texas; 

however, the Kickapoo continued their raiding and Chickasaw Indian Agent Upshaw 

initiated protection by the U.S. Army (Gibson 1971:222). 

In 1842 General Taylor established Fort Washita to provide protection from the 

"wild tribes." The western prairie Indians were fighting with troops in Texas 

and often fled to Chickasaw territory, which resulted in the loss of Chickasaw 

lives and property. A Chickasaw delegation, headed by Ishehahtubby and leaders 

of the Caddo, Tawakoni, Keechi, and Texas commissioners, negotiated a peace 

treaty at Birds Fort on the Trinity River in 1843 in which the Texas Governor 

pledged to control the Indian trade south of Red River and to protect the 

signatory tribes from depredations by Texans. In 1844 federal agents reported 

that no depredations had occurred in the Chickasaw district and that they 

expected the Chickasaw to make a prompt move to their district (Gibson 

1971:223). 

The first emigrant Chickasaw camps were established at Eagletown, Doaksville, 

and Fort Coffee. A later Chickasaw emigrant settlement was located on the lower 

Canadian River. The fifth and most western camp was located on the Clear Boggy 
27

River near the eastern edge of the Chickasaw area. Still, less than one quarter 

of the Chickasaw population of 4,111 resided in their own district. As late as 

1851, only one third of the Chickasaw had settled outside of Choctaw territory. 

In 1851 another post was built at Fort Arbuckle on Wild Horse Creek, Northwest 

of Fort Washita. These posts reduced the threat of raids by the frontier tribes 

in the Chickasaw district, but the Texas tribes were still a threat, as were 

groups of desperadoes that raided cattlemen and travelers in the area into the 

1870s (Gibson 1971:223).

The 1837 Treaty of Doaksville was terminated on June 22, 1855, by a subsequent 

treaty [11 Stat. 611], which dissolved the union of the Chickasaw and Choctaw 

and split the territory into three units. The Chickasaw were provided lands 

west of the Choctaw, where they established their own government (Gibson 

1981:74). The western third between the 98th and 100th meridians was held in 

common by the two tribes. This area, known as the leased district, was leased 

in perpetuity by the federal government for $800,000 to accommodate the 

settlement of the Wichita, Caddo, Kiowa, Comanche, and wandering Kickapoo and 

Delaware Indians. The Chickasaw received one quarter of these proceeds and paid 

the Choctaw $150,000 for the land they occupied (Gibson 1981:254;1971:219). 

Today the Chickasaw Nation3 encompasses all or part of the counties of Bryan, 

Carter, Coal, Johnston, Love, Garvin, Murray, Pontotoc, McClain, Stephens,

Grady, Marshall, and Jefferson.

In 1879 the Governor of the Chickasaw Nation wrote Major Hough at Fort Gibson, 

demanding "the presence of troops... to get rid of a class of desperadoes who are 

infesting our frontier" (Chickasaw Nation 1879). Hough had received a telegram 

from the President of the United States concerning the "alleged outrages from 

outlaws" and Lieutenant General P. H. Sheridan reported to the General of the 

Army that "as soon as Lt. Col. Hough completes his inspection, steps will be 

taken to afford protection against these outlaws, if possible" (Sheridan 1879). 

Major Hough reported that "neither the Chickasaw Nation nor the United States 

Courts operating separately can reach these people." He stated a "permanent 

military force there" was necessary, "or instructions to move against these 

bands of desperadoes whenever found" (Hough 1879). However, the Military 

Headquarters Division in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, wrote that local authorities 

and the Chickasaw Nation should be given the authority to deal with the 

outlaws, as he could not "spare [any men] from their present stations without 

serious danger to much more important interests" (Pope 1879).

In 1886 the commissioner of Indian affairs said that the treaties never 

contemplated a separate nation and that the Indians had no right to claim selfgovernment and then expect the United States to protect them from harm, and he 

recommended allotment of Indian Territory into one-quarter-section tracts (Debo 

1934:245). On April 22, 18894, the unassigned lands in the center of Indian 

Territory were opened for settlement during a great land run. The needs of the 

new settlers led to the introduction of congressional bills to extinguish 

Indian title to the rest of Indian Territory.

The Five Civilized Tribes were exempted from the General Allotment Act of 

February 8, 1887, [24 Stat. 388] until legal questions about land title were 

 

 

 

3The term nation is used here; however, this does not imply sovereignty 

over the lands. The only lands that are "tribal" lands are those held in 

trust for the tribe, such as school lands, government facilities, and 

business property held in trust status.

 

4The opening of unassigned lands was included in a March 3, 1889, rider to 

the Indian Appropriation Bill, called the Springer Amendment.
28

resolved. On March 3, 1893, an act [27 Stat. 612, 645] was passed to negotiate 

agreements with tribal governments to extinguish shared land and provide 

individual allotments. Henry Dawes was the chairman of this commission, known 

as the Dawes Commission or the Commission of the Five Civilized Tribes. The 

Dawes Commission proposed that all land except for mineral lands, town sites, 

and certain reserved lands would be allotted. The remaining lands would be 

opened for settlement. 

In order to allot the lands, membership rolls were to be established. The Five 

Civilized Tribes were opposed to this process because it would allow freedmen 

and intermarried whites to claim citizenship, so the Chickasaw did not submit 

their membership rolls. After three years, with little success in getting the 

Chickasaw rolls, the Dawes Commission was directed to rule on applications for 

citizenship and add names to the tribal rolls [June 10, 1896; 29 Stat. 321] so 

that allotment could proceed and Indian Territory could be included in 

statehood. The Dawes Commission made citizenship rolls for those eligible for 

rights, including Indians, intermarried whites, and freedmen. 

In December of 1896, the Choctaw signed an allotment agreement at Muskogee that 

ceded the Choctaw-Chickasaw domain to the United States. On February 8, 1897, 

the commissioners of the Chickasaw Nation protested the Muskogee Agreement and 

Congress did not ratify it (Gibson 1971:303). The Chickasaw stated that their 

greatest objection was 

...founded upon the well-known fact that years ago the Congress of the 

United States granted to certain railroad companies alternate sections of 

the public domain, some of which ran through the lands owned by the 

Choctaw and Chickasaw nations.... The government of the United States had 

no title to these alternate sections when the grant was made, yet we fear 

that should our two nations voluntarily convey the fee title to our lands 

to the United States, that, when done, it would be claimed by the 

railroads that the title in the alternate sections heretofore granted 

would have inure to themselves, the result of which might cause long 

litigation between the railroads claiming the grants and such allottees 

as had selected allotments... and perhaps in the end lose their homes. For 

this reason more than all others we, the Chickasaws, have refused to sign 

said agreement (U.S. Senate 1897).

A March 4, 1897, law required that all acts of tribal legislators be submitted 

for presidential approval. Fearful that Congress would require them to grant 

equal shares in tribal estate to freedmen, who by 1897 nearly equaled the 

Chickasaw in number; the Chickasaw appointed a commission with power to treat 

with the Dawes Commission and agreed to join the Choctaw in negotiations 

(Gibson 1971:303). The subsequent Atoka Agreement was signed on April 23, 1897, 

and ratified by the U.S. on June 28, 1898 [30 Stat. 495]; however, even though 

the Atoka Agreement was approved by both tribal governments, the Chickasaw had 

an additional requirement of a national referendum on the question of allotment 

and Chickasaw voters rejected the Atoka Agreement. 

Congress then adopted the Curtis Act on June 28, 1898, which provided for 

allotting land and terminating the governance of the Five Civilized Tribes 

without tribal consent; however, it did not apply to the Choctaw and Chickasaw 

if they would ratify the Atoka Agreement before December 1, 1898 (Gibson 

1971:304). The Curtis Act approximated an Organic Act for Indian Territory and 

contained the Atoka Agreement with a proviso that it be resubmitted to Choctaw 

and Chickasaw voters. The act authorized the survey and platting of Indian 

Territory and sale of town lots, and provided for the establishment of the 

Choctaw and Chickasaw Townsite Commission to survey, plat, and appraise town 

sites so that settlers who developed there would have right of title. It was 
29

submitted to the Chickasaw and Choctaw voters and approved on August 30, 1898 

(Gibson 1971:304). 

Before this agreement, a Chickasaw citizen had the right to use any unoccupied 

portion of the tribal domain and to designate an area as a town site. 

Chickasaw citizens, most of them mixed bloods, established their claims to huge 

tracts of land that they leased to whites, and new towns were built throughout 

Chickasaw territory by white residents. However, the whites were only there by 

the patronage of a particular Chickasaw citizen, because the white residents 

held no title to the land. Almost immediately after the ratification of the 

Atoka Agreement, differences of opinion arose as to the disposal of mineral 

lands, and litigation over citizenship by whites and blacks delayed land 

allotment. The tribal estate could not be liquefied until citizenship was 

identified. 

The Chickasaw and Choctaw were particularly concerned about the protection of 

their resources from non-tribal citizens. A 1900 census recorded 150,000 whites 

residing in Chickasaw territory, and over 5,000 blacks claimed to be Chickasaw 

freedmen, although the Chickasaw never owned more than 1,000 slaves and the 

Chickasaw population was slightly less than 6,000 (Gibson 1971). Chickasaw 

rolls in 1906 carried 6,319 Chickasaw citizens: 1,538 full bloods; 4,146 mixed 

bloods; and 635 intermarried whites. The rolls for Chickasaw freedmen contained 

4,670 blacks.

A supplemental agreement with the Choctaw and Chickasaw was negotiated on July 

1, 1902, [32 Stat. 541] and ratified by the tribe on September 25, 1902. This 

agreement included specifications regarding the allotment of land, created a 

citizenship court, provided for the sale of mineral lands, and created the 

Sulphur Springs Reservation. 

The Atoka Agreement provided that all lands within Indian Territory belonging 

to the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians would be allotted to tribal members on a 

fair and equal basis, considering the character and fertility of the soil and 

the location and value of the lands. The Chickasaw and Choctaw governments were 

to terminate by March 4, 1906, and the Chickasaw and Choctaw were to become 

citizens of the U.S. The allotments were not carried out by this date though, 

and final disposition of the Five Civilized Tribes’ estate was not completed 

until April 26, 1906 [34 Sat. 137]. 

On November 16, 1907, Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory became the 46th

state, and the Chickasaw Nation became a semi-autonomous Indian Republic 

subject to the laws of Congress. 

The use and values that the associated tribes have to Chickasaw National 

Recreation Area are presented in more detail in Appendix F., Ethnographic 

Overview: American Indian Occupation and Use of the Chickasaw National 

Recreation Area by Dr. Clara Sue Kidwell.
30

Chapter Two

"FREE TO ALL COMERS IN PERPETUITY"

THE CREATION OF PLATT NATIONAL PARK

The Choctaw-Chickasaw supplemental agreement to the Atoka Agreement, written 

under the direction of the Department of Interior on July 1, 1902, addressed 

the matter of selecting lands for a reservation at Sulphur. The act stated the 

following:

 

The two tribes hereby absolutely and unqualifiedly relinquish, cede, and 

convey unto the United States a tract or tracts of land at and in the 

vicinity of the village of Sulphur, in the Chickasaw Nation, of not 

exceeding six hundred and forty acres, to be selected, under the 

direction of the Secretary of Interior, within four months after the 

final ratification of this agreement, and to embrace all the natural 

springs in and about said village, and so much of Sulphur Creek, Rock 

Creek, Buckhorn Creek and the lands adjacent to said natural springs and 

creeks as may be deemed necessary by the Secretary of Interior for the 

proper utilization and control of said springs and the waters of said 

creeks, which lands shall be so selected as to cause the least 

interference with the contemplated town site at that place consistent 

with the purposes for which said cession is made, and when selected the 

ceded lands shall be held, owned, and controlled by the United States 

absolutely and without any restriction, save that no part thereof shall 

be platted or disposed of for town-site purposes during the existence of 

the two tribal governments... [32 Stat. 641]. 

The events that led to the actual establishment of the Sulphur Springs 

Reservation are complex, and required exhaustive research. Because the archival 

record is so extensive and requires a thorough understanding of all the players 

and their activities, this section will utilize numerous quotations from the 

original source material to prevent information from being misinterpreted. To 

acquire this information, the authors and park staff made a trip to the 

National Archives in Fort Worth to compile a chronology of the park’s history. 

They found many records missing from the folders there, so two trips were made 

to the National Archives in Washington D.C., and the Connecticut State Library, 

in order to bring the history together. These efforts have led to what we 

believe to be an accurate account of how the reservation came to be created. 

Information pertaining to Sulphur is sparse prior to 1895, except for a few 

notations, such as mention of the 28 members of the 6th Infantry who died of 

cholera between Sulphur and Davis in 1867. Travel through the region was 

common, and in 1871-1872 there was a freight and mail line that ran through 

Sulphur, while the Chisholm and Texas cattle trails ran on either side of the 

Sulphur area. In 1877 a stage line from Texas to Tishomingo crossed the 

Lowrance Ranch, just four miles to the southeast of Sulphur (Brown and Garrity 

1981:7).

In 1878 the area of Sulphur Springs was used by the Chickasaw Indians as a 

watering hole for their animals. Apparently, it was known locally as "Buffalo 

Suck," where great herds came to water. At about this time a few settlers began 

to lease land here from the Chickasaw for grazing purposes (Weekly NewsDemocrat 1909:3).
31

One old cowman named H. H. Allen is purported to have purchased a ranch from 

the Indians in 1882 near the present park. Allen said that when he first 

visited the springs he found the region quite undeveloped (Weekly News-Democrat

1909:3). At this time, the Chickasaw would not have been able to sell or 

alienate their land, so he probably leased it from the Chickasaw, rather than 

purchased it.

That... was about ten years after the Indians had migrated here from 

Mississippi. Where your pavilion springs... now are was a perfect loblolly 

of mud and water. This was a favorite place for great herds of buffalo 

that roamed over the rocky hills and valleys at that time. They would 

coat their furry hides with a plaster of mud in order to free themselves 

from insect pests. After completely plastering themselves with mud, the 

buffalo would stand around the wallows and in the water, so I presume 

this is how the springs came to be called "the buffalo sucks" springs.

5 

During my first visit to the springs I shot buffalo on the hills south 

of the pavilion. Deer, antelope, and wild turkey were to be seen in great 

herds and flocks. The Indians were quite different people from what they 

are now; they knew much less of white man’s ways (Weekly News-Democrat

1909:3).

"Early development Pavilion Springs, upper right, then known as 

Big Tom and Lower Left known as Beauty Springs, about 1907"

(CHIC Archives 0002)

In 1878, Noah Lael and his wife Lucy Harris, the daughter of Chickasaw Governor 

Cyrus Harris, moved to Sulphur Springs. Lael established the Diamond Z cattle 

ranch around the springs, which encompassed much of what is now the park 

(Conlan 1926; Brown and Garrity 1981:8). Lael could use and occupy this 

property because of his status as an intermarried citizen.

 

 

5See place name for Pavilion Spring in Appendix A for different 

interpretation of name. 
32

Perry Froman, who was married to Lovina Colbert Pitchlynn, a Chickasaw widow, 

bought the ranch from Noah Lael in 1882 for $350 (Conlan 1926). Froman grazed 

15,000 cattle on this four-square-mile ranch (Brown and Garrity 1981:8). The 

Froman Ranch house was located near the present Hillside Springs, and just 

across the street to the south was Pavilion Springs. 

On June 11, 1895, Froman relinquished his occupancy to the 447-acre ranch by

quit claim deed to C. J. Grant, J. T. Hill, and C. D. Carter, all three members 

of the Chickasaw Tribe. Portions of the deed read as follows:

Perry Froman and wife, Lavina Froman, of the Chickasaw Nation, Indian 

Territory, for and in consideration of the sum of Twenty Five Hundred 

($2500.00) Dollars... have this day remised, released, quit-claimed, 

transferred and assigned... unto C. J. Grant, John T. Hill and C. D. 

Carter, all three citizens of the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, the 

following described land... [legal description]... containing 447 acres of 

land more or less being known as the Froman Sulphur Springs Ranch 

property being the same land surveyed by J. M. Preston on the 7th day of 

June A. D. 1895 in which surveying said Preston was assisted by P.

Froman, R. A. Sneed, John T. Hill and Tom Ventress. But it was understood 

that we reserve and except out of said above described land a lot on 

which is situated the old Ranch house near the old Ranch Spring said lot 

being one hundred and fifty feet by two hundred, feet, and being now 

occupied by B. T. King as a residence lot, and we also reserve the right 

to use for our family the old Ranch Spring not debarring, however said 

Grant, Hill and Carter their assigns or vendees or leasees from also 

using said old Ranch Spring which is to be under the control of said 

Grant, Hill and Carter... (DOI 1895).

6

The Froman White Sulphur Springs Company was incorporated on January 20, 1896,

(DOI 1904a) "advertising the medicinal properties of the sulphur and bromide 

water available in the Bromide Springs area" (Arbuckle Historical Society 

1988:133). The company built the White Sulphur Inn in 1892,

7 and Brown and 

Garrity (1981:9) state that they laid out a town and sold lots and leased 

business privileges here. 

After the Curtis Act, the Sulphur town site was incorporated in August 1898. 

Then on September 27, 1898, the Froman Company gave a deed of trust to J. D. 

Leeper8 for the Park Hotel and the tract of land known as the Froman Ranch to 

secure a debt to the Waples Painter Company, of which Leeper was the "principal 

stakeholder" (DOI 1904a). On September 29, 1898, a deed from the Froman White 

Sulphur Springs Company to the Waples-Painter Company reads partially as 

follows:

 

 

6Brown and Garrity say that Richard Alexander Sneed, a Paul's Valley and 

Lawton Merchant-farmer organized the Sulphur Springs Company in 1891-1892, 

chartered under the laws of Texas, and named it "The Sulphur Springs Indian 

Territory Resort." That Sneed had 50 stockholders, bought 640 acres from the 

Froman Ranch, and platted a town site, and his summer home became the Sulphur 

Inn. The authors do not cite their source (Brown and Garrity 1981:9).

 

7Purchased by W.L. Townsley and "moved across the creeks north of the Vendome 

to become the Park Hotel," which was razed in 1925 (Brown and Garrity 1981:43).

8Graves Leeper of Oklahoma City came to Sulphur for his health and 

established a lumber yard here (Brown and Garrity 1981:10).
33

The Froman White Sulphur Springs Co.... executed and delivered to me, J. D. 

Leeper, as trustee for the Waples Painter Co.... a deed of trust dated said 

27th day of September 1898... for the purpose of securing the payment of 

certain indebtedness set out in said deed of trust... and being the two 

story frame Hotel owned by said Sulphur Springs company, and being known 

as the Sulphur Springs Hotel and all out houses and buildings and 

improvements... and all the right, title and interest of said Froman White 

Sulphur Springs Co. on and to the 640 acres of land more or less, quit 

claimed prior to the said 27th day of Sept. 1898, by Perry Froman and 

wife to C. J. Grant, J. T. Hill and C. D. Carter, including all right, 

title, interest or claim the said Sulphur Springs Co. had on said 

September 27th, 1898 in and to said 640 acres of land... being the and upon 

which are located the Springs known as the Sulphur Springs and the post 

office of Sulphur, I. T..... And whereas default has been made... and said 

indebtedness became thus thirty days after the 27th day of Sept. 1898, 

and whereas the Waples Painter Co., the holder of said indebtedness has 

since said default... requested me, the said trustee, to sell the property...

sale said property was struck off to said Waples Painter Co. for the 

price and sum of six hundred and fifty dollars... (DOI 1898).

Swords wrote the Secretary of the Interior that a town site company organized 

and leased about 425 acres of land from Froman, but they had to sell the hotel 

and lots under foreclosure and the owners held onto the improved lots. When it 

was proposed that there would be a reservation, Sneed claimed to represent the 

old town site company and demanded payment from the holders of the improved 

lots. Some paid money so they could have some peace (DOI 1902d; DOI 1902g); 

however, Sneed had no authority to sell or dispose of lots in the town of 

Sulphur, because the only way to obtain title was in accordance with the Curtis 

Act (DOI 1901d). 

On February 4, 1901, a letter was written to the Secretary of the Interior from 

G. W. Robberson, a local citizen, regarding the surveying and platting of 

Sulphur Springs. He writes what appears to be the first correspondence 

regarding reserving a park here, noting that the location 

...is pre-eminately [sic] situated and has abundant natural advantages for 

a health and pleasure resort. And is in fact the one and only place where 

can be reserved and platted a town for the pleasure and health of the 

people of the Indian Territory and the south west. The waters here have 

long since demonstrated the fact that they carry medicinal properties of 

a high order. Could this town be plated with this object in view, with 

ample Parks Reserves and Public grounds for the pleasure, health and 

comfort of the many thousands who visit here annually, would be to make 

of it, a town of considerable, note (DOI 1901w).

 The letter informs the Secretary of the Interior that shortly after the Curtis 

Act, the citizens applied for and secured incorporation; however, the agents 

they selected to represent them surveyed the town according to their own 

notions, and that looking at the plat they made would "reveal the fact of 

gross incompetence and should such a plat meet your sanction the place will be 

deprived of its chief attraction" (DOI 1901L). Robberson protested this plat 

because the bank of the creek and even the creek itself had been platted 

"marring its beauty and rendering harbor for filth and setting up an 

unsanitary condition" (DOI 1901L). Also, buildings on the east side above the 

springs allowed sewage to be absorbed into the springs. He stated that this 

survey, known as the King9 survey, should be denied and the matter given over 

 
34

to the town site commission with "specific instructions as to what in [the 

Secretary's] judgement will be for the present good and future welfare of the 

town" (DOI 1901L). Because the town was developing very quickly, the letter 

requested prompt attention to the matter.

 The people of Sulphur wanted to have the town surveyed and disposed of as soon 

as possible so that they could procure deeds for the lots they had improved. 

"An act of Congress of May 31, 1900, [31 Stat. 221] authorized the Secretary of 

Interior to survey and plat town sites with populations of more than 200. H. V. 

Hinkley was appointed Supervising Engineer on June 4, 1900, to direct the 

activities of 10 to 12 field parties that were sent out to locate the exterior 

limits of town sites and prepare plats. The Tribal Townsite Commission 

appraised individual lots within town sites after the plat was approved by the 

Secretary of Interior" (Carter 1994:87). The act provided that the external 

boundaries of the town could be located before the actual survey and appraisal 

by the town site commission if the town had been established prior to the Atoka 

Agreement (Brown 1937).

 There was concern by Commissioner Dawes that the white citizens were getting 

judgments on the land via the citizenship issue. On February 12, 1901, he wrote 

that 4,000 people, mostly whites, had judgments of citizenship for purpose of 

allotment, and that the "value of the land thus to be wrenched from the tribes 

is enormous" (DOI 1901a).

 On March 26, 1901, Sulphur attorney Eugene E. White wrote to Indian Inspector 

J. George Wright at Muskogee stating that six weeks ago a J.E. Henry and others 

had sent in a petition for the annexation of a certain tract of land to the 

town site of Sulphur. White stated that:

...not having been advised of any action on the petition, the petitioners 

have asked me to make inquiry concerning it. Houses are going up on the 

tract of land in question every day, and it is really an important part 

of the town, and ought to be included in the town site (DOI 1901x).

 The Dennis Flynn Republican Club sent a resolution to the U.S. Indian 

inspector concerning the protection of the springs on June 4, 1901, which 

stated:

The rapid growth of the town of Sulphur and the increase in values of 

permanent population admonishes us of the dangers which would ensue if 

the many advantages and resources provided by nature now enjoyed freely 

by all comers should pass into the hands of individual holders and the 

now free use of the natural springs be curtailed or controlled for 

personal profit and whereas we have no representative in Congress to 

express our desires or protect our interests in the matters of 

legislation so vital to our future, therefore... it is hereby resolved that 

Hon. Orville H. Platt, U.S. Senator, who has for many years been familiar 

with and advocates legislation for the benefit of this Territory, be and 

is hereby requested to act as our representative in securing legislation 

as will tend to set apart a Township of six square miles to be known as 

Sulphur Springs under Governmental control so that the waters of the 

springs and other natural advantages shall be free to all comers in 

perpetuity and further resolved that a copy of these preamble and 

resolutions signed and attested by the President and Secretary be 

forwarded to the Secretary of the Interior and United States Senator O. 

 

 

9In 1895 B.T. King had a residence lot, 150 feet by 200 feet at the "old 

ranch spring," which was excluded from the Froman deed (DOI 1895).
35

H. Platt as the unanimous expression of the desires of the members of the 

Republican Club of the town of Sulphur. T. R. Cook, Prest. (DOI 1901L).

Orville Platt forwarded the resolution to the Secretary of the Interior on June 

11, 1901, with a request that 

...if there is anyway this section of land can be withdrawn from allotment 

I should think it would be a good plan. It is hardly fair that they 

should be allotted to Individual Indians when by reservation a health 

resort could be built up there for the benefit of all (DOI 1901c).

On June 17, Indian Inspector J. George Wright responded to the resolution. In 

reply, Wright states that 

...while the exterior limits of this town were laid out by one of the 

surveyors, they did not, in my judgment, appear to be satisfactory, and 

were not, therefore, submitted for the approval of the Department (DOI 

1901d).

Wright said he expected that after the first of July one of the surveyors could 

re-establish the boundaries, and then "the matter will receive careful 

consideration, and a full report upon the petition referred to will be made"

(DOI 1901d). 

Another correspondence from Platt to the Secretary of the Interior on June 19, 

1901, stated that Joseph F. Swords was appointed appraiser for the Dawes 

Commission at Platt’s request, but had given up that position, becoming 

interested

in the development of mineral springs at Sulphur... and through him I am 

flooded with resolutions and the actions of various meetings of the 

citizens, setting forth their wish to have land on which these springs 

are found withdrawn from allotment so that it can be utilized for public 

benefit. They seem to think that I am to take this matter in hand and see 

that what they want done is accomplished.... I do not know what can be done 

about it, but I wish that you would give the matter your attention. It is 

suggested that you might have the land investigated through the 

geological Department, and learn definitely the facts, and also consult 

Major Taggart who is I think employed by the department and knows the 

location and situation (DOI 1901e). 

Platt wrote the commissioner of Indian affairs stating that he thought the 

variety of medicinal springs "could become a place of considerable resort" and 

"would seem to be well adapted for a health resort as Hot Springs, Arkansas." 

Platt continued that he did not know what could be done, "unless by 

congressional action based upon some supplementary agreement with the Dawes 

Commission" (DOI 1901b).

The Secretary of the Interior requested a United States Geological Service 

survey of the mineral springs, which was conducted by geologist Joseph A. Taff 

in July of 1901, although a final report was not received until November 20, 

1901.

On July 30, Eugene E. White wrote to the Secretary of the Interior of his 

concern about the size of the proposed reservation and the omission of "several 

hundred acres" that should be included, and that these waters "ought never to 

be permitted to fall into private control or monopoly. It will take the strong 

arm of the government to prevent this" (DOI 1901f). 
36

Chickasaw Governor D. H. Johnston wrote to Indian Inspector George Wright on 

September 2, 1901, that he had received Wright’s letter of August 26 relative to 

reserving the springs through a supplemental agreement with the two nations. 

If a plan along those lines, that would be practicable and 

satisfactory to the Chickasaw and Choctaw people, and providing for 

adequately compensating them for the lands desired for that purpose, 

I see no reason why it should not be consummated (DOI 1901g).

A supplemental treaty was awaiting the action of the forthcoming session of 

Congress. Inspector Wright suggested to the governor that "if you have any 

specific suggestions to offer as to the form of such a provision [within the 

treaty], I should be pleased to have you make the same to me" (DOI 1901g).

Inspector Wright sent the Secretary of the Interior his report and stated that 

geologist Taff made the examination of the springs but Wright had not received 

that report yet. 

It seems the desire of all parties located in that portion of the 

Territory to have the mineral springs at that place reserved, and 

inasmuch as this town has become quite a resort and is growing very 

rapidly, and it appears that the springs are quite valuable, I believe 

they should not be allowed to get into the control of any individual 

Indian of the Chickasaw Nation or the control of the town of Sulphur, and 

therefore, if any plan could be outlined to set aside and reserve a 

reasonable tract of land at this place, I respectfully recommend it be 

done (DOI 1901h).

Wright notes that a provision would need to be made in a supplemental agreement 

with the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations, and he advises the Dennis Flynn 

Republican Club and E. E. White "to take the matter up with the tribal 

authorities" themselves, and that in the meantime, "no steps will be taken" to 

survey or plat the town site (DOI 1901h). The acting commissioner of Indian 

affairs concurred with Wright’s proposal (DOI 1901; DOI 1901i).

Eugene E. White, writing to both the Secretary of the Interior and the Indian 

inspector on September 26, 1901, stated he was unsure if the letter of advice 

that he had just received from the department was intended to have the people 

of Sulphur themselves take up the question with the tribal authorities, or 

whether the department was going to attend to the matter through its regular 

official channels. White preferred that there be cooperation between the 

officials of the department and the citizens of Sulphur in negotiation with the 

tribal authorities, and hoped that the inspector could come down to confer with 

the town in the matter. He also pointed out that whatever was done should be 

done before adjournment of the Chickasaw legislature, and before the Dawes 

Commission negotiated with the tribal authorities for the supplemental 

agreement (DOI 1901j).

The correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior became a battle between the 

Dennis Flynn Republican Club and E. E. White regarding who was "authorized" to 

approach the Chickasaw. On September 30, T. R. Cook of the Republican club 

stated that Mr. White’s motives arose from personal real estate interests with 

the firm of Gafford and White, and that Joseph Swords, a member of the Dennis 

Flynn Republican Club, was the "originator of the movement for segregation, 

petitioned by the town council," was the author of the resolutions, had worked 

"zealously and efficiently to accomplish the desired end, upon lines suggested 

by Platt," and that Mr. Swords is the agent of the club and the town council in 

all matters pertaining to the reservation before the Department of Interior and 

Congress and the one delegated to go before tribal authorities (DOI 1901k). 
37

Colonel Swords had been an appraiser for the Dawes Commission, and Eugene E. 

White had been a special Indian agent at Anadarko, and an allotting agent (DOI 

1901e). White had also been an applicant for the position of assistant 

commissioner of Indian affairs in 1893 (DOI n.d; DOI 1894). Therefore, both men 

were familiar with tribal government and federal Indian policy. 

Correspondence to the Indian inspector from Eugene E. White on October 17 

refers to the inspector's inquiry of the status of the proposed reserve, and 

White informed him that J. F. Swords and D. J. Kendall (Mayor) went to 

Tishomingo and accomplished nothing, so White and six others went to see the 

Chickasaw authorities themselves. White states that the Chickasaw all seemed 

"dead set against a reservation six miles square" and many knew of "my stance 

against such a large area." But they "expressed a willingness to give it due 

consideration" and would like to have until the 22nd to consider the matter 

(DOI 1901m).

 

On October 19, T. R. Cook wrote to Indian Inspector George Wright that Governor 

Johnston advised Mayor Kendall and Joseph Swords that "as soon as the 

commissioners for the preparation of the supplemental treaty should be in 

session, he would notify the delegates." However, the illness of Governor 

Johnston had prevented the session, and Kendall and Swords were awaiting 

notification. Cook continues that "we do not deny the right of E. E. White or 

any other citizen to appear before any person or tribunal in the interests of a 

proposed reservation," but the citizens have voted expressly not to appoint 

White to represent them, "and this club will not consent to any cooperation 

whatever with Mr. White" (DOI 1901n).

Referring to White’s question of whether the department would take the matter 

up through official channels, the Indian Inspector informed the Secretary of 

the Interior that both Mr. Cook's and Mr. White’s correspondence state that the 

citizens had already taken the matter up with the Chickasaw; therefore, he 

recommended that no further action be taken by the department "until the same 

is again brought before the department" (DOI 1901o). 

On October 31, White wrote a detailed account to Inspector Wright concerning 

his meeting with the Chickasaw and referred further to the subject of the 

proposed reservation at Sulphur. 

I went to Tishomingo Monday last, and on Tuesday had an interview with 

Governor Johnston, and at night I addressed the members of the two houses 

of the legislature on the subject. They took the position that no formal 

action by the legislature was necessary because the Chickasaw 

Commissioners to treat with the Dawes Commission will have full authority 

under their general powers to make an agreement on this subject, and they 

advised me to get the Dawes Commission to submit a proposition to their 

commission, all saying that it would be more satisfactory to them to have 

the proposition come from the Dawes Commission than to make the first 

move in the matter themselves. There seems to be no objection now 

anywhere to a reserve of reasonable area being set apart, except by a 

white man who claims to have rights as a Chickasaw citizen, and he is 

holding Sulphur Creek and the springs constituting its source. He wants 

$150,000.00 for his claim to this tract of only a few hundred acres. Of 

course this is preposterous, and unless he becomes more reasonable, that 

tract will have to be omitted. I will immediately make a draft of what we 

want, and submit it to the Dawes Commission for their consideration (DOI 

1901p).

Then on November 29, 1901, White again wrote Inspector Wright:
38

Dear Sir:

Referring to our previous correspondence upon the subject of the proposed 

permanent reserve at Sulphur, I beg to report that agreeably to the 

directions of the Secretary of the Interior through yourself, I took the 

matter up with the Commissioners of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations 

appointed to negotiate a supplemental agreement with the Dawes 

Commission. All of the said Commissioners seemed to favor the project, 

but preferred that the proposition should come direct from the Dawes 

Commission. I then had a conference with Hon. Tams Bixby, Acting Chairman 

of the Dawes Commission, who suggested that I make a draft of the 

provision that we desired and submit it to him for the consideration of 

his Commission. Pursuant to that suggestion, I made drafts of two 

propositions—one to purchase the town site at ten dollars per acre with 

the proviso that a permanent reserve should be carved out of the town 

site to embrace all of the medicinal and valuable springs therein, and 

also all of those parts of Sulphur and Rock Creeks lying within the town 

site; and another to lay out a sufficient amount of land for the town 

site, and to dedicate a permanent reserve therein as above indicated, and 

to appropriate two-thirds of the proceeds of the sale of town lots in the 

town site to pay for improvements and possessory rights on and to the 

land appropriated, and for the improvement and care of the reserve. When 

these propositions were submitted to the Commission of the Chickasaw and 

Choctaw Nations, they seemed to prefer the first, and to have no 

objection to it other than the fear that it might be objected to by the 

Secretary of the Interior or in Congress, and thereby endanger the 

ratification of the whole agreement. Some of the Commissioners informed 

me that they also thought it would be to their advantage to confine their 

agreement to the subject of citizenship and one or two other subjects of 

national importance to them, and omit the subject of the reserve and 

others not of national importance, to be used in compromise with the 

Secretary of the Interior on the citizenship and other important 

subjects. I remained near the commissioners during the negotiations at 

South McAlester, so that I could be called before them in case any 

information from me should be desired. Then I was compelled to go to 

Court at Pauls Valley, since which time I have received no information as 

to whether there have been any further negotiations on the subject or 

not.

I presume you are fully advised of the importance of establishing this 

reserve. When you come to survey and appraise and sell this town site 

under the Atoka Agreement, the little parks containing all of these 

valuable springs which the people here have set apart and to this date

protected by common consent, they will have to be surveyed into lots and 

sold to the highest bidder, and the springs will thereby pass into 

private control and monopoly, to the irreparable injury of the town and 

all persons, whether white or Indian, in this Territory and the 

surrounding states and territories, who may ever wish to have the benefit 

of these excellent curative waters. To avert this great and unnecessary 

wrong, we appeal to you, and through you to the Secretary of the 

Interior, to insist upon some provision being incorporated in the 

agreement to protect these springs from private control and monopoly, and 

to preserve them for the free use and benefit of the public forever. We 

also request that the representative of the town of Sulphur be given 

opportunity to be heard further upon the subject at proper stages of the 

negotiations, either before the commissions in the Indian territory, or 

before the Department at Washington. 
39

Very Respectfully,

Eugene E. White (DOI 1901q).

In response to the Secretary of the Interior, Eugene E. White and T. R. Cook 

replied on December 5, 1901. 

 Agreebly [sic] to your instructions, the citizens of the town of Sulphur 

 selected us to take up the subject with the tribal authorities. We made 

two trips to Tishomingo for that purpose. The Indians expressed not only 

willingness, but desire, to have a provision incorporated in the 

supplemental agreement which it was proposed to make with the Dawes 

Commission, that would accomplish our purpose. They stated, however, that 

in all of their negotiations with the Dawes Commission they had always 

occupied a defensive or negative position, and had never made an original 

proposition themselves, but in all cases had simply stood and received 

propositions from the Dawes Commission and considered them or met them 

with counter propositions, and that they preferred not to reverse that 

attitude in this matter. They therefore suggested to us that we see the 

Dawes Commission and get them to submit the proposition. They also 

authorized us to say to the Dawes Commission that they favored the 

project, and would consider it if it was submitted to them. Acting upon 

that suggestion, we went to Muskogee to see the Dawes Commission. 

Commissioners Needles and Breckenridge were absent in the Cherokee 

Nation, and we found only Acting Chairman Bixby at the office. He advised 

us to make a draft of the provision as we would like to have it embodied 

in the agreement, for his consideration and submission to the Indian 

Commissioners, if he approved it. Pursuant to this advice, we made drafts 

of two provisions, to be considered alternatively. One of these was for 

the purchase of a sufficient tract of land for the townsite of Sulphur 

at ten dollars per acre, with a proviso that a permanent reserve should 

be carved out of the tract to embrace all of the medicinal and valuable 

springs, and to be dedicated to the public use forever. The other 

proposition was to set aside the same tract of land for the townsite, and 

then to survey out of it the permanent reserve as above, and set aside 

two-thirds of the proceeds of the sales of the town lots in the townsite 

as provided in the Atoka Agreement, for paying the owners of the 

improvements and possessory rights on the lands so taken and set apart 

therefor, and for the improvement and preservation of the springs. We 

delivered these two papers to Chairman Bixby, and were afterwards 

informed by him that he submitted them to the Choctaw and Chickasaw 

Commissioners for their consideration. We remained at Muskogee where we 

could be called if needed to give information, until the adjournment of 

the Commissions to meet the following week at South McAlester. Our Mr. 

White also met the Commissions at South McAlester, and remained there two 

days, when he was compelled to attend Court at Pauls Valley. Before he 

left, however, the Chickasaw Commissioners told him that no agreement had 

been reached on any subject, and that while they all favored the 

establishment of a reserve at Sulphur, they were afraid that if they put 

it in the agreement it might be objected to by the Secretary of the 

Interior or in Congress, and thereby endanger the ratification of the 

agreement. They stated further that they feared that the Secretary might 

not sanction their agreement on the question of citizenship just as they 

wanted it, and that they thought it would be to their advantage to 

confine the agreement to that one subject, or perhaps that and one or two 

others of like importance to them, and omit the subject of the reserve at 

Sulphur and other subjects of less than national importance, to trade on 

with the Secretary. That is to say, to hold them back so they could say 

to him that if he wanted them to be included in the agreement, they would 
40

incorporate them; but that if they did so they would want him to give 

them as liberal a provision on the citizenship subject as possible. 

Since that time we have not been informed as to whether any conclusion 

was reached on the subject, or what further consideration, if any, was 

given it.

We assume that you are fully informed as to the necessity of preventing 

these valuable curative waters from falling into private control and 

monopoly, and preserving them for the use and benefit of the public 

forever. Of course you understand that in the Atoka Agreement there is no 

provision for parks. But the people have set apart three small plots of 

ground, (not half-adequate, however, in number or size, to protect the 

springs or accommodate the people in the enjoyment of them) embracing a 

number of these springs, and surveyed some of the others into streets, 

and have by these means, by common consent, held and protected them to 

this date. But when the townsite Commission comes to survey and sell the 

townsite under the Atoka Agreement, of course these little plots will 

have to be surveyed and sold as unimproved lots, and thereby the springs 

will go to the highest bidder and become individual property; to the 

irreparable injury of the town, and to all the people of the Indian 

Territory, and all surrounding states and territories. This is not saying 

too much, because these springs are visited now by people from St. Louis 

and Omaha to Galveston, and from New Orleans to Denver, and are 

considered unequaled in their curative properties by any springs between 

Arkansas and Colorado resorts, east and west, or between the Gulf of 

Mexico and the British line, north and south.

Therefore, in our own name, and in behalf of the citizens of Sulphur, and 

the public generally, we appeal to you to insist that a provision that 

will save these springs to the people be incorporated in any supplemental 

agreement that may be negotiated between the Dawes Commission and the 

Commissions of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations.

Very Respectfully,

Eugene E. White 

T.R.Cook10 (DOI 1901r)

A letter from Sulphur Mayor Kendall to the Secretary of the Interior on 

December 9, states that the citizens of Sulphur, at a mass meeting on October 

1, appointed Mayor Kendall and Joseph Swords to work with the Chickasaw on the 

matter of the reservation. The delegates were cordially received and assured by 

Governor Johnston that when the commission to prepare a supplemental treaty 

should meet he would advise Kendall’s committee, and that they might appear and 

state the wishes of the citizens of Sulphur. But, thus far no notification had 

been received, and Kendall asked the Secretary to instruct the Indian Inspector 

to call the attention of Governor Johnston to his desire for a conference with 

the treaty commissioners (DOI 1901s).

The commissioner of the Five Civilized Tribes wrote to the Secretary of the 

Interior that he had received the department’s letter of December 7, 1901, in 

which the Secretary suggested that proposed provisions concerning the Sulphur 

Springs reservation be forwarded to the department for consideration by the 

Chickasaw and Choctaw, and stated that this suggestion would receive the 

 

10It is of interest to see note that says J.R. Cook, formerly of the Dennis 

Flynn Republican Club, is now working together with Eugene E. White.
41

consideration of the commission when the proposed supplemental agreement was 

acted upon (DOI 1901t).

White had received a letter dated December 14, 1901, from the Dawes Commission 

advising him that they were unable to find the draft of the provisions that he 

had prepared and submitted to the acting chairman. Therefore, White reproduced 

from memory the proposition and sent them a carbon copy (DOI 1901u).

The commissioner of the Five Civilized Tribes wrote to the Secretary of the 

Interior on December 30, stating that the report would be delayed because the 

terms of the agreement had not been concurred with by the Chickasaw and 

Choctaw nations and the commission. A draft proposed agreement had been 

transmitted to the department; however, it did not include the provision for 

the reservation at Sulphur Springs. The establishment of a reservation was 

suggested to the representatives of the Choctaw and Chickasaw; however, they 

"unqualifiedly expressed a disinclination to agree to the segregation of a 

reservation at that point" (DOI 1901v).

The commissioner of the Five Civilized Tribes wrote to the Interior Secretary 

on January 3, stating that there appeared to be no opportunity to accomplish 

the reserve at that time. It turned out that the "representatives of the 

Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, now authorized to negotiate, have declined to 

consider the embodiment of a provision for that purpose in a supplemental 

agreement" (DOI 1902a).

The Dennis Flynn Republican Club wrote the Secretary of the Interior on January 

3, reiterating that Joseph Swords "is the only person authorized to represent 

the club in matters pertaining to the proposed reservation." It was the club's 

contention that the former president, Thomas R. Cook, received and retained 

letters from the Department of Interior dated October 1, 1901, and that they 

wanted copies of the letters. A note attached to this archived letter from the 

Interior Secretary’s office then states, "did not write to said Cook. Maybe 

Ind. Terr. Div. Did" (DOI 1902a).

Inspector Wright wrote to the Secretary of the Interior on March 3, 1902, 

stating:

In the platting and surveying of this town and the appraisement and 

disposal of town lots these springs should be reserved in some manner for 

the general public, as this place is visited each year by a large number 

of people for the purpose of securing the benefit derived by the use of 

these springs and in my judgement for this reason this place will 

undoubtedly in the future be an important and popular resort.

These springs should therefore be reserved in some manner for the general 

public, as also the whole of Sulphur Creek, including the springs at its 

source, which are located a short distance from the town, and also that 

part of Rock Creek within such town.

It is suggested that in the surveying and platting of this town and 

appraisement of lots that an amount of land embracing all of the above 

could be set aside as parks and appraised by the town site commission at 

their true value.

I understand that under the direction of the Honorable Secretary of the 

Interior the Director of the Geological Survey has caused an 

investigation to be made of these springs and a report submitted in 

reference thereto to the Department.
42

As it will be necessary that some agreement with the Choctaw and 

Chickasaw Nations be negotiated, I enclose herewith a proposed amendment 

to the Supplemental Agreement with the Choctaw and Chickasaws, now 

pending before the Department, and respectfully recommend that Congress 

be asked to add this memorandum to the agreement, with such modifications 

as the Department may deem proper.

I have personally inspected these springs and it is of great importance 

that the same be reserved for the use of the general public in some 

manner.

The lands covering these springs and waters, being within the town of 

Sulphur, must be disposed of in some manner and in my judgment it would 

be extremely unfortunate for the general public to have the same sold at 

public auction, thereby permitting some individual to secure exclusive 

rights to same (DOI 1902b).

On March 21, 1902, the draft agreement by the commission to the Five Civilized 

Tribes on behalf of the Choctaw and Chickasaw was transmitted to the Secretary 

of the Interior for departmental consideration.

Joseph Swords wrote to the Interior Secretary requesting that the town site of 

Sulphur be surveyed as soon as possible so people could procure deeds to the 

lots they improved. Swords stated that the population of Sulphur is about 

1,600, "consisting of a large number of invalid persons, veterans of the civil 

and Spanish wars living on their pensions and many Confederate Veterans as 

well" (DOI 1902c).

E.E. White, who at this point was the mayor of Sulphur, wrote to Indian

Inspector George Wright on June 10, 1902, that "at least 9/10ths of the people 

in the town want the survey postponed until after the supplemental agreement is 

voted on by the Indians" (DOI 1902e).

On June 13, George Wright, writing to the Secretary of the Interior, stated 

that he had received the department’s letter of May 27, instructing him to 

survey and plat the town site of Sulphur,

...having in view the provision in the pending supplemental agreement with 

the Choctaws and Chickasaws providing for a reservation of 640 acres to 

embrace the natural springs in and about said village. I am further 

directed to give notice that a man named Snead, or the town site company 

which he represents, has no authority to sell or dispose of lots in the 

town of Sulphur, and that the only manner of obtaining title to such lots 

is in accordance with the provisions of section 29 of the Curtis Act, and 

the act of May 31, 1900. If, however, I should be of the opinion that 

there is any legal or other objection to proceeding at once instructed, I 

am directed to report the matter immediately to the Department for 

consideration.

Concerning this matter, I have the honor to report that no steps have 

been taken to survey and plat the town site of Sulphur under existing 

law, owing to the provision contained in the pending supplemental 

agreement, above referred to, and it is not believed by me to be 

practicable or in any way desirable to survey and plat this town site at 

the present time, owing to the location of the springs and the existing 

conditions. I have had prepared a plat, which I respectfully transmit 

herewith, as showing the springs and surroundings at this place. The 

exterior limits of the Sulphur town site were originally located in 1900, 
43

prior to the time that there was any agitation over the matter of 

reserving these springs.

The plat transmitted shows the boundaries as located at that time, but 

other than running them out on the ground, no further steps have been 

taken relative thereto. It will be noted that the main springs are 

located in the town and immediately in the business section. I have also 

had shown upon this plat the tracts that are at present reserved and used 

by the town people for park or other purposes. The plat also shows the 

source or head of the stream east of the town site, which I understand is 

desired to be included in the reservation when made.

The supplemental agreement provides that not exceeding 640 acres may be 

selected to embrace all of the natural springs in and about said village, 

and so much of Sulphur Creek, Rock Creek, Buckhorn Creek, and the lands 

adjacent to said natural springs and creeks as may be deemed necessary. 

It is therefore obvious that until these tracts have been selected it 

would not be possible in any way to survey and plat the town site, in 

view of the location of the springs and the fact that the streams 

referred to run entirely through the town site.

I have had some considerable correspondence with the mayor of the town of 

Sulphur in the matter of platting this town site, and I respectfully 

enclose herewith a communication from him, dated June 10, 1902, wherein 

he states that at least nine-tenths of the people of that town do not 

want the town surveyed until the supplemental agreement is voted on by 

the Indians, and he as mayor very earnestly recommends and requests such 

postponement, stating that the reasons are many and obvious.

I do not believe there is any particular necessity of surveying and 

platting this town site just at this particular time, even though there 

was no especial legislation pending concerning the same, but in view of 

the fact that it seems to me absolutely necessary that the lands to be 

reserved, should this supplemental legislation become law, be first 

determined upon, and also in view of the desire of the majority of the 

town people and the regularly constituted authorities, I respectively 

recommend that no action looking to the surveying and platting of the 

town site be taken until after the supplemental agreement is finally 

passed upon one way or the other. 

As to the matter of the town site company selling and disposing of lots 

in this place, I have to respectfully submit that the same condition of 

affairs exists in every old town in Indian Territory. Parties claiming 

the occupancy right to lots in these towns have always sold and disposed 

of such right at any time up to the time appraisements were made and the 

lots disposed of in accordance with existing law.

The courts have held time and again that where parties are in possession 

of town lots in these old towns, they can dispose of such right of 

occupancy or possession, and I therefore respectfully ask that 

instructions to give the public notice referred to be withdrawn, as the 

same would have no effect and I know of no means whereby any orders 

relative thereto could be enforced.

The limits of this town as shown on the plat were fixed in the first 

instance to include all improvements. It is estimated that the population 

of Sulphur is now between 1500 and 2000 people (DOI 1902g).
44

Senator Platt introduced Senate Bill 4848 on March 31, 1902, to ratify and 

confirm the agreement with the Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians. Congress approved 

this agreement, known as the Supplemental Agreement, on July 1, 1902.

Inspector Churchill (DOI 1902) wrote the Secretary of the Interior on July 24 

regarding carrying out the selection of reservation lands at Sulphur as 

provided in Section 64 of the act of July 1, 1902 [32 Stat. 641], which section 

stated in its entirety:

The two tribes hereby absolutely and unqualifiedly relinquish, cede, and 

convey unto the United States a tract or tracts of land at and in the 

vicinity of the village of Sulphur, in the Chickasaw Nation, of not 

exceeding six hundred and forty acres, to be selected, under the 

direction of the Secretary of the Interior, within four months after the 

final ratification of this agreement, and to embrace all the natural 

springs in and about said village, and so much of Sulphur Creek, Rock 

Creek, Buckhorn Creek, and the lands adjacent to said natural springs and 

creeks as may be deemed necessary by the Secretary of the Interior for 

the proper utilization and control of said springs and the waters of said 

creeks, which lands shall be so selected as to cause the least 

interference with the contemplated town site at that place consistent 

with the purposes for which said cession is made, and when selected the 

ceded lands shall be held, owned, and controlled by the United States 

absolutely and without any restriction, save that no part thereof shall 

be platted or disposed of for town site purposes during the existence of 

the two tribal governments. Such other lands as may be embraced in a town 

site at that point shall be disposed of in the manner provided in the 

Atoka agreement for the disposition of town sites. Within ninety days 

after the selection of the lands so ceded there shall be deposited in the 

Treasury of the United States, to the credit of the two tribes, from the 

unappropriated public moneys of the United States, twenty dollars per 

acre for each acre so ceded, and such moneys shall, upon the dissolution 

of the tribal governments, be divided per capita among the members of the 

tribes, freedmen excepted, as are other funds of the tribes. All 

improvements upon the lands so selected which were lawfully there at the 

time of the ratification of this agreement by Congress shall be 

appraised, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, at the 

true value thereof at the time of the selection of said lands, and shall 

be paid for by warrants drawn by the Secretary of the Interior upon the 

Treasurer of the United States. Until otherwise provide by law, the 

Secretary of the Interior may, under rules prescribed for that purpose, 

regulate and control the use of the water of said springs and creeks and 

the temporary use and occupation of the lands so ceded. No person shall 

occupy any portion of the lands so ceded, or carry on any business 

thereon, except as provided in said rules, and until otherwise provided 

by Congress the laws of the United States relating to intoxication, 

possession, sale, and giving away of liquors or intoxicants of any kind 

within the Indian country or Indian reservations shall be applicable to 

the lands so ceded, and said lands shall remain within the jurisdiction 

of the United States court for the southern district of Indian Territory 

[32 Stat. 641].

The Department of the Interior requested that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 

have geologist Joseph Taff go back to Sulphur Springs to assist Churchill and 

also to send a competent surveyor (DOI 1902f; 1902h). A survey to determine the 

necessary boundaries of the Sulphur Springs Reservation was conducted in July 

of 1902.
45

On September 25, 1902, the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes ratified the 

Supplemental Agreement, which went into effect on October 1, and on November 

19, 1902, the Sulphur Springs Reservation was proclaimed. The Chickasaw and 

Choctaw ceded 629.33 acres for which they were paid $20.00 an acre; the total 

for the land was $12,586.60 (DOI 1903a).

After the Choctaw and Chickasaw Supplemental Agreement was ratified, 

regulations were drafted on September 25, 1902, that established provisions 

relative to the use of the water and temporary use and occupation of the 

government land (DOI 1903d). Several thousand people visited these springs each 

season, and a recommendation was made to appoint a superintendent under the 

charge and supervision of an officer appointed by the Secretary of the Interior 

who would receive instructions from the Secretary (DOI 1903d). 

Indian Inspector Frank C. Churchill went to Sulphur on January 16, 1903, to 

appraise improvements on the lots (not the value of the lots) and make a 

schedule for compensation to the owners (DOI 1903h; DOI 1903i). Soon afterward, 

Churchill was detailed to care for and protect the reservation, and to secure 

payment of rentals, such as bathhouses, under temporary leases and rules 

prescribed by the Interior Secretary (DOI 1903). 

On February 28, 1903, Acting U.S. Indian Inspector Zevely submitted a report to 

the Department of Interior showing the establishment of the exterior limits of 

the town of Sulphur, which had been laid out by Sweet when he was surveyor (DOI 

1903e). The supervising engineer stated that he had surveyed and marked 

2,572.92 acres for proposed segregation for the Sulphur town site, including 

484.79 acres for the government reservation, which left 2088.13 acres for the 

town site proper. He also stated that a large number of people had summer 

cottages there, and that more would want them, so the area surveyed would cover 

that projected need (DOI 1903b).

Senator Platt disagreed, and wrote to Secretary Hitchcock on March 16 that he 

saw no reason to make the boundaries so extensive, and that he thought that the 

result would 

...take away from allotment to Indians lands to which they ought to have 

the benefit of full value as the town increases and grows, and give the 

speculators a chance to get the lands which it is supposed the town may 

sometime reach at very low figures.... It seems to me better to confine the 

exterior boundaries of this projected town site to the old town site 

organization; either this, or to disapprove this survey, which was made 

by Hinckley, and leave the matter to Churchill if he should be put in 

charge as inspector, as I hope he may be... [as he is] a man of 

unquestioned integrity, who cannot be influenced by the speculative 

sentiment of that territory (DOI 1903c).

Hitchcock responded to Platt that the matter had "been referred to Special 

Inspector Frank C. Churchill for his report and recommendation" (Platt 1903). 

A memorandum to the Interior Secretary noted that Platt was not the only person 

to object to the large area; the Chickasaw and Choctaw representatives also did 

so (DOI 1903j).

Churchill reported to the Secretary of the Interior that in his judgment "the 

area proposed is in excess of the present and prospective requirements of the 

town of Sulphur" (DOI 1903k). On April 9, Churchill’s March 25 report was 

submitted to the Secretary of the Interior by the acting commissioner, stating 

that in 1901 or 1902, the exterior limits of a town site were surveyed by 

Surveyor Colby under the direction of Indian Inspector George Wright, and that 

the acreage of the town site was 948.14 acres (DOI 1903e). In August 1902, the 
46

government reservation took in a considerable portion of the town site. After 

establishing the reservation lands, more land was needed for the town site; 

however, Churchill saw no reason to make the town site larger than was 

"originally proposed," because the town would probably never have great 

commercial importance, and that it should be "rather a pleasure and health 

resort" (DOI 1903e). 

Churchill stated that the only changes he thought should be made to the town 

site survey would be the addition of 230 acres on the west and north, in the 

event that the section lines must be followed. Churchill felt that the 230 

acres were not needed–only 109.99 acres according to the original plan, making 

the segregation for the town site 1058.13 acres. Acting Commissioner Tanner 

stood behind the "original recommendation" (DOI 1903e). On April 4, Acting 

Indian Inspector Zevely forwarded draft regulations for the use of the springs 

and recommended Frank F. Sweet as superintendent, at a salary of $1500 a year 

(DOI 1903L). At this point, the Office of Indian Affairs began to divest itself 

of responsibility for the reserve, as Acting Commissioner A.C. Tonner states:

... when the lands at Sulphur were segregated by the Department they became 

a Government reservation, and are not, therefore, in any manner, longer 

subject to the jurisdiction of this office, the Indian title having been, 

by such segregation, become extinguished (DOI 1903L).

At a later date, Churchill informs the Interior Secretary:

First, the control of the Reservation should be entirely with the 

Department, and its management separated absolutely from other branches 

of departmental work in the Indian Territory, in so far as to require 

whoever may be in charge of the Reservation and Reservation affairs, to 

report to, and receive instructions from the Secretary of the Interior, 

direct. The Indians have parted title to their land, the Reservation is 

no longer an Indian matter (DOI 1903m).

Rules and regulations for the reserve specifically state:

The reservation, and all property of the United States within its limits, 

shall be under the charge and supervision of an officer appointed by the 

Secretary of the Interior, who shall receive his instructions from, and 

report to, the Secretary of the Interior (DOI 1902g).

The town became involved in the competition between two candidates for 

superintendent of the reserve, Frank F. Sweet and Joseph F. Swords. The segment 

of the community that wanted the town limits to be large enough for future 

development endorsed Sweet, who was the town site surveyor, and condemned 

Swords for going to Washington to have the proposed extension disapproved. 

This latter faction wanted to see town site growth on the south and east part 

of the town, and claimed that Swords "subsidized the interest of a proposed new 

town site North of the Springs and Reservation" (Platt n.d.). According to 

Swords, James Bayless and Eugene E. White were "grafters... railing against the 

Secretary for desiring a new addition to [the] reservation, but they have been 

speculating on false grounds..." (Platt 1903a). Eugene E. White wrote such a 

harsh letter in denouncement of Swords to E.A. Hitchcock, Secretary of the 

Interior, that the Secretary stated, "Mr. White’s letter I have not, and shall 

not reply to" (Platt 1903b). 

In his letter, White claims that "Mr. Swords [is] too much interested in 

schemes of speculation in and near the town to be entrusted with such important 

local authority," and "boasts that through Senator Platt of Connecticut he can 
47

cause anything to be done here" (Platt 1903c). White wanted the springs to be 

the geographical center of a town on the north, south, east, and west. Swords 

explains that "James Bayless, a grafter from Gasseville, Missouri came here a 

year ago and formed forces with White to build up the south hill, to the 

exclusion of the three other sections11 (Platt 1903d). 

Swords defended himself by writing Platt that "everything favors the growth of 

the north side of town, area, elevation, excellent ground and scenery" (Platt 

1903e). Both Frank Churchill and Orville Platt recommended the appointment of 

Swords and he became the first reservation superintendent on September 16, 

1903. 

In April 1903, Swords corresponded to Platt, stating that "White and his crowd 

have referred charges against me and Churchill as well, when they learned that 

their town site scheme had been disapproved" (Platt 1903f).

In October, Churchill reported on proposed additions to the reservation:

Any attempt on the part of the Government to enlarge the Reservation as 

it now is would meet with vigorous opposition from claimants to the land 

on the south side along the present Reservation lines in the town, which, 

in the estimation of those in possession who live there, has increased 

greatly in value. The only point where additions would appear to be 

necessary is on the south side of the Reservation, and inasmuch as I 

understand that it will require a special agreement with the Indians as 

well as Congressional action to acquire additional lands, I will make 

further comment on this subject by special report if it is considered 

desirable... [There should be a complete plan for] laying out the 

Reservation into a Park (DOI 1903m).

Churchill informed the Secretary that the 230 acres on the north and west 

should be taken into the site, which would make the town acreage 1288.13 (DOI 

1903m). On October 20, Secretary Hitchcock reported in a letter to Platt:

The U.S. Indian Inspector for the Indian Territory, Muskogee, I.T., has 

been directed to amend the exterior limits survey of the town in 

accordance with a recommendation of Inspector Frank C. Churchill, and to 

proceed to survey and plat the town site (Platt 1903g).

Senator Platt wrote Swords that he thought the Secretary would recommend "the 

securing of some additional land for the reservation, in order that the springs 

may be kept beyond the possibility of pollution" (Platt 1903h).

The last correspondence to Swords from Platt, dated April 20, 1904, showed that 

Platt was beleaguered by the town's condemnation of Swords. He writes to 

Swords:

I telegraphed you because there was a very vigorous attempt made to 

prevent the legislation with regard to the Sulphur segregation, etc. and 

it was persistently stated that you were President of the Chickasaw Land 

Improvement Company.... It was hard work to secure the legislation, which 

was finally put in the appropriation bill (Platt 1904).

 

11J.M. Bayless came to supervise the Frisco railroad spur to Sulphur, but 

resigned and went into business with Clay J. Webster, a local banker (Brown and 

Garrity 1981:97).
48

On April 21, 1904, the Indian Appropriation Act [33 Stat., 220] expanded the 

reserve by including 78.68 acres in the northwest quarter of section two and 

the northeast quarter of Sec.3, T.1S., R.3E and south of this section a tract 

of land comprised of 140.21 acres. The United States paid the Chickasaw and 

Choctaw $60 per acre for the 218.89 acres, at a total cost of $25,654.60 for 

the entire 848.22 acres (Platt NP 1912b; DOI 1916).

In May 1906, the Senate Committee of Forest Reservation and the Protection of 

Game proposed to name Sulphur Springs Reservation in memory of Orville H. 

Platt, noting that until the statehood bill was passed the matter would not 

proceed, but the preliminary work could be "shaped to follow the passage of 

that bill," and that Colonel Swords should be consulted as to the proper method 

of procedure (DOI 1906).

The Senate and House joint resolutions of June 23 and 25, 1906, respectively 

(S.R. 69 and H.J. Res. 181), resolved to change the name of the park to Platt 

to honor Orville Hitchcock Platt. A joint resolution was endorsed by Secretary 

Hitchcock and passed without amendment to become law on June 29, 1906.

The joint resolution read as follows:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 

of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Interior be, 

and is hereby, authorized and directed to change the name of the Sulphur 

Springs Reservation, an Indian Reservation now in the state of Oklahoma, 

formerly in the Territory, so that said reservation shall be named and 

hereafter called the "Platt National Park," in honor of Orville Hitchcock 

Platt, late and for twenty-six years a Senator from the state of 

Connecticut and for many years a member of the Committee on Indian 

Affairs, in recognition of his distinguished services to the Indians and 

to the country [34 Stat. 837].

In April 1907, charges were filed against Swords with the attorney general to 

dismiss him for "alleged misconduct in office and improper use of same for 

personal gain" (DOI 1907a). Some of the specific charges included using "his 

official position to influence prospective buyers of property and to induce 

them to buy where he has financial interest" and "lack of executive ability in 

making improvements" (DOI 1907b). Swords was replaced by R. A. Greene, the 

second superintendent of Platt National Park in 1907.

The history of the setting aside of the reservation is complex and beleaguered 

by the personalities and "grafters" of the time. However, special recognition 

must be given to Eugene E. White, because his knowledge of tribal government 

and his persistence in getting the bill to protect the springs were crucial to 

its establishment. It is also clear that it took the work of Congressman Platt, 

with the inducements of Colonel Swords, to pass it through Congress. Swords 

conveyed this achievement in a letter to Mrs. Platt (DOI 1906a).

August 7, 1906

Mrs. O.H. Platt

Washington, Conn.

Dear Mrs. Platt:

Your very kind letter of July 19, 1906 is before me, and I reply in a 

typewritten letter, for which please accept an apology because my pen 

hand is not as firm as I would like it to be. Nothing could be more 

gratifying to me than the result of my efforts in having the name of this 

reservation changed to that of "Platt National Park." I was fortunate 
49

enough to secure the support of the President through warm personal 

friends, and Mr. Samuel Fessenden interested Senator Brandegee, and 

through Mr. Charles Hopkins Clark of the Hartford Courant, I obtained the 

support of the Connecticut delegation in Congress. My next effort will be 

to have the park placed under the control of the Smithsonian Institute, 

of which the late Senator was so long one of the Regents. In fact, 

nothing that I can do will ever repay the obligations I owe to your late 

husband for the many kindnesses extended by him to me. I sincerely hope 

that you may be able at some future time, when the roads shall be in 

better condition than they now are, to visit the Park, and meet some of 

the many friends who revere the memory of the late Senator. We are now 

passing from the uncivilized state of the Indian Territory to the new 

state of Oklahoma, and in the sixtieth Congress we shall have two 

senators and five members of the House of Representatives to give their 

aid toward placing the Park on par with the other national parks which 

exist in the west, and I shall then feel as though my life’s work was 

about completed.

I am enclosing a brief sketch of what the park contains, which go toward 

making it an ideal place for rest and recreation for the benefit of the 

people of the Great South-west, whites and Indians alike. It may be 

interesting for you to know that we have in camp at this place about 

fifty Indians, who are waiting for an officer to come to remove the 

restrictions. Which act will place them in possession of 320 acres of 

land, father, mother, children each according to their allotment, which 

is the fruit of the wise legislation inaugurated, and made effective by 

the legislative efforts of the late Honorable Orville Hitchcock Platt. 

I am, very sincerely yours,

Joseph F. Swords
50

Chapter Three

THREATS TO THE PARK

When geologist Joseph A. Taff surveyed the springs in 1902 he noted that the 

mineral springs and creeks were of prime importance, and that in order to 

determine the reserve area necessary to protect the springs and guard against 

their contamination, practically all of the 640 acres would be required (DOI 

1902i).

The geologist characterized the area of Sulphur Springs as follows:

The larger of the two springs as the source of Sulphur Creek12 issues 

from the bed of the valley in a dense jungle of young forest trees; the 

other issues from beneath a projecting bluff of limestone conglomerate on 

the south slope of the valley about midway in the slope above the main 

channel. From these sources for nearly half a mile the waters flow with 

little grade; then the streams begin more rapid descent in a series of 

beautiful natural low falls and rapids, over dams constructed by the 

streams’ deposited sediments; above the falls are placid pools, and the 

dams are clothed with mosses and ferns, and in many places occupied by 

forest trees (DOI 1902i). 

Geologist Taff noted four main purposes for setting the reservation’s boundary: 

to preserve and protect the springs from contamination; to preserve and protect 

Sulphur and Rock Creeks; to reserve space for public passage and comfort in 

connection with the waters; and to preserve the beauty of the surrounding 

grounds, forest, and landscape (DOI 1902i).

On June 29, 1906, Platt became the 7th national park. Since the National Park 

Service was not established until 1916, Platt was managed under the direction 

of the Secretary of the Interior. In 1906 there was no federal policy governing 

the establishment of national parks and no National Park Service to manage or 

protect them. In 1910 Secretary of the Interior Ballinger wanted Platt ceded 

back to the state of Oklahoma. Oklahoma congressmen fought such a move, and 

praised the "health giving and invigorating waters of the springs, and above 

all pointed to the numbers of visitors—more than were registered at some of the 

worthy parks" (Ise 1961:141-42). If visitation was a measure of park 

worthiness, Platt set the standard for the criteria. In 1914 Platt’s visitation 

was second only to Hot Springs, ranking above Yosemite and Yellowstone (DOI 

1916b). 

Visitation by 64,000 people annually was extolled at Sieur de Monts National 

Monument, which became Lafayette National Park in Maine in 1919,13 and was used 

as a basis for evaluating its successful transfer to the status of national 

park (Rothman 1989:105-106). That same year, Platt’s visitation was 107,976. 

According to one retired Platt ranger, interviewed for this project in 1996, 

"Platt was one of the older areas, therefore, it didn’t grow up with the rest 

of them.... It was kind of left there... and using the visitor, which I think is 

why we’re here, we finally got help" (Interview Shaffer 1996). 

 

12Now Travertine Creek.

13Changed to Acadia National Park, January 19, 1929 [45 Stat. 1083].
51

Despite the purposes for which the park was established and its demonstrated 

popularity, Platt was consistently threatened with removal from federal 

protection in 1910, 1913, 1924, 1927, 1928, 1930, 1932, 1938, 1957, and 1958. 

As early as October 30, 1903, Senator Platt had made a statement concerning 

"turning over the reservation to the state or territory when organized."

Colonel Swords responded to Platt that he hoped "at some future day to prove 

that the people of the southwest are so appreciative of a place to rest, 

recreation, and pure water that they will write in asking congress to consider 

the 629 acres here as supplied by nature for their needs" (Platt 1903a).

Platt responded: 

There was a feeling in Congress that the government has taken itself an 

unnecessary burden on the Arkansas Hot Springs reservation, and that it 

ought not to extend its liability in the same direction, with which 

sentiment I confess I sympathise.... It was distinctly understood that the 

government was not to be committed to expense in this matter, beyond what 

might be necessary to preserve the springs until such time as the 

government could turn it over to the state or territory (Platt 1903f).

On January 8, 1930, Representative Cramton of Michigan presented two bills to 

Congress. The first bill was to change Platt from a national park to a national 

monument, and if that did not work, a second bill would transfer Platt to the 

state for use as a state park [H.R. 8283; H.R. 8284]. 

The importance of Platt was understood by its users and constituents; however, 

the strong support it received from Oklahoma representatives led some to 

believe it was draining funds from parks in other congressional districts, and 

its significance as a national park was questioned. The small size of Platt 

National Park was also one of the reasons it was a target for removal from the 

National Park Service. The underlying issue however, was not size, but rather 

the differing values concerning what national parks should be. 

In 1924, Director Mather wrote:

In general the policy of considering and admitting to the system only 

those areas giving expression to the highest types of scenery has been 

quite consistently followed. The national park system has been developed 

along wise and sane lines and it will take wise and sane judgment to 

resist the demand for inclusion of areas that do not measure up in the 

highest terms to the high standard that has been set for that system (DOI 

1924).

In a letter from the city of Sulphur to park superintendent Robert G. Morris, 

the people of Sulphur expressed that Platt National Park did measure up. 

Platt National Park offers... more, real benefit to the people of this 

nation as a health resort than any spot on earth. With its many and 

varied mineral waters it has brought health and happiness to countless 

thousands (Platt NP 1924a). 

After a visit to the park with Stephen Mather in October of 1921, the San 

Francisco office Chief Civil Engineer, George Goodwin and Landscape Engineer 

Daniel Hull reported to the director that: 

Platt Park being one of our smallest parks and situated as it is 

practically within the confines of a corporate city, its proper 

development represents rather a different problem than that affecting our 
52

larger western and more remotely located parks. Platt Park is, however, I 

believe in the fullest sense, a National Park (NPS 1922).

Stephen Tyng Mather and Superintendent Ferris, Oct. 1921 

(Harpers Ferry 69-572)

In a 1932 field report to the director, Harold C. Bryant, Assistant Director of 

Research and Education, said after visiting the park that his main reaction was 

that it "was more of a park than I thought. Of outstanding interest are the 

remarkable mineral springs" (DOI 1933a).

And Platt's visitors were not just locals or Oklahomans. Chief Civil Engineer 

George Goodwin reported that the "visitors that had come there during the past 

few years were from quite distant states" (NPS 1922). There was also a 

sentiment among those interviewed that the park was visited by people from all 

over the United States, as evidenced by the various license plates they notice 

here.

It is quite clear that park standards were based on individual ideals of what 

constitutes a national park at given times. The 1931 annual report on national 

park standards states: 

Our ideals contemplate a national park system of primitive lands free 

from all present and future commercial utilization, but, like all ideals, 

they can not be uniformly attained in this day and age (DOI 1931:6). If 

we did not allow for a broad range of parks, the system would "probably 

have netted us just one park, the Yellowstone" (DOI 1931:7). 

In 1932, Louis C. Cramton, special attorney to the Secretary of the Interior, 

was asked to make a careful study of the Congressional Record and all other 

legislative documents relating to Yellowstone National Park, to determine what 

Congress, in initiating the National Park System, intended the national parks 
53

to be, and what policies it expected would govern the administration of parks. 

Some of the key criteria for parks that Cramton identified were that national 

parks should:

1. Be dedicated and set apart for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.

2. Have national interest because of their value from a scenic, scientific, or 

historical point of view.

3. Be of national interest in their preservation.

4. Possess variety, accepting the supreme in each of the various types and 

subjects of importance.

5. Be enjoyed and used by the present generation, with their preservation 

unspoiled for the future, to conserve the scenery, the natural and historic 

objects, and the wildlife therein.

6. Provide inspiration.

7. Relate development to their inherent values to promote beneficial use by the 

 people.

8. Be administered primarily for the benefit and enjoyment of the people rather 

 than for financial gain, and such enjoyment should be free to the people 

 without vexatious admission charges and other fees.

After the establishment of the National Park Service and prior to its 

reorganization in 1933, many areas that should have been preserved "did not 

meet the amorphous standards for national parks." "A problem of semantics 

plagued such areas" if they did not have the scenery that characterized the 

national park class (Rothman 1989:58). When national monuments were added to 

the National Park System there were "no intrinsic features that separated 

national monuments from the national parks," only the view that parks 

represented "scenic monumentalism." Therefore, in order to make national 

monuments equal to national parks, some manipulation was required. Although it 

was never a national monument, Platt's landscape was manipulated to meet these 

same amorphous standards, as acknowledged in a Civilian Conservation Corps 

(CCC) report to the chief architect.

With the establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps camp at Platt

National Park came a welcome opportunity to clean up and renovate the

area and to bring the park design up to National Park standards (Platt NP 

1934a:2). 

After the community, consisting of 371 remaining town buildings, was removed 

from the springs, the denuded areas were revegetated with local flora (DOI 

1908), a philosophy no different than revegetating heavily used wilderness 

campgrounds in some of our more "scenic" national parks today. 

In the 1970s, standards for national parks were presented in NPS Criteria for 

Parklands. The criteria for natural areas included outstanding geological 

formations, biota of relative stability maintaining itself under natural 

conditions, and an ecological community significantly illustrating the process 

of succession and restoration to a natural condition following disruptive 

change. One of the criteria for national significance of historical areas 

listed "structures or sites associated significantly with an important event 
54

that outstandingly represents some great idea or ideal of the American people"

(DOI 1971:13). 

Not only did Platt retain natural significance after "disruptive change," but 

its cultural significance is tantamount, in that it is a NPS-designed 

landscape, with extensive elements constructed by the Civilian Conservation 

Corps under the park’s master plan. The park's history of hydrotherapy at a 

time before medicine such as penicillin had been discovered is a significant 

criterion for national significance related to "some great idea or ideal of the 

American people" (DOI 1971:13).

In the late 1930s, there was an attempt to enlarge Platt National Park in an 

effort to protect the entire unique geological features of the Arbuckle uplift. 

This proposal resulted in a 1938 study and report; however, the recommendation 

was disapproved, with the suggestion the park become a state recreation area 

(DOI 1958a). Later, in 1938, a proposal was made to add Veterans Lake to Platt 

and change the status from a national park to a national recreation area. This 

was opposed by local residents who feared the result would be its transfer to 

the state and loss of national park status (DOI 1958).

In the 1950s there was a large migration of people away from Oklahoma, so the 

state and federal government began to develop water resources in an effort to 

attract new industry and keep Oklahomans in Oklahoma (Gibson 1981). One of 

these projects was the Arbuckle Reclamation Project, developed by the Bureau of 

Reclamation to provide a permanent municipal and industrial water supply. 

The thrust to remove national park status from Platt National Park culminated 

with the proposal to add the Arbuckle Reservoir to NPS management at Platt in 

1958. Its significance as a national park again came to the forefront. In a 

study of this proposal, the conclusion was that the Arbuckle Reservoir would 

not qualify as a national recreation area; however, it might offer the 

opportunity to combine it with Platt National Park for transfer to the state of 

Oklahoma. There were no standards and criteria for the evaluation of national 

recreation areas at the time (DOI 1958a).

Former park employee Retha Condriff discussed the confusion regarding 

designating Platt as a national recreation area. "People rationalized that 

Platt was an area where picnicking occurred and that picnicking is recreation, 

so Platt must be a recreation area. And they are swimming in the holes. That is 

recreation too." (Interview Condriff 1996). Despite the fact that the Advisory 

Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments recommended 

that the 912-acre Platt National Park remain unchanged with the addition of the 

recreation area (DOI 1966), in 1976 Platt National Park’s land status and name 

were changed to Chickasaw National Recreation Area.

RETHA CONDRIFF
55

The Chickasaw Tribe proposed to change the name of Platt National Park to 

Chickasaw National Park in 1967 to honor the cession of their former lands 

(USGPO 1977:36). In 1970 the tribe reaffirmed and updated that proposal to 

reflect the proposal to join Platt National Park and Arbuckle National 

Recreation Area, and requested that the name become Chickasaw National 

Recreation Area (Chickasaw Nation 1970). The use of the name Chickasaw to 

commemorate the Indian Nation who ceded the land was supported by the cities of 

Sulphur and Davis; however, the Sulphur Chamber of Commerce and the community 

wanted "to retain the National Park intact" (Heltzel 1972). This sentiment was 

expressed in a letter to President Nixon from a 12-year-old Sulphur girl:

The people of Sulphur are mad because we have had Platt National Park for 

many years. The people of Sulphur love the Park the way it is.... If you 

Mr. President ever come to Sulphur you'll know how come we want it Platt 

National Park (Dilbeck 1973).

During this same period, a resident of Houston, Texas, wrote Senator Bentsen 

that he felt "the loss of this small, very beautiful and delicate ecotone, 

which would easily be ruined without the protection of national park status, 

would far outweigh... heavier development of a recreation area" (Vincent 1974).

When asked how the change in status to a recreation area came about, a former 

ranger stated that community advocates thought a recreation area would receive 

more funding. Unfortunately, when they did this, the reason the park was 

established was downplayed. "When the lakes came along, the springs went by the 

wayside.... They say you shouldn’t have dropped why the area was created to start 

with. That should not have been" (Interview Shaffer 1996:15). 

Retha Condriff said that she did not feel that the name change made any 

difference in the use of the original acreage of Platt, what is now called the 

Platt District; however, there was concern by long-time residents who felt that 

the loss of its status as a national park was merely a stepping stone to the 

future conveyance of both areas to the state of Oklahoma. "It was a genuine 

heartfelt concern." The community had a great sense of pride about the park 

(Interview Condriff 1996).

In the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs Senate Report of March 3, 

1976, concerning the proposed recreation area, Senator J. Bennett Johnston of 

Louisiana called Platt an "anomaly arising from the early conservation movement 

prior to the creation of the National Park Service" (U.S. Senate 1976). In a 

change from their 1966 position, the chairman of the Advisory Board on National 

Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments talked about the criteria for 

national parks that have been developed subsequent to the authorization of 

Platt National Park, which "that area does not meet" (DOI 1971a). Dwight 

Rettie, former chief of the NPS policy development office, makes an important 

point that could be used to counter this argument. Rettie says he sees "no 

reason why parks that were brought into the system in 1925 (but pick any year) 

should be required to meet the same criteria intended to serve as a filter for 

new parks.... There ought not be any ‘lesser’ parks in the National Park System"

(Rettie 1996).

It is unfortunate that Platt National Park lost its park status in the struggle 

to understand or clarify what national parks should be, despite the value 

people placed on the park. As expressed by one family that has been coming to 

the park since 1902, "when we entered the park, we lost all stress. There is 

nothing like the natural beauty of this place and the water. I can’t mention 

the water enough, it is so soothing" (Interview Austell 1997). 
56

Platt was established as the seventh national park, 27 years before the 

reorganization of the NPS in 1933 under Executive Order 6166, which made the 

NPS responsible for much more than scenery, as it added historical sites-as a 

consequence the distinctions between the different park units began to 

coalesce. The new NPS areas fulfilled an objective of building a constituency 

within the American middle class and changed the "previously elite system" to 

one belonging to the American people (Rothman 1989:188). 

In a letter written to Conrad Wirth by Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., expressing 

the philosophies of both men’s fathers, the following excerpt is important in 

understanding the role of the National Park Service: 

[There is] something of much more profound importance in park work than 

is generally recognized.... Constant and compelling interest in and 

sympathy with, the people using the parks—on finding one’s chief 

satisfaction in appreciative friendly observation and study of the ways 

in which those people actually use, and derive pleasure and benefit from 

any given park, and in helping and guiding them by every available means 

to get the best values from their use of it... that are made possible by 

the inherent characteristics of that particular park and by the widely 

various personal characteristics of the people themselves (Wirth 

1980:21).

Platt exemplifies this view. It is a place where people go to drink curative 

waters, enjoy an early morning breakfast cooked on an open stove in a CCC 

constructed picnic area, contemplate the sunrise from Bromide Mountain, view 

the purest of water emanating from the earth, and swim in the cool pools of 

Travertine Creek.

KIDS IN TRAVERTINE CREEK NEAR NATURE CENTER
57

In the hearing before the Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation to 

establish Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Representative M. Taylor asked, 

"What would be the difference in management of this park if it were changed to 

become a recreation area?" Representative Wheeler responded, "It is a 

difference in degree and emphasis... from natural preservation to a more 

intensive recreation use by the visitors" (DOI 1975). 

This may be true of the lake area, but the original park area will always 

retain the dignity and qualities that it was recognized for-providing a 

healthful, relaxing natural environment for people.
58

Chapter Four

EARLY LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Prior to the protection of the springs, many areas had been bare of vegetation 

due to the clearing of the two former town sites, and cattle had made mud 

wallows of the springs. In 1908 the superintendent proposed the employment of a 

scientific forester for the reforestation of denuded portions of the park. The 

forester began sodding the park with Bermuda grass, including the areas of West 

Central Park and Cold Springs. In 1909 the superintendent was instructed by the 

Department of Interior to raise alfalfa and oat hay for sale. The philosophy 

behind this decision was that it is better to raise profitable crops on the old 

fields than to let them grow up in weeds that mar the landscape (Platt NP 

1909a).

During the later part of 1908, the state forestry department examined the park 

to ascertain how practical it would be to reforest certain portions. In the 

spring of 1909, Superintendent Greene planted a number of young trees, but the 

drought killed all but one. From 1910 to 1911, about 178 young trees were 

planted, with higher survival rates. In 1913, 108 shade trees were planted in 

East Central Park and West Central (Flower) Park, and along the Buckhorn Road. 

Also in 1913, two alfalfa crops were cut and stored, and "a fairly good oat 

crop harvested and put away, with prospects for an excellent corn crop" if the 

hot winds they were experiencing did not burn it up (Platt NP 1913). 

Revegetaion was not the only landscape consideration for the area. Inspired by 

its natural beauty, the park’s features enticed landscape design. In 1902 the 

geologist’s report highlights the potential for such beautification.

Nearly midway between the high land and the bases of the valleys of

Sulphur and Rock Creeks, hard pebbly limestones occur lying in a flat

position in the midst of softer strata. The varying hardness of these

rocks in their outcrops gives a diverse and beautiful topographic effect

to the valleys. They make steep and rugged slopes, terraces, and cliffs

clothed with trees and vines in many places over-looking the forested

stream valleys. Such topographic features are especially prominent on the 

south side of Sulphur Creek valley, and in the south sides of the bends

in Rock Creek. Near the center of Sulphur and above the Bromide Springs,

in the extreme southwest corner of the town, these terrace-forming rocks 

afford secure footing and pathways in the slopes, and their abundant

loose boulders are convenient for the construction of rustic seats and

bridges, and dams, if need be, across the streams (DOI 1902i).

The first formal landscape design within the park began in 1908 when

recommendations were made to build the rock-arch foot bridge in West Central 

Park and an ornamental gateway of native stone facing the boulevard between 

Second and Third streets (Platt NP 1908d). The wire suspension footbridge at 

Bromide Springs was completed in June of that year. After its completion, 

136,590 people visited Bromide Springs. The rock-arch bridge known as Lincoln 

Bridge was completed and dedicated on February 12, 1909. At each end of this 

bridge were circular flower beds in rustic walls of conglomerate stone, where 

the civic league of Sulphur planted a large variety of ornamental shrubs and 

flowers. Similar flower beds were also planted in Cliffside Park near the north 

approach to the wire suspension bridge.
59

CLIFFSIDE PARK SHOWING ORIGINAL BROMIDE 

PAVILION ACROSS THE CREEK 

(DOI 1908c)

The first appropriation of money from the federal treasury for maintenance and 

improvement of Platt National Park came in 1911 in the sum of $5,000. In 1912 

another appropriation was made for maintenance, bridges, roads, trails, and 

sewage in the sum of $18,000 (Platt NP 1912b). That year, 4,466 square feet of 

cement walks were laid in Flower Park, as well as 48 cement steps and a cement 

sidewalk along the Cliffside Trail, increasing the total cement walks within 

the park to 7,573 square feet. On the outer edge of the Cliffside Trail, two 

banister posts of conglomerate rock and cement were erected, through which a 

strong iron chain was strung to aid pedestrians in ascending and descending the 

steps, and to prevent accidents. Near Robber’s Roost, a woven wire fence was 

erected on the outer edge.

"Visitors on Burros, circa 1900"

(CHIC Archives 0133)
60

By 1916 more visitors were coming by car, and the campgrounds grew overcrowded. These visitors "had the appearance of being a more prosperous class of 

people than at any year previous" (Platt NP 1916a). In a 1922 report from NPS 

Engineer Goodwin and Landscape Engineer Hull, they note "the most essential 

need of Platt Park today is additional camp grounds... [and the] sanitary 

development in connection with these new camp grounds." They also recommended 

that no camping be allowed at Bromide Springs to reserve it for "general 

recreational and meeting purposes." The report noted that the tilled fields 

could be used "to better advantage as camp grounds than for the production of 

corn", and recommended the extension of Cold Spring camp up Travertine Creek 

(NPS 1922).

"Camping in Platt, 1910s"

(CHIC Archives 0110)

The Cold Springs public camp, located along a wooded grove of trees, was a 

favorite place for picnic parties. This was one of three camps later developed 

for more "systematic use and beauty" (CCC 1935). During the winter of 1912, the 

superintendent had about 50 acres of timber thinned out and the underbrush 

cleared along both sides of the road at Cold Springs. He also had a table 36-

feet-long with benches around it, and additional benches and two comfort 

stations constructed (Platt NP 1913). Cold Springs camp was "used to a great 

extent by people seeking recreation" in the summer, and was usually crowded to 

capacity (CCC 1935). Cold Springs was not the major camping area in the early 

years. Most camping was at Bromide, in the area around the ranger station and 

Walnut Grove. A former ranger remembers the campers at Bromide back in the 

1950s:

They used to come in their wagons, and they would have some chickens, and 

when the camping was over, the first year I worked seasonal, we had a 

problem getting those chickens all caught up. People would go out there 

with their chickens... and when they left, they left their one chicken they 

didn’t eat, and some of them even turned their last chicken loose, so we 

derived several ways of catching those chickens (Interview Shaffer 

1996:3).
61

Tents could be rented locally at Goff’s and Hicks’.

14 These businesses set the 

camps up, complete with cookstoves and cots. 

Blind Charlie rented tents, cots and tables and chairs to the people. He 

would take them down and put them up. He had a black dog and he’d go 

down.... He’d pull his wagon down and put the tents up, and he had a dozen 

tents up, but that dog would bring him back to that tent, right there.... 

Now he couldn’t rent them in the park, but he rented them outside. Then 

he could take them down and put them wherever they wanted them (Interview 

Shaffer 1996:4).

This was probably in the late twenties or early thirties. There was 

another man there that had a business, he was a colored fellow and he 

sold hot tamales.... That little corner was quite busy because the visitors 

who came back year to year knew, and there was a little store right there 

too [12th and Lindsay]. To me it was part of the park’s history. Growing 

up, we could see the park rangers, and that’s when I decided I’d like to 

be a park ranger.... But I’ll have you know, I asked the ranger how much he 

got, and he said he made a lot of money, about $5.00 a day. I just 

couldn’t believe that anybody could make that much money, $5.00 a day....

A dollar a day was the going rate for hard work (Interview Shaffer 

1996:6).

The CCC rehabilitated Cold Springs Campground between 1938 and 1939 and Central 

Campground in 1939. After the development of these two campgrounds, visitation 

continued to increase, and camping at the Bromide Springs area was permitted 

for overflow only until 1950, when the Rock Creek Campground was completed. 

The Rock Creek area was part of the original Dixie H. Colbert15 patent of July 

13, 1910, (Interview Colbert 1996:3,7) and the park purchased 63.75 acres of 

this land on March 6, 1942 (Branch 1941; Platt NP 1966).

BUS CAMPING AT COLD SPRINGS

(Harpers Ferry 60-JB-252)

 

14Hicks operated into the 1980s.

15Scott Colbert's great grandfather.
62

In 1922 the city of Sulphur and the chamber of commerce constructed two 

community houses in the park, one at Bromide Springs and one at Cold Springs, 

to be used for gatherings in case of bad weather. In the fall of 1946, the 

Bromide community house was acquired by the park and used as a temporary 

museum. In the spring of 1947, the community house at Cold Springs was acquired 

and converted to temporary seasonal quarters; it then became the resource 

management office, and then returned to temporary housing. As of the 

publication of this report it is a physical fitness training room. 

There were few improvements possible under the 1923 annual appropriation of 

$7,500, and the increasing use of the park by campers and tourists urgently 

necessitated a larger appropriation for the extension of the campgrounds, 

sewer, water, light system, and toilet facilities (Platt NP 1923). Park roads, 

which had originally been constructed for horses and carriages, were too narrow 

for automobiles. A request for more funding in 1920 is recounted in John Ise’s 

book on the NPS. He states, "one Oklahoma representative wanted $30,000 to 

build roads, causeways, bridges, dams, retaining walls, toilets, repair 

buildings, purchase tools, and otherwise improve and beautify the park" (Ise 

1961:141).

These requests did not get a warm reception in Congress. Often when the 

appropriation for Platt came up there was a great deal of sarcasm and 

merriment. When one of the appropriation items came up Representative 

Smith of Iowa said that the park was good for two things: to take care of 

the five men employed there, and to act as a sewage receptacle for the 

town of Sulphur; and he recommended that Platt, and also Wind Cave, be 

given to the states or returned to the Indians (Ise 1961:141). 

Platt continued to be plagued by insufficient appropriations, and it was not 

until CCC Company 808 arrived in 1933 that the numerous needs of the park were 

met, utilizing the master plan that had been prepared June 15, 1934, by the NPS 

San Francisco office under Superintendent Branch (NPS 1934).

Until the camp was instituted at Platt, there had been little detailed 

study of the design problems of the park. The Master Plan prepared by the 

San Francisco office was of utmost value in giving a general organization 

of the work, but in general, due to lack of field study and the absence 

of detailed topographical information, few plans were available (Platt NP 

1934a:16).

As early as 1922, the NPS recognized that Platt National Park's development 

should be studied from the perspective of landscape architecture (NPS 1922). 

Work at Platt closely followed the master plan; and specific plans were 

developed for projects to "insure proper accuracy and to study the problem 

thoroughly" (Platt NP 1934a:16). In 1935 two "urgently needed plans" for the 

CCC were laid out in working drawings for the Bromide and Hillside springs 

pavilions. Sketches for these structures were sent to the San Francisco office 

for approval (CCC 1935b). In their seven years of work at the park, the CCC 

provided access to the springs, facilities, trails, picnic sites, and 

campgrounds-all monuments of architectural integrity.
63

Chapter Five

THE VOICE OF THE 8O8TH

These were very, very hard times and poor times.... We lived in creeks and 

things. Before we come here we lived all over Arkansas and New Mexico and 

we traveled and picked cotton.... We didn't have much of a chance to go to 

school-we stayed on the road all the time, in old cars. If it hadn't been 

for the CCC we would've had to pack up my nine brothers and sisters and 

go to Arkansas. There's no way we could've lived, because I couldn't get 

a job at that age... I was the oldest.... And after the CCC I stayed here. I 

never did leave no more (Interview Long 1996:5,11,20).

HAROLD LONG

Camp NP-1 at Platt National Park was the first national park CCC camp in the 

8

th corps area (Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona), and was authorized 

on April 20, 1933. The original camp was located in the southeastern portion of 

the park near the Veterans Hospital. On May 10, 25 Local Experienced Men (LEM) 

were enrolled, followed by a contingent of 50 men on May 16; and by May 24, 

there was a total of 169 men, all from Oklahoma, "a fact which contributed 

greatly to the success and morale of the camp since most of the enrollees were 

able to spend week-ends with their families" (Platt NP 1934a:2). The original 

camp location was near a dairy and there was a problem with flies so it was 

moved to a site on Rock Creek, "just below Black Sulphur Springs," on November 

5, 1933 (Platt NP 1934a:2). Company 808 occupied this camp location for 15 

periods, until the camp was closed on June 29, 1940, and the company moved to 

Colorado. 

Throughout its tenure, the camp consisted of approximately 200 men, with the 

addition of 54 drought relief men from Dallas, Texas in 1934. The drought broke 

in 1935 and the drought enrollees were reduced from 54 to 21 (CCC 1935:2).
64

The recruits varied each period, but many were local boys. The CCC narrative 

reports shed some light on the composition of the camp. During the fourth 

period-October, November, and December of 1934-park superintendent Branch 

reported: 

It appears the average type of enrollee at this camp is somewhat of a 

different character than the first enrollees received. While the general 

morale and willingness to work has from the beginning been very fine, it 

is apparent the present enrollees are of a steadier type-the fickle, gold 

bricking type having been apparently practically disappeared entirely 

(CCC 1934). 

A 1935 report states that responsible and conscientious men were hired at the 

beginning of the program for supervisory positions, and they were retained the 

entire time (CCC 1935c). In 1937 the CCC program was extended, as was the time 

period an enrollee could serve-from six months to two years. The same act that 

extended the CCC and the length of enrollment also provided for local civilian 

employees to be added to the CCC work force. These men performed more specific 

duties, similar to the LEMs, and were paid $75 per month. Former LEMs had the 

opportunity to qualify for these positions, as did others in the local 

community (NACCA 1999).

African American men usually were enrolled in segregated CCC camps. During the 

third enrollment period of 1934, Company 808 included black enrollees. 

18 Negro boys were transferred to the camp. Momentarily it was doubtful 

as what the result would be of assigning the Negro boys to this camp. 

However, careful administration has avoided racial complications and now 

the Negro boys are functioning very satisfactorily. The Negro boys live, 

eat and work separately from the White boys, but receive identically the 

same consideration, and their work has proved satisfactory (CCC 1934b).

Company 808 boasted "a very mellow colored quartet," which performed in the 

mess hall on two occasions "before an appreciative audience." The quartet 

consisted of Walter Hardridge, Eddie Branch, Curtis Ervin, and Earl Phillips 

(CCC 1935f).

The CCC camp facilities included a headquarters building, a day room with Ping 

PongTM tables, and a little canteen where you could buy cigarettes, gum, and 

candy; in the middle of the camp was a shop building, and educational and 

supply buildings. On the west end there were two barracks on the north side and 

the latrine in the middle. On the far end was the mess hall. There were three 

more barracks located on the south side and a flagpole in the parade ground. 

"I say it was a parade ground. It was where we stood for formation" (Interview 

Pollard 1996:13). Today there are three fireplaces west of the location of the 

CCC camp. According to Earl Pollard the remains of the old CCC coalhouse 

foundation can still be seen east of the Monkey Tree.
65

FRONT VIEW OF CCC CAMP

(CHIC Archives 0029)

The CCC carried out a vision for the park. The vision was that of the camp’s 

senior landscape foreman, Edmund B. Walkowiak, who said that 

...despite the natural beauty of Platt National Park, it was quite evident 

from a landscape viewpoint that many fine areas had been totally 

neglected and too many terribly mistreated. No landscape work of any 

major proportion had ever been undertaken, and considering the intense 

use and mis-use the 840 acres, of the Park, receive, there was a lot of 

room for improvement and repair (CCC 1934b).
66

CCC STAFF

Vernon H. Fielding, Edmund B. Walkowiak, Sam G. Whittelsey, and 

Jerome C. Miller

The CCC developed the landscape seen today in Chickasaw's Platt District. They 

confined Rock Creek to its channel; constructed fine masonry pavilions; built 

trails, bridges, roads, and campgrounds; landscaped entrances; trimmed trees; 

planted vegetation; and fenced a new buffalo pasture. In 1936 Superintendent 

Branch wrote that the work accomplished in the past three years were 

"equivalent to 20 years accomplishments under regular park programs" (Branch 

1936). Company 808’s masonry and forestry work was exemplary, but the 

development of the young men "mentally, physically and morally" was by far the 

most outstanding part of the program, because this was its prime purpose 

(Branch 1936). Jay Pinkston remembers working "harder in Platt National Park 

than I ever worked for any contractor or expected to" (Interview Pinkston 

1996:27). 

JAY PINKSTON 
67

As Superintendent Branch wrote early in the camp's history,

...we feel that a very efficient organization has been built up and we will 

be sorry to lose most of the boys in a few months, at the end of the 

twelve month period. It appears that most of the boys would be content to 

remain at Platt indefinitely, but we feel it is best for them to make way 

for others and enter outside work for their own good (Branch 1934).

Branch got much assistance from the CCC. In fact, he even had select CCC boys 

help in his home. For example, former CCC enrollee Joe Rutledge recalls taking 

three or four of Branch’s children out to do things, and he even helped Mrs. 

Branch with the housework (Interview Rutledge 1997). Evidently Branch's 

"building of the park" was far reaching. 

In 1934, CCC Landscape Foreman Walkowiak wrote down his extraordinary 

philosophy for the landscape design of Travertine Island, constructed between 

August 11, 1933, and February 2, 1934.

This area which had been known under various names such as, "End of the 

World" and "Old Barbecue Pit" had long been recognized for its primitive 

beauty, and as one of the most interesting spots in the Park. With the 

presence of the most magnificent trees within the park, the natural 

topography of its travertine formations, one might doubt whether humble 

man should meddle with this handiwork of nature. But the area had long 

been used for picnics and regardless of our feeling about the matter, 

would probably continue to serve this purpose. Therefore, with the 

authority, which you and Mr. Branch gave to me, I resolved to make it a 

picnic area which would endure through centuries and which would serve 

countless generations. While actuated to make a useful and lasting work I 

also hoped that development would have an aesthetic value.

The natural topography suggested the main elements of the design and 

construction. For example, we decided that the general shape of the whole 

area should be defined by the travertine out-cropping, and that these 

out-croppings should remain undisturbed. A wall and seat combination 

faithfully follows the inside line of the travertine formation, and where 

travertine does not naturally occur; we have introduced it to suggest a 

complete enclosure of travertine. The topography also suggested the three 

subdivisions of the area, which we have affected. While the three 

subdivisions are intimately connected, each affords a certain degree of 

privacy from the others, and each may serve a special use. For example, 

subdivision 1 might well accommodate a card or dinner party of four. 

Subdivision 2, might afford seats for a band, orchestra, a chorus, or 

various other groups or musicians. 

The main subdivision 3, might supply seats for an audience of three 

hundred people or more, whether this audience was enjoying a musical, a 

lecture, or some general entertainment. We feel however, that the main 

use of this area will be for large picnic lunches. The large paddleshaped table will accommodate at least twenty-five people, whom we may 

conceive to be the officials or other dignitaries of some organization 

such as that of the American Legion. The bean-shaped table was designed 

primarily for the children who might be holding their own party, or who 

might be along with their parents in a general picnic party. The oven and 

wood-box-table combination is adequate to the obvious uses for which they 

are intended.
68

TABLE AT TRAVERTINE ISLAND 

All the elements mentioned above in shape and general style were 

motivated by the general design of the area, which in turn was motivated 

as we have previously stated, by the natural topography of the area in 

addition to practical considerations.

While development of the first area on Travertine Island shows a 

predominance of travertine over any architectural elements, the reverse 

is true in the main development on the island. Here the exceptionally 

fine rocks from the quarries at Dougherty, Oklahoma are dominant. 

Indeed, the availability of the Dougherty rocks-approximately twelve 

miles from Sulphur-was the chief practical consideration in addition to

topography, which motivated the general design (CCC 1935).

After Travertine Island, the CCC began work at Buffalo Springs. As early as 

1921, the development of this spring had posed an interesting philosophical 

dilemma for the NPS landscape architect. That year the park planned to encircle 

Buffalo Spring with a stone wall laid in cement, which would cut off the 

surface water that made the area unsightly (Platt NP 1921). Director Cammerer 

wrote to NPS Landscape Engineer Daniel Hull noting superintendent Ferris' 

position that the spring was subject to surface water pouring in, and that an 

enclosure would keep the spring water "clear and pure" (NPS 1922a).

"Working on Buffalo Springs"

(CHIC Archives 0003)
69

Hull responded to the proposal by saying that "we certainly could not make the 

place more beautiful as a natural landscape and, after all, the natural 

landscape is the thing we are trying to preserve" (NPS 1922b). In a second 

letter, Hull said that "we cannot add to the charm or beauty of Buffalo Spring 

by any man made structure" (NPS 1922c). Hull was under the impression that the 

enclosure was being proposed to accommodate the city's water needs.

When the CCC arrived in 1933, Buffalo Spring was used almost exclusively by 

picnickers and sightseers and was in a deplorable condition because cars were 

parked everywhere. 

The whole area was overgrown with weeds, vines, brush and trees, some of 

which were dead and dying, presenting a very untidy and overgrown 

appearance.... This same area was subject to overflowing during seasons of 

heavy rainfall which left deposits of all kinds (CCC 1934b).

The creek's meander cut heavily into the surroundings, hampering flood control, 

so the CCC filled the channel with 300 cubic yards of dirt to provide flood 

waters with a direct passage to prevent overflow, and to remove the danger of 

the creek bed flowing into the springs (Platt NP 1934). A pergola, "whose 

design and construction was quite foreign to National Park Service standards,"

occupied a very "conspicuous spot near the Springs" and was removed. Access 

across the creek was necessary, particularly for fire regulation (CCC 1934b). 

The CCC landscape foreman, Edmund Walkowiak wanted to give the whole area the 

"fine setting it deserved and to make the spring water more appetizing." Plans 

were drawn, which called for a low circular stone structure enclosing the main 

portions of the springs and the construction of stone and wood guard rails to 

keep cars within bounds and to provide suitable entrances to both areas. The 

landscape work included raising the grade level 15 to 18 inches at the springs 

and picnic areas; planting trees shrubs, and evergreens; building rip-rap walls 

along the creek for bank protection; constructing a barbecue, tables and 

fireplaces; and, laying flagstone and gravel walkways (Platt NP 1934).

The first task for the construction of the Buffalo Spring enclosure was to 

excavate a 3-foot-deep and 47-foot-diameter ring with a steel-reinforced 

concrete base. This was constructed of 32 piles of 8’ X 8’ white pine in two 

concentric circles. The result was a ring of concrete 8-inches-thick and 

10-feet-wide resting on piles to support the base for the upper stone 

structure. 

Foreman Walkowiak had the men quarry the rock at Dougherty where he selected 

stone for the caps and parking area retaining wall. The stone tables, a 

fireplace, and garbage and wood receptacles were completed in July 1934. "The 

embryonic stone masons of the CCC surpassed all our expectations in producing 

this excellent piece of work" (Platt NP 1934). 

This entire work was done by untrained boys from the CC Camp and is 

interesting both as a handsome piece of work and also as an object lesson 

in what the Camps can accomplish under careful direction (Platt NP 

1935a).
70

Rock Crew-CCC Boys

(CHIC Archives 0027)

Buffalo Springs after CCC Completed Work 

(CHIC Archives 0005)
71

Buffalo Spring became "one of the most desirable picnic places in the park"

(Platt NP 1934c). CCC worker Jay Pinkston remembers the big sheets of sandstone 

rock that were made into tables and benches. Every morning the park ranger 

would take the CCC crew up to Buffalo Springs with "a 3 gallon bucket and a 

broom and [they] scrubbed everyone of those tables before the tourists got 

there, every morning" (Interview Pinkston 1996:6).

In August 1934, gravity earth dams with clay core walls were completed 

downstream from Antelope Spring to create lily pools (Platt NP 1934c). 

 

Four16 dams were constructed along the Spring Creek in order to add 

interest to the creek and to create noise of falling water. Also, the 

added pressure created along the Spring Creek, due to the pools behind 

the dams, keeps the Springs from breaking out along this creek bed. The 

dams were built of rock and stone 6 to 9 inches high.... To facilitate 

crossing the creek between the Spring and picnic areas steps were built 

on both sides of the creek and 4 stepping stones set into the creek bed....

The steps are connected to the Spring by a flagstone walk.... Two stone 

tables with seats around are to be constructed; also three small 

fireplaces which will eliminate the dangers of open fires.... It is hoped 

that the present Buffalo Springs area warrants the time expended and 

materials used, and that it will... be a source of joy and pleasure to the 

many thousands of visitors to Platt National Park (Platt NP 1934).

In 1934, under the CCC Forestry Foreman Donald E. Stauffer, the trees in the 

upper part of Cold Springs campground were given "surgical and pruning work"

(Platt NP 1934d) and a section of Cold Springs campground was closed for 

several years so that the vegetation could recuperate from heavy use.

The campground was rehabilitated between 1935 and 1939 under an organized 

campground plan "according to the ideas approved by" Dr. Elmo P. Meinecke, a 

renowned plant pathologist (Branch 1936). Meinecke had developed a system of 

campground planning for the NPS in the 1930s that included road design, 

parking, and restoration. The plans for Cold Springs Campground, which 

consisted of 15 acres, were completed during the fourth period (October 1, 

1934–March 31, 1935), and development of the area began in April 1935. The Cold 

Springs comfort station construction was begun on July 19, 1935, under ECW 

construction. The buildings were a "departure from any previous masonry done in 

the park," as the material was a rough, dark, gray and brown sandstone of large 

and irregular shape. The largest individual stone weighed approximately 6 tons 

(CCC 1935a:3). According to the construction report, "the appearance is much 

more natural in effect than the yellow-brown limestone previously used, and 

blends more inconspicuously into the landscape" (CCC 1935a:3), and the 

restrooms were "fine examples of rustic architecture" (CCC 1935b:2). 

The Cold Springs masonry, completed in October 1935, "will probably determine 

the type of future stone work used in the park" (CCC 1935d). Fireplaces for the 

66 campsites were constructed of the same stone as the restrooms in September 

1935. In March 1938, the building crew completed the checking station, and "the 

appearance of this structure [is] unusually pleasing" (CCC 1938). 

Priority was given to minor improvements in the campground to make it ready for 

the season opening. One CCC worker interviewed remembers planting Bermuda grass 

at Cold Springs, which they acquired along the shoulders of the road in the 

black part of town (Interview Pollard 1996:12). In 1939 the superintendent 

reported that the campground opening was postponed "one more season" to give 

 

16Only three exist today.
72

the new vegetation time to get established; besides, the drought had caused 

Travertine Creek to become dry, and its "main attraction" was the swimming 

pools (Branch 1939).

A report of proposed CCC projects recommends that the Bromide Springs Pavilion 

project be carried out "as no single improvement would add more to the 

attractiveness of the entire park, or more to the serviceability of the Public 

dependent upon the Medicinal Springs" (Platt NP 1935a). 

In June 1934, the preliminary drawings for the Bromide Springs Pavilion were 

reviewed and the building approved as an ECW project (Platt NP 1934d). In late 

1934, the Bromide pavilion project was canceled because of an order in regard 

to ECW enrollees performing skilled labor (CCC 1934). This issue must have been 

resolved right away, because the Bromide Springs Pavilion retaining wall and 

footings were being constructed in late February 1935 (CCC 1935e). In September 

1935, the sketches for the Bromide pavilion were sent to San Francisco for 

further study (CCC 1935a). The completion of the pavilion for public use was 

scheduled for October 1, 1936 (CCC 1936).

The public heartily approves of the new structure. The directional and 

information signs, paper cup containers, and disposals, and flag pole 

details which were neglected in the original designs are now being worked 

out to round out the project (CCC 1936a).

The Pavilion Springs pavilion was a much more difficult project. The first 

problem encountered was uncovering the old underground facilities, such as the 

former town site water lines, drain lines, walls, and floors that were found 

during excavation. The CCC crew dug down seven or eight feet, but left the old 

inverted concrete funnel in place over the main flow of the largest spring, 

known as Big Tom. This served as a form in which to place a more substantial 

one, as the old funnel was leaking badly and did not cover the entire area of 

the spring. The underground work took more time than anticipated and delayed 

the completion of the structure (CCC 1936).

The CCC crew built up the area around the spring with rock and concrete. The 

next day, the CCC placed tar on it and then more concrete, continuing with 

these layers until it was high enough that it did not backfill with water 

(Interview Beaver 1996:2). In December 1936, after encountering "almost 

insurmountable difficulties in the control of the spring water," the subfloor’s "monolithic slab of concrete" was completed, seats were put in the 

exterior walls, the floor was prepared for flagging, and the timbers, which 

came from Washington State, were adzed and sized (Interview Beaver 1996:5). 

The incredible huge rock that serves as the fountain was Foreman Kodiak’s idea. 

The crew put it in place using crowbars; a windle, which is a hoist; and a lot 

of labor. There was no plan for shaping it, they just "kind of rounded it off"

with chisels (Interview Beaver 1996:4). The planner predicted "that this 

structure will be the most successful yet built in the area" (CCC 1936a). 

The February 1937 monthly narrative report states that ECW construction work 

had been "confined to the Pavilion Springs Pavilion" and the stonework was 

"under way again after a long delay due to freezing weather," but it was hoped 

that the structure would be completed in March 1937. The March report states 

that the pavilion had taken much longer than anticipated, and that stonework 

had "gone ahead very slowly due to the irregular character and formation of the 

rock chosen for the structure," and it was not expected to be completed until 

early May (CCC 1937d). 

In May 1937, Pavilion Springs was still far from completion. "The fault seems 

to lie in the character of the stone obtained for the structure," as it 
73

required a great deal of hand cutting. "This sand-conglomerate cap rock will 

not be used in further structures if any other type of stone can be found 

available" (CCC 1937e). Chickasaw National Recreation Area Landscape Architect 

Ken Ruhnke has recognized the numerous chisel marks on the rocks today. 

By July, the roof and stonework were completed, but approach walks, steps, and 

grading were delayed due to the absence of the landscape foreman.

The August 1937 narrative report notes that "Pavilion Springs pavilion is now 

complete and will be opened to the public August 22nd" (CCC 1937b). CCC enrollee 

Frank Beaver says that it took them a year to build the pavilion. The rocks 

were hauled by the CCC boys from the Dolese Brothers plant southeast of 

Dougherty, near Big Canyon. The block-and-tackle method was used to move the 

huge stones for the pavilion construction. Frank Beaver believes the mortar has 

lasted so long because it was laid in two layers. He recalls animal bones and 

various things that were dug up at the spring location. There were eight men 

who built Pavilion Springs. The names of six of the men are Frank Beaver, 

Harvey Smith, Doyle Smith, Curtis Harvey, Ninna Hogg, and Roy Radie. They would 

work about two at a time, unless there was more to do, and then all eight 

worked together. A man named Kodiak was the supervisor and he had masonry 

experience. Kodiak oversaw all the construction work in the park (Interview 

Beaver 1996). Delbert Gilbert also mentioned Ralph Dodson as a masonry man 

(Interview Gilbert 1996:4).

KEN RUHNKE INTERVIEWING FRANK AND VINITA BEAVER
74

PAVILION SPRING 

"To me, the pavilions are just kind of a monument to 

some real good construction work" (Interview Cobb 1996).

The Bromide Springs entrance portal of native brown limestone and gray and 

brown flagstone is "a fine example of rustic architecture" (CCC 1935b). The 

construction of the entrance pylons was completed in March 1935. The most 

striking part of the overall design of the entrance is the artesian well, 

"visible a long way approaching the entrance" (CCC 1935c). The completion of 

the entrance court of flagstone, enclosing a pool, was "a fitting introduction 

to this area of medicinal water" (CCC 1935d), and the "single jet fountain, 

rising 30 feet in the air has given life to the entire surroundings" (CCC 

1935a).

Plans for the recreational dams on Travertine Creek were completed by the San 

Francisco office and dated May 1935. The plans include recreational dams at 

Niagara Falls, Bear Falls, Central Campground, and two at Garfield Falls. This 

project, ECW 7-123, was submitted as a carry-over for the sixth period, October 

1935 to March 1936, but no reports have been found by the authors that describe 

the construction of the dams. Superintendent Branch included photos of the 

swimming pool development at Little Niagara and Bear Falls in his 1936 annual 

report (Branch 1936). 
75

RECREATIONAL DAM, GARFIELD FALLS

LITTLE NIAGARA 
76

None of the interviewees worked on the dams, but the wife of CCC enrollee James 

Hudler gave the park a copy of his "Certificate of Proficiency" for a threemonth training course he took in elementary masonry between January and March, 

1936 before he began work on the dams (CCC 1936b).

JAMES HUDLER'S CCC CERTIFICATE OF PROFICIENCY IN ELEMENTARY 

MASONRY, 1936

JAMES HUDLER'S CCC COMPLETION TOUR OF DUTY, 1937
77

One CCC worker remembers shouldering the highway through the park "by all the 

swimming pools" along the Travertine Road (Interview Pinkston 1996:10). 

It was a 10-inch commercial road, and they laid 4 to 5 inches of asphalt 

down. You've got to have something to hold asphalt, or it will crawl 

around-so we put a red clay gravel down, called Troy gravel, and we made 

a shoulder about 3 foot on each side all the way up. We tamped that clay 

down and that held the asphalt. All the way from where you turn off to 

the nature center, to Buffalo and Antelope springs, and all the way 

around (Interview Pinkston 1996:10).

The rock crusher for the roadwork was located on the W. L. Scott Ranch, just 

below Veterans Lake and Rock Creek. W. L. Scott was the CCC camp superintendent 

until his son, W. L., Jr., took over as camp superintendent in January 1935. 

Scott "was the one who built most of the comfort stations and the well houses"

(Interview Pinkston 1996:11).

The rock crushing operation was located on Scott’s ranch, 21⁄2 miles south of 

Buckhorn, and was operated by Tom Collins (Interview Cobb 1996:4). The men 

would gather the limestone rock and send it up to the top of a hill, then it 

would come down a chute into the dump trucks, and the truck drivers would haul 

it from the crusher to the park and spread it with graders. This crushed rock 

was also used on the trail to Buffalo Spring (Interview Pollard 1996:18).

The CCC camp cook would prepare meals that were brought to the rock crushing 

operators. Usually these were hot lunches, including sliced pies. Years after 

working on this project, Earl Pollard went back to visit the site.

I was way back down there where the rock crusher was and I looked up in a 

fork in the tree, there was a pie pan up there that had 808 on it. And I 

got it and brought it back to the Nature Center and gave it to them. I 

got a letter from the park superintendent on that. 

We used to go up-we'd go out west of town and turn back through a ranch 

and ford the creek to the crusher. When the creek was too high to ford, 

we'd work in the park. What we'd do is pull clover, which was not a 

natural plant for this part. We'd pull it and set these little buck 

bushes back in place. These little small bushes with red berries on them. 

I think we got rid of most of the clover on the road shoulders. They were 

making them look natural. The construction supervisor said that all 

landscaping was "nature faking." The shoulders had been graded and they 

wanted to make it grow back natural (Interview Pollard 1996:2-3). 

The CCC men conducted mostly landscape work in the park because there was an 

outstanding need for it. 

When the CCC camp was first installed at Platt, it was clearly evident 

that one of the first and most important tasks of the whole program would 

be the care and protection of the existing trees, which constitute one of 

the chief attractions of the area; and consequently, a comprehensive 

program for the treatment of the whole park was instituted (Platt NP 

1934a:5).

Donald Stauffer, the cultural foreman or chief forester, developed a program to 

protect, rejuvenate, and reestablish "deforested areas" (Platt NP 1934a:5). 

The goals of the planting projects were to "restore the park to its original 

condition" and to be "of an ornamental nature, to strengthen the Park 

boundaries, and add to the general attractiveness of the Park" (Platt NP 

1934a:5; 1935b:5).
78

Work of this nature, planting, can easily be over-done and to a useless 

end, especially in an area of this type-of marked contrasts. In the 

fertile valleys of Rock and Travertine Creek plants grow with almost 

tropical luxuriance, while only a short distance away only grass, and 

hardy weeds and a few hardy tree and shrub species thrive of their own 

accord. We have attempted to take this into consideration in our planting 

program.... It will take this area years, if ever, to recover from 

haphazard planting and small farming operations which were practiced on 

the park a number of years ago (CCC 1934a).

Under the supervision of Forestry Foreman Stauffer, 550 large cedars were 

brought into the park during the winter of 1934. These trees were from 3 to 30 

feet in diameter. Approximately 100 large balled hardwoods were also planted, 

including oak, elm, hackberry, chittam wood, and tree plum. The total number of 

shrubs planted was close to 25,000, and included dogwood, chaparral, fragrant 

sumac, common sumac, red bud, red haw, corral berry, black haw, wild rose, 

privet, and euonymous. During the same period, 1500 trees were trimmed (CCC 

1935). A complete list of trees, where they originated, and where they were 

planted in 1933 is included in Appendix B.

"Tree Crew at Work"

(CHIC Archives 0024)
79

During the winter of 1934-1935 two areas of the park were reforested. A large 

field adjacent to the Pavilion Springs Trail was planted with oak and walnut 

from seeds collected in the park. This was an area that was cultivated for 

numerous years and had grown into weeds. On Bromide Hill, between Rock Creek 

and the ridge, 3,000 native red cedar seedlings were planted. The CCC also 

built the trail up Bromide Hill, moving many rocks with dynamite. The steep and 

rocky hillside made plant survival difficult; the same number of trees had been 

planted there the year before with only a 20% survival rate, so it was 

necessary to revegetate this area to prevent soil erosion. Apparently, it had 

historically been covered with large cedars (CCC 1935).

CCC STONE STEPS

Pavilion Springs/Travertine Creek Trail

A trial planting of 21,800 bois d’arc and 1,400 persimmon seeds was started in 

several barren areas of the park. Rock Creek was planted with shrubs after 

revetment and the slopes of the creek were planted in Bermuda grass. The 

Bromide Hill road was landscaped to give this highway a park like appearance 

and the grade was extended into the natural slope and planted with Bermuda and 

prairie grass (CCC 1935). Truman Cobb commented that he "took care of those 

slopes. They put us to doin’ somthin’ that would last, and make something 

beautiful. You go today, where they’re building highways and it’s just an old 

barren cut there and nothin’ pretty about it. But we sloped those things, 

leaving the boulders, leaving the outcroppings that would be picturesque.... 

We might work half a day around one boulder... kinda like an artist" (Interview 

Cobb 1996:18).
80

Complete reforestation was accomplished under the CCC program, which ended in 

1940. The CCC planted 800,000 plants, including 60 tree species (Barker and 

Jameson 1975:24). 

We carried fire buckets of big heavy gauge down to the creek and filled 

two of them and come up and watered each one of these little old bushes 

and hedges that we planted, the whole crew did (Interview Pinkston 

1996:27).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

They pruned oaks, and elms, and sycamores. There were 200 boys cleaning 

the park. It’s never looked that good since (Interview Pinkston 

1996:15).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

The tree pruning gang climbed trees with a 670-foot rope, and you had a 

saddle that went around each leg and around your waist with a tail rope 

like this. You’d coil the rope and throw it backwards, higher than you 

can out front, and we’d throw it to the first limb and climb up there and 

go to the top, and if you was smart enough to tie it to a limb that 

wouldn’t break, you could go everywhere. You might break one off and come 

back to the tree, that was when it was fun-when your limb cracked we’d 

all go to laughing because if you didn’t turn like a cat will turn on its 

feet and hit the body of that tree with your feet, you got skinned up a 

little bit. 

Every morning we’d examine that rope, but Stauffer would always put a 

little fun in it, he’d say, "Now, if you ever break one of those ropes, 

I’m going to give you a brand new one." We had an army pistol belt, and 

we had a hand saw on one side and a little can of liquid asphalt and a 

brush on the other side.... You had to paint it. It didn’t do any good, but 

we didn’t know that then. You had to get out there some way and you had 

to paint that cut. It was a lot of fun. We were about 17 years old and we 

didn’t care if we fell out of that tree (Interview Pinkston 1996:8).

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

They schooled us on not hurting the trees. Don’t break no green limbs 

off, you know, and we took that schooling. We wasn’t allowed to cut a 

green limb, just the dead ones that probably might fall, so we’d trim 

them, and we had all this buckled on our belts, saws and everything. Why 

we’d climb them trees like a squirrel. Get up to that first limb, why you 

undo it and throw it up and get another limb. You’d go plumb to the top 

of the biggest ones... along the roads and the creeks (Interview Gilbert 

1996:21).

Around Bromide Springs were many large post oak and pecan trees. The CCC boys 

would put expanded steel in the cavities and pack concrete in so that the bark 

eventually grew over the hole. 

I asked the old guys one time that work in the park, I said "You all ever 

run into any concrete?" and they said "we cuss you guys every time we 

tear up a saw" (Interview Pinkston 1996:9). 

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

At that time they protected the parks a lot more than they do today. I 

mean, if a tree got scarred up, somebody would be down here fixing it. 

They would fill that with cement and then put stuff like tar over it to 

heal the wound, and even until today, sometimes they'll cut trees down, 

and there's been a few of those slabs of cement still in them (Interview 

Pollard 1996:7).
81

"Tree Surgery"

(CHIC Archives 0037)

The CCC had a nursery "like a big garden," which the CCC boys watered. Today 

you can still see pine trees there. "There are 6 or 8 pine trees scattered up 

the creek and I am sure the CCC put those in. They are about 100 yards down 

from Cold Springs on the left side of the creek. At one time there was a little 

bit of a wire fence around this area and you can see where the nursery was"

(Interview Kennedy 1996:14). Earl Pollard says that "a lot of trees have grown 

in. It's so much different, but it does have a lot of fond memories. I can 

visualize it" (Interview Pollard 1996:14).

 The CCC also had a student enrollee work with Landscape Foreman George Merrill 

to collect 600 species of plants between 1935 and 1936 (CCC 1935a). The plants 

were identified at Harvard University and the park's curatorial facility houses 

the herbarium today. 

The CCC constructed "a carefully planned trail system about 6 miles in length 

traversing the entire length of the park; affording access to various points of 

interest" (Platt NP 1942). A trail system "leading through the park to the 

various points of interest along the streams" had been recommended by the NPS 

San Francisco Office as early as 1922 (NPS 1922). 

 NP-1 closed June 29, 1940 (CCC 1940), and they "took us to Davis and loaded us 

on a train." The company ended up working on the Timber Creek Campground at 

Rocky Mountain National Park (Pollard 1996:5,16).
82

The CCC enrollees interviewed remember their time at Platt National Park 

fondly. One CCC worker remembering Black Sulphur Springs said that:

In that old camp in the summer time, we’d have bed check, you know, 10:00 

I guess. Anyway, after bed check it was too hot to sleep. We’d get up and 

put our clothes on and go to Black Sulphur Springs. We’d sit there in the 

cool and drink that water. You get to where you just kind of crave it. We 

would just sit there out in the cool wind and drink that water until 

about 1:00 and slip back in camp and go to bed (Pinkston 1996:19). 

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Sulphur used to be a lively place. Very lively. The CCC camp didn't have 

any air conditioning, and we'd open the windows and doors at night, and 

the music from the honky tonk, if we weren't up there, would put us to 

sleep every night. It was a noisy place. It was probably three blocks or 

more from where we were at in the CCC camp and you could hear the music 

every night. I was always partial to Bob Wills. You could go, but you had 

to be back in bed at 10 O'clock. They had a bed check, but a lot of times 

they'd come and crawl in bed and pull the covers up, and twist the cover 

back after bed check and take off again. About the most pleasant part I 

guess is being in the prime of your life and enjoying it. And I enjoyed 

the park real well. It's still like home (Interview Pollard 1996:17,20).

CCC interviewees would like to see a monument at the camp location or some 

kind of plaque to show what it was like. They think that visitors to the 

park should have a better understanding of "how much work and how much good 

they did" (Interview Pinkston 1996:27). "If nothing else, just a sign that 

says this site was the home of the CCC Company 808" (Interview Pollard 

1996:14). Perhaps an interpretive wayside could include the wonderful 

statement below from the CCC enrollee completion of duty certificate (USGPO 

1934). 

[ The CCC Enrollee]

Served his country well as a member of the

CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS,

that magnificent Army of Youth and Peace that put into action

the Awakening of the People of the United States to the fact of

Conservation and Recreation
83

Chapter Six

AFRICAN-AMERICANS AT PLATT NATIONAL PARK

FREEDMEN

The Five Civilized Tribes signed a peace settlement treaty in 1866 that 

required them to free all their slaves and to adopt them as citizens with full 

rights in the respective nation. The Chickasaw denied their freedmen not only 

the right of suffrage; especially provided for in the treaty, but also denied 

the children of freedmen the right to participate in the Chickasaw schools (US 

Senate 1894). A freedman’s school was established at Fort Arbuckle in 1872 

(Gibson 1971:293).

The Chickasaw requested that the freedmen be removed from the nation in 1868; 

however, they couldn't force them because the treaty stipulated that the 

freedmen did not have to move. In 1885 the Choctaw adopted their freedmen, but 

the Chickasaw refused. In signing the Atoka Agreement of 1897, the Chickasaw 

were required to enroll their former slaves and subsequently all freedmen born 

before October 31, 1899, received 40-acre allotments within the Chickasaw 

Nation. In 1906 there were 4,670 enrolled Chickasaw freedmen (Gibson 1971:306).

COLORED TOWN

Bordering the park's northeast boundary is what was known as Colored Town, 

Black Town, and other less appropriate names. Title research would be necessary 

to determine if this area was originally a freedman allotment. The area appears 

within the 3rd town site. It is possible that the former occupants of this area 

were descendants of slaves. Some of the names of former residents of this 

community are freedman surnames, as were found on the website

http://members.aol.com/angelaw859/freename.html. Several families still live in 

the area; among these is the Ervin family, associated with the Choctaw 

freedmen, while the Bruner name is from the Chickasaw freedmen. The Cade name 

is not mentioned in the list of names associated with any of the freedmen of 

the Five Civilized Tribes. In 1870 newly freed Negroes moved up from Texas 

(Gibson 1971:291), and the Cade family may have come to Sulphur at that time. 

Sulphur's black community once comprised approximately 300 people. The 

residents were employed by many of Sulphur's hotels and bathhouses, as well as 

day laborers on farms. Once farm mechanization began to replace manual labor, 

and the resort era began to decline, residents of this community had to move to 

cities where jobs could be found. According to Cleve Ervin, "they started 

moving out in the 50s, and I'd say by the mid-sixties most of the people had 

moved away" (Interview Ervin 1996:12). Many moved to Davis and some of them 

moved east to work for the car companies, like General Motors in Illinois. 

Oh, all the people-all the ones that aren't dead-they just gradually 

moved away on account of there wasn't enough work here. I guess you could 

say I'm about the only one besides the Cade's that stayed here (Interview 

Ervin 1996:11).

Today there are only three black families (6 people) that still live in this 

community. Many others still own their property, "but it's all grown up-it's a 

wilderness over there" (Interview Ervin 1996:11).
84

Eugene Cade's mom owned the land where the city's water pump station is. His 

father was the first black child born in Sulphur. "I got some kids but they all 

left here." Mostly blacks still own the land (Interview Cade 1996).

Delbert Gilbert said that "they used to have big camp meetings in the summer, 

the colored people would, and they’d have the biggest white one over there too.

I’ve been over to the church-they’d preach all night. Along in there where the 

bar is built there was a tabernacle. It was colored, but white people could go, 

it would last sometimes all night. There was preaching and singing. They sure 

had good music" (Interview Gilbert 1996:32).

Cleve Ervin recalls that "all the really big changes took place in Sulphur in 

the sixties. In the sixties is when they integrated the schools, white kids and 

black kids started going to school together" (Interview Ervin 1996:11).

"IT JUST DOESN'T SEEM REAL"

In 1923 the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) began planning for a parade at Platt National 

Park. Superintendent Robert Morris wrote the NPS director for advice on the 

protocol regarding the wearing of the KKK regalia in the park, and noted that 

it was a violation of Oklahoma state law (Platt NP 1924). On June 2, 1924, 

Acting Director Demaray responded that "the Department and its officers will 

not undertake to interfere in any case with visitors to the parks or what they 

shall wear" as long as they "comply with existing laws, rules, and regulations"

(DOI 1924a). On the same date, Demarary submitted the following regulation for 

approval. 

No person shall be allowed to enter or remain in any national park or

national monument while masked or otherwise disguised so as to conceal

his identity (DOI 1924b).

This 1924 advertisement is a disturbing pictorial of these times.

KU KLUX KLAN GATHERING

(PLATT NP 1924b)
85

The only way we could come across town at night would have to be on Main 

Street. You couldn't get off Main. They'd run you back or arrest you. 

During that time any restroom or café, if you wanted anything you'd have 

to go in the back door. If you went into a restaurant you'd have to sit 

on boxes back there (Interview Ervin 1996:10). 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

We had two theatres, one was where the bank is, but we couldn't go to 

that one. We always went to the other one. They had a balcony where 

blacks could sit. You know, looking back at those days, it just doesn't 

seem real (Interview Ervin 1996:35). 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

We had our own little school out there; the school was located where that 

big vacant lot is south of Retha Condriff's house. We had two teachers, 

and you went to tenth grade. You had to go to the black school in Davis 

to finish high school (Interview Ervin 1996:11). 

"COLORADO PEOPLE ONLY"

They had a sign up at this one swimming hole at Central Campground, and a 

sign at the entrance to it-"Colored," and that was the only place colored 

folks were supposed to go in the park at that time. In that old water 

hole, I learned how to swim right there. I was nine years old and my 

uncles threw me out there and told me to swim or drown, and I swallowed 

about five gallons of water and they started in after me and I beat them 

to the bank (Interview Ervin 1996:9,28).

Earl Pollard remembers "one of the CCC boys, George Lucas, was standing up in 

the bed of the truck and he misread that sign; out loud, he said, "Colorado 

People Only." That's how I remember what the sign said" (Interview Pollard 

1996:11).

CENTRAL POOL

The sign was back up there by the gate [into Central Campground]. Anybody 

that wanted to use the pool besides black people could come in and use 

it, you know. They never ran them off if they came here, but they'd run 

us off if we went to the other swimming holes. We'd swim all day and we'd 
86

go to the movie, and when we'd come out of the movie at 10:30 or 11:00 at 

night and we'd go swim at Panther Falls until 1:00 or 2:00 in the 

morning. The only reason we went to Panther Falls is because there 

wouldn't be anybody there at that time of night. It was a better and 

bigger swimming hole. The colored weren't supposed to go there (Interview 

Ervin 1996:9).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

We used to swim right down there [Central Park] and jump off that rock. 

Only coloreds could swim there then. I had a ball in there. I sneaked 

down to Panther Falls. If they catch you there you got in trouble. 

Anytime we'd see them we run away. If you got caught they put you in jail 

or give you a fine (Interview Cade 1996).

"KEEP A STEPPING"

Eugene Cade told how "it wasn't hard then, but now it is." Eugene finds it hard 

to go back to the park; "I can't hardly go over there." "I was scared of them."

You could get water at Bromide if you were black "as long as you didn't take 

long." You couldn't stay in one place. "When we'd come down to the park, we 

didn’t do nothing, but keep a stepping" (Interview Cade 1996).

Cleve Ervin recalled that "we could walk around the park and look, but we 

mostly walked around the trails or the highway, and we'd look at people, but we 

couldn't go where they were. It was tough" (Interview Ervin 1996:13).

Cleve has happier times in the park today.

 

I take my family to the park. We go down to the lake most of the time. 

We had several cookouts here in the last month or so, out in the Black 

Sulphur area. Some of my folks from Davis came over and we just get 

together and go down and laugh and talk, and eat, just to get away from 

everything and everybody for a while (Interview Ervin 1996:15).
87

SHOWING FIRST COLORED CAMP 

ECW PROGRESS MAP

 OCT. 1, 1934 TO MARCH 1, 1935

 (PLATT NP 1935)

EXCLUSIVE USE

The 1932 Report of Director Albright mentions a "small area containing a 

swimming pool and equipped with tables was set aside for the exclusive use of 

Negro visitors. As an administrative step, this procedure was highly 

successful" (DOI 1932:55). In the WPA Guide to 1930s Oklahoma, it notes a 

location "in the bend in the creek is the Negro Area (campgrounds)" (WPA 

1986:368). CCC worker Delbert Gilbert remembers where the sign was that said 

"Colored Only." "When you go east up in the park, there’s a low water bridge 

there [now gone], well, it’s just right over there to your right, that used to 

be colored only" (Interview Gilbert 1996:31). 

The National Park Service Bulletin contained a summary of the location; "Platt 

Has Swimming Pool for Negroes."

The swimming pool and recreational area definitely segregated last month 

for negro visitors in the park is proving highly successful. Strange to 

say, a little trouble was experienced during the first part of the month 

by white people desiring to use the isolated part of the creek set aside 

for the negroes. However this has all been straightened out. The negroes 

have been very orderly and it has been found more satisfactory to place a 

negro caretaker in charge of this pool rather than a white person (NPS 

1932:18).

The 1935 "Progress Map" for the CCC work shows a "Colored Camp" at Panther 

Falls. This map was dated April 15, 1935.
88

The swimming area mentioned above at Panther Falls is not the same as the 

colored only swimming hole that Eugene Cade and Cleve Ervin remember. They 

remember the swimming hole at Central Park, built by the CCC. The development 

of the Central Park area is mentioned in a February 1937 Monthly Narrative 

Report.

The entrance road to the new negro area is complete. Further work in this 

area will include the placing of a guardrail and the construction of a 

comfort station (CCC 1937).

PLAN FOR CENTRAL PARK RECREATIONAL DAM

(PLATT NP 1935C)

In July of 1937, the monthly narrative report states that a new comfort station 

was being built for the "recently established Negro area. The area is now used 

as a campground, but when other areas are opened for camping a permanent Negro 

area will be made available with all facilities complete" (CCC 1937a).

Excavation was started on a comfort station for the new negro area on 

July 19. This structure will give all the necessary facilities for the 

area. It will be opened to negroes in 1938 (CCC 1937a).

Footings are in place on the Negro area comfort station and stonework is 

in progress. Completion of the area will fulfill a definite need for 

sufficient space to allow colored people to camp, picnic and swim in one 

special area set aside for that purpose. The present Negro area, 

available only for picnicing and swimming, will remain a picnic area for 

general use. The old concrete dam will be removed to better naturalize 

the creek at this location17 (CCC 1937b). 

The comfort station started late in August is now complete except for 

fine grading and general improvements around the structure. This utility 

 

17 If this is Panther Falls pool, the dam was never removed.
89

building will complete the improvements necessary in the negro area (CCC 

1937c).

The Master Plan development outline dated 1940, proposed to reorganize Central 

Campground into a picnic area, and the eastern half "to service new Negro area"

(Platt NP 1940:3-1).

NEW "NEGRO AREA" FROM MASTER PLAN

 (NPS 1950)

In the 1940s things began to change, as former Chief Ranger Lonnie Shaffer 

recalled: 

Back when Cal Miller was the superintendent he told me he was expecting 

two people from the regional office. Well, they finally got here, so he 

wanted to ride with them and talk and he asked me to drive the car. I was 

driving around through the park and we drove into Central Campground. 

There was a big old sign, it had been there all my life, and I didn’t 

know any difference, "COLORED AREA." Regional Director Minor Tillotson 

said, "Whoa, wait, back up!" And he wanted the superintendent to explain 

that. Well I thought it was very obvious... and it came down that day, 

before the sun went down. This was in 1946 or 1947 (Interview Shaffer 

1996:46). 
90

LONNIE AND FRIEDA SHAFFER

CONNOTATIONS

The removal of the sign did not change people’s viewpoint, as Cleve Ervin 

remembers.

This one ranger, he ran us off from there several times. Even after they 

had to take down the signs and all that so we could go anyplace we 

wanted. For several years after that, we'd go to the swimming hole and if 

there were some white people swimming there, they'd all get out and leave 

(Interview Ervin 1996:9).

Brenda Ringer recalled her mother telling her not to swim in the Panther 

swimming hole, she'd say "you can't swim there, 'cause you'll get polio there."

Ringer pointed out that "a lot of polio came from the swimmin' holes. That's 

what they believed.... But this one, I think the parents said that, because they 

were really prejudiced.... The Texas people didn't know that, and when they would 

come, they'd swim there. And I said, `Mama, they're swimming in it! ́ `Well, 

they're gonna get polio! ́" (Interview Ringer 1996:25).
91

ADVERTISEMENT FOR POLIO INNOCULATIONS 

1960 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Today Cleve Ervin relates: 

There is never a moment when I drive by there that I don't think about 

that. We had fun, no matter what people thought, because my mom always 

taught me to just treat people how you want to be treated, and we neverwe try not to ever let it get to us (Interview Ervin 1996:36). 

In 2001 Jacilee Wray returned to the park for a brief visit. While driving by 

the Monkey Tree, she saw a large group of people picnicking and children 

climbing the tree, so she stopped to take a photograph for this report, as we 

did not have any photos of African Americans enjoying the park. She walked with 

one of the children from the group and told him about the tree and how it was 

called the Monkey Tree because kids like to swing on the branches and play on 

it like monkeys. She then asked the boy if he would mind if she took his photo 

and he shyly acknowledged it would be all right. While taking his photo 

climbing the tree, the mother of the child came over and asked her to stop 

taking photos. She said, "I know what you are doing-you want a photo of him in 

the tree because it's called the Monkey Tree." Walking away in complete remorse 

over the situation, she had the awful realization that a long time ago black 

people suffered the derogatory comparison to monkeys. She felt sick, and wished 

that those memories would be gone for future generations of children. 

Unfortunately, for that young man, the Monkey Tree will now have that 

connotation.
92

KIDS IN MONKEY TREE 
93

Chapter Seven

IT'S THE WATER

Effervescent, clear, cool, and palatable, these waters come fresh from 

the rocks and gravel of the great apothecary, where Nature compounds them 

(Arbuckle Historical Society 1984).

GARFIELD FALLS POOL 

In a July 1919 park report, the superintendent said "Platt is celebrated, not 

so much for its beauty, and even this is called incomparable-as for its 

wonderful medicinal and fresh water springs" (Platt NP 1919b). The springs are 

what have drawn people to this area for generations, and it was for the 

protection of these pure waters that a park was created here.

The origin of the springs lies well below the Arbuckle Mountains, which form a 

great arch, 60 miles in length and 7,000 to 8,000 feet thick. As the tops of 

the mountains eroded over time, a stream carried the worn material away and 

piled it along the mountain’s base. This consolidated material, known as the 

Pontotoc Conglomerate, is exposed within the park. Below the Pontotoc 

Conglomerate is a 600-foot-thick layer of Viola Limestone, and below that, the 

Simpson Group Formation extends 1500 feet lower (Gould 1939:7-8).

During a process of uplift, faults and folds developed, giving rise to 

anticlines and synclines. An outcrop of the Simpson Group plunges to the 

northwest, and this syncline, which begins southeast of the park, forms the 

intake area for the water in the Sulphur artesian basin. The water passes 

beneath the Pontotoc Conglomerate underlying the park and flows down through 

the porous limestone and shale of the Viola and Simpson Formations, then rises 

to the surface through joints or fissures to form the springs in the park 

(Gould 1939:8-10).
94

Buffalo and Antelope springs originate directly from the Pontotoc Conglomerate. 

These springs have no taint of sulphur; however, lime and calcium carbonate 

accumulate as the water percolates upward and form the travertine found in 

Travertine Creek (Gould 1939:10).

In 1902, geologist Joseph Taff classified the waters of the Sulphur Springs 

Reservation into four categories:

• Sulphur Springs: The largest group of seven springs issues from Pavilion 

Springs and from Hillside Spring. Three more springs are located on the West 

bank of Rock Creek, immediately above the mouth of Sulphur Creek. The public 

resorting here extensively used all of them. The Rock Creek Springs are 

bottled and shipped by a private company. The waters are slightly saline and 

contain sulphurated hydrogen gas. After exposure to the atmosphere for a day 

or more, the gas escapes.

• Bromide Spring: There is a single bromide spring of small volume at the base 

of Bromide Hill. It is strongly saline and valued by the public for 

medicinal properties.

• Bromide Sulphur Springs: Now called Black Sulphur Springs. There are two 

springs of small volume on a branch of Rock Creek that contain small 

quantities of both sulphur and bromide and are considerably saline.

• Wilson Springs: Five springs on a branch of Rock Creek. Their flow is 

minimal and their mineral properties contain a minor amount of sulphurated 

hydrogen gas (DOI 1902i). 

Geologist Taff did not mention the fresh water at Buffalo and Antelope springs, 

which, according to a railway brochure, produced 5 million gallons daily around 

1911 (Santa Fe n.d.[a]:8). 

Today, Buffalo Spring is encircled by beautiful CCC masonry work that somewhat 

resembles a kiva (a Southwestern Pueblo Indian ceremonial structure). The 

bottom of the encasement is sometimes covered with bright green algae, under 

which tiny bubbles of water percolate into the pool. The water leaves the 

spring through a small opening in the masonry and flows into the creek among 

the watercress. The setting is a combination of nature and human masterwork. 

This is a setting out of a child’s fairy tale. From the springs visitors walk a 

path made by the CCC that crosses several waterways.

BUFFALO SPRING
95

STROLLING ACROSS BRIDGE NEAR BUFFALO SPRING

Antelope Spring emanates from a small cavity under a large rock of conglomerate 

limestone. On top of the conglomerate rock is a rolling prairie, now partially 

wooded. There are no characteristics on top that would associate it with the 

amazing scene below. This is truly a magical spot.

ANTELOPE SPRING 
96

Frank Miles, an Indian born in the area, told the park service architect in 

1916 how Antelope Spring was historically known as Buffalo Spring because of 

the "striking likeness from a certain point of view of a buffalo with its calf 

running at its side, formed by a rock in the center of the spring" (DOI 1916a).

Marian Crowley, born in 1903, remembers having picnics at Buffalo and Antelope 

springs in 1909. She calls the location the "Head of the Creek" (Interview 

Corley 1996:3). These two favored springs were closed to vehicular traffic when 

the Travertine Nature Center was constructed in 1969. Some of the CCC features, 

such as tables, barbecues and ovens were removed-whether they were all removed 

at that time or earlier is uncertain, as Boeger states in his book Oklahoma 

Oasis that the large barbecue pit and big fireplaces were removed from Buffalo 

Spring around 1947 (Boeger 1987:160). 

Cleve Ervin remembers this as 

the prettiest part of the park. They had big parking lots with rock walls 

around them and all these big picnic tables of solid rock, kind of like

the ones up there at Travertine Island. And we had to tear them all out. 

That was around 1968, my first summer as a seasonal. We took those rocks 

and built little rock walking bridges across the creek and on the nature 

trails. I hated to see them do that (Interview Ervin 1996:17).

A large segment of the community, especially elderly people who had used and 

enjoyed the two springs for years, could no longer drive to them, and felt a 

loss, for they remembered the springs and the wonderful times they had there. 

The park has considered providing some form of transportation so that those who 

can not easily walk to the springs may still access them on specific occasions 

(Interview Hill 1996). However, most people who are able to walk to the 

springs, do so, while those who cannot, are still able to utilize the park's 

many mineral springs.

Many people interviewed said that the reason they moved to Sulphur was to heal 

a sick parent or relative. Frank Beaver moved here from Octavia, Oklahoma, in 

1927, at the age of 13, because his dad had stomach trouble; while his wife 

moved here from Pauls Valley when she was 12 because her father had gallstones 

so badly he could not work. The water helped him, as he had no more attacks 

(Interview Beaver 1996).

FRANK AND VINITA BEAVER
97

People who live nearby drink the water today for curative purposes and because 

it tastes good. Delbert Gilbert, who lives in Nebo, tries to drink it everyday. 

He fills up at the Vendome well and brings it home. They keep it at home all 

the time. When asked what kind of benefits drinking the water has, Delbert 

stated, "I just like it. It could help; I don't know (Interview Gilbert 

1996:17-18,24).

DELBERT AND EVELYN GILBERT

While interviewing Lonnie Shaffer, he said "I've got some good Vendome water 

here. Would you like to have a glass of water? All of our coffee and all of 

our tea is made with it." Lonnie's wife Freida said that they got the water 

"yesterday, so it would be aerated, and you don't smell it, and it doesn't have 

the taste in it either" (Interview Shaffer 1996:29).

Ina Little recalls her family taking water from the time she was a toddler 

around 1918. "I remember my grandpa real well; we would go down town with a jug 

and get some sulphur water. They had an old parrot down at the hotel and it 

would holler at everybody" as they passed. Ina came into town with her parents 

from Hickory, and they would always get water in a big five-gallon glass jug to 

take home. Ina still has the jug but does not know how they "kept that thing 

all those years without breaking it" (Interview Little 1996).
98

INA LITTLE

Early on, doctors and the general public had acknowledged the mineral water's 

medicinal qualities. A 1930 pamphlet explains how the waters heal.

An open intestinal tract free from poisonous waste and attendant foreign 

bacteria gives nature the opportunity to repair any specific contracted 

ailment or build up the merely worn and tired body.

 

Chlorine, appearing in all the waters, is a highly efficient antiseptic 

that counteracts and eradicates disease germs. Combined with sulphur, 

iron, soda and magnesia the medicinal value is not to be overestimated. 

Flushing the system with waters having an actual antiseptic value permits 

of no absorption of impurities into the system from foods, the blood is 

improved and red corpuscles multiply. This with the laxative action of 

the waters leads naturally to strength with which to eliminate waste, and 

defend the body against any attacting [sic] disease germs.... The first 

medicine prescribed by a physician [in] serious illness is bromide, given 

to calm fevered nerves and permit other treatment to gain headway. The 

Bromide Spring at Sulphur is unique, absolutely the only one of its kind 

in the world and the greatest nerve sedative known to medicine. Taken in 

conjunction with the sulphur waters..., [the bromide water] calms and 

soothes and makes recovery free from taut nerves and the overstrung 

condition that prevents many sufferers [from recovery] .... Bromide water 

in its purest state as compounded in the great medicine cabinets of the 

earth, is preferable to any prescription compounded in strength, purity 

and quick effect.
99

"Jugs in hand, two visitors head for Bromide Pavilion for a 

supply of mineral waters, for which Platt National Park is 

famed," 1960 (Harpers Ferry 60-JB-245)

Hundreds have come to Sulphur bedridden or in wheel chairs and have gone 

away renewed in mind and body, perhaps walking alone for the first time 

in years and largely because for the first time in years healthy 

intestinal and stomach conditions permitted the manufacture of rich, red 

blood to send strength to diseased portions of their bodies and combat 

further spread of infection or breakdown (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 

1930:4,6). 

When the buffalo still roamed this area, they would coat their hides with the 

mud at Pavilion Springs to free themselves from insects and then stand around 

the wallows and sip the water. Presumably the name Buffalo Suck, once used for 

the Pavilion Springs, originated from the sound of the bison making sucking 

noises as they drank the water (Sulphur Times-Democrat 1980). These same 

properties were found in the mud within the pools at Flower Park, and were used 

by the public like a plaster to heal various ailments (Interview Jennings 

1969). 

I can remember, even before I was old enough to sell papers, you’d see 

people laying out there on their blankets and quilts.... They’d just be 

solid black all over. And they’d let it dry. You could just see them 

crawl in there and start their treatments.... They had all kinds of 

arthritis and rheumatism.... And poison in their system, because that [mud] 

would just draw it out. I’ve seen a lot of people who would tell me their 

stories later, you know, "I’ve been coming here for so many years. When I 

came here they had to carry me in on a stretcher" (Interview Shaffer 

1996:18).
100

"Visitors applying mud, pool, Flower Park"

(CHIC Archives 0328)

The preservation of the unique waters was a concern for the earliest managers. 

As addressed in the first rules and regulations for the reserve, dated November 

4, 1903, "no water from any spring or creek shall be taken from the

reservation, or diverted or conducted from its natural course, without the 

approval of the Secretary of Interior" (DOI 1902g).

On June 12, 1907, the superintendent suggested that the rule that prohibited 

the taking of water from the reservation was impracticable, because hundreds of 

people in the town of Sulphur took water to their homes daily, and this 

practice had never been interfered with, and should not be (Platt NP 1907).

The superintendent proposed limiting 

the taking of water from the bromide, iron, and soda springs only, and 

prohibiting the sale or shipment of water from these mineral springs 

absolutely, but fixing no limit as to the water taken from other springs, 

except that none should be taken for sale or shipment without a license 

from [the secretary’s] office. 

[The supply was abundant] from ‘Hillside’, ‘Beach’, and ‘Big Tom’, the 

latter being the principle spring in the group known as ‘Pavilion 

Springs’, and for the further reason that there is a large and increasing 

demand for these waters for shipment. According to the estimate of 

Professor Gould, ‘Hillside Spring’ discharges 80 gallons per minute, the 

group known as ‘Beach Springs’ 70 gallons per minute, and ‘Big Tom’ 40 

gallons per minute. 

The shipment of water from ‘Beach Springs’ has been going on for years, 

as I am informed and believe, and of course without the payment of any 

license therefor. A bottling works located near this group shipped six 

carloads in 1905, and probably doubled that quantity in 1906. It is still 

in the business, and preparing to increase its capacity (Platt NP 1907). 
101

Superintendent Greene suggested that a "schedule of license tolls be prepared 

and posted at each of the springs from which water may be taken for sale or 

shipment, and that the shipping of water without license" be prohibited and 

stopped (Platt NP 1907:2). 

At one time water was so precious and it was used so much that you could 

have all you wanted to drink, but you could only carry away one gallon....

I carried a lot of people water, and boy, you could make a nickel doing 

that. Carry a gallon of water up to one of the little apartments where 

they come to stay and drink the water. Con Earl Stockton... shipped it out 

by rail.... He shipped it out in five-gallon jugs (Interview Shaffer 

1996:11).

He would ship only from Bromide. The story goes that you weren't supposed 

to take over a gallon at a time. But dad was a real good friend of the 

superintendent of the park, and people would write in.... He couldn't drive 

the truck over because of the suspension bridge... so we would have to walk 

across carrying those five gallon jugs of water.... It was shipped all over 

the United States.... They would return the bottle to dad and then we would 

go and fill it up and ship it back to them (Interview Stockton 1996:3).

In the monthly report from March 1909, the superintendent states: 

Since the order of the Department authorizing the shipment of water from 

the Bromide Spring upon a physician's certificate, requests for the 

privilege have steadily increased. On March 31, 1909, 15 physician’s 

certificates had been approved and a corresponding number of orders of 

water issued. Shipments are made in quantities of 5 gallons each on the 

basis of one gallon per patient per day. Under this system water is now 

being shipped to various parts of Oklahoma and the States of Texas, 

Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Missouri (DOI 1909). 

By June of 1909 a change in policy notice read:

This is to notify you that on and after June 1, 1909, until further 

notice, no more bromide water will be shipped on physician’s 

certificates, or issued for any other purpose than drinking at the spring 

or immediate vicinity. This order was necessary because of the 

extraordinary local demands for bromide water, which require all that the 

springs afford (Platt NP 1909).

The bromide water gave out on several occasions in 1911 when the weather was 

hot and the attendance large in the afternoon. The average daily visitation at 

Bromide Springs that year was 613, but one day 1,044 people visited the spring. 

The flow from the Bromide Springs was 270 gallons a day; Little Bromide 

produced 40 gallons a day and Medicine Spring, 528 gallons (DOI 1911).

Superintendent French discovered Medicine Spring, near Bromide Mountain, in 

1911. In a March 13, 1911, letter to the Secretary of the Interior, French 

writes of:

...the great favor and preference shown for the waters of the new spring 

just west of Bromide Spring and known here as Medicine Spring. Under the 

present development of this spring the amount of water now retained in 

the reservoir is, but about three gallons. This is sought in the early 

morning, lasts but a short time, after which they sit and await the flow, 

consuming it as fast as it can be gotten. My idea in farther developing 

this Spring is to go close to the foot of the Bluff and sink a well, 

which will probably go below the bed of the creek, cut off this flow, 
102

creating a reservoir of the well, thus sunk and confine and retain the 

water (DOI 1911a). 

In a May 8, 1913, letter the practice of shipping water was described in some 

detail. 

Sulphur water may be shipped to one person in quantities not to exceed 

five gallons per day. No person is allowed to obtain more than one gallon 

of the Bromide or Medicine water per day, for his entire family. Only 

five gallons of the Sulphur water may be obtained for one family per day.

It will be necessary for you to send a prescription stating which water 

you desire. It can be shipped every five days, in the case of the Bromide 

and Medicine water, 5 gallons at a time, in 5 gallon crated bottles which 

cost $1.25 each, or in jugs at a cost of 65 cts. The agent here charges 

35 cents for bringing each 5 gallon container from the springs, and you 

pay charges at your end of the line for express (Platt NP 1913a).

In 1913 visitation to Bromide Springs was 90,106, exceeding the previous year's 

attendance by 741. The park office filled 191 orders based on physicians' 

prescriptions for the shipment of water in five-gallon quantities to persons 

outside the city. During the year, 56,438 gallons of water were taken away from 

the springs, surpassing the previous year by 269 gallons (Platt NP 1913).

The Bromide and Medicine springs were confined and conveyed to the Bromide 

Pavilion in 1915. That year there were 161 water orders on physicians’ 

prescriptions for both the Bromide and Medicine waters in five-gallon 

quantities from people outside of the city, such as various points in Oklahoma; 

Texas; Kansas; Chicago; Brooklyn; New York City; and, in Hot Springs, Arkansas. 

A total of 5,205 gallons of Bromide water and 278 gallons of Medicine water 

were shipped from the park. For that same year a total of 54,430 gallons were 

taken at the springs; 34,971 gallons of Bromide water and 13,976 gallons of 

Medicine water. During a part of the season, no orders were issued for 

shipment, because "the supply was not sufficient to permit of its being carried 

from the springs" (Platt NP 1915a). Problems soon arose at Medicine Spring, 

because the system was flawed, and the spring filled up with floodwater from 

Rock Creek during heavy rains. Medicine Spring became totally submerged, making 

the water unfit for drinking until it could be cleaned out (Platt NP 1915a).

By 1916, 154 orders were issued on local physicians' prescriptions, of which 

2,205 gallons of Medicine water and 7,829 gallons of Bromide water were 

shipped. A total of 58,090 gallons were taken from the springs by 100,337 

visitors to the park-15,328 gallons of Medicine water, and 42,762 gallons of 

Bromide water (Platt NP 1916).

The amount of water permitted for removal was reduced in the park’s updated May 

1917 regulations. 

No person shall remove from any of the bromide, iron, or soda springs 

more than 1 gallon of water in any one day, nor remove from any of the 

other springs more than 5 gallons in any one day, nor shall any water be 

taken therefrom for commercial purposes, except in pursuance of a license 

issued by the Secretary of the Interior. Whenever in his judgment the 

circumstances warrant the supervisor may prohibit the use of the waters 

of any of the springs in the park other than for immediate drinking 

purposes at such springs, the facts in such case to be reported to the 

Secretary of the Interior (Platt NP 1917). 
103

R. A. Sneed was superintendent from 1914-1919, and one interviewee remembered 

when his father asked Sneed for more than a gallon a day because he could not 

come every day. "Sneed said to bring him a doctor's prescription, but that was 

hard to get because the doctors didn’t believe the water did any good"

(Interview Jennings 1969:2).

Even if doctors' prescriptions became more difficult to get, the spring waters 

continued to be widely used in great abundance. In 1919, 40,251 gallons of 

Bromide spring water, 10,657 gallons of Medicine spring water, and 5,383 

gallons of Sodium-chloride water were taken. "The Bromide Spring was held to 

capacity, the public using every gallon and [the park was] forced to stop 

shipment of Bromide water during this crouded [sic] season" (Platt NP 1919b). 

On the Fourth of July in 1924, over 20,000 visitors came to drink water at 

Bromide Springs (DOI 1924).

Cleve Ervin remembers the use of the waters at Bromide Pavilion in the late 

1930s. 

That springhouse was full of people down there every day, and they would 

haul it out by the thousands of jugs a day. It's an amazing thing, 

because just like people came from all over the world to take these 

baths, they came from all over the world to get that water. I've seen 

them drive big trucks down there, and they would load them up for hours. 

I mean literally hundreds of big jugs of that water and leave with it 

(Interview Ervin 1996:16).

In 1939 geologist Gould reported that the mineral springs in the park "flow 

approximately one-fifth as much water as they did in 1906." Gould believed that 

the "decline in flow is due very largely to the uninterrupted flow of water 

from the artesian wells in Sulphur," because it appeared that they obtain their 

waters from the same source of Simpson sandstone (Gould 1939:20). At the time 

of Gould’s 1939 report, the artesian wells in Sulphur were "drawing from the 

underground reservoir approximately three times as much water annually as falls 

on the surface" of the intake area (Gould 1939:20). When the city wells drain 

large quantities of water from the underground storage, over the "course of 

time both the springs and the wells will cease to flow" (Gould 1939:21).

The sulphur springs continued their spells of going dry from April 1927 to 

August 1927; from September 1938 to July 1940; and, from December 1951 to April 

22, 1952. The first written record of the springs going dry was in March 1911, 

but an old resident told how years ago, before there was a thought of a 

reservation here, he held cattle and watered at Buffalo Springs, and at one 

time it became so dry that he was compelled to scrape out holes at that spring 

to a depth of three or four feet to secure water for his stock (DOI 1911b).

The same resident related that the Indians had said the springs were dry back 

in 1888, 1891, and 1896 (DOI 1911b).

In 1919, the park reported that the springs were affected by drought and "have 

gone dry three times in the last 27 years" (Platt NP 1919b). For example, in 

1911 the flow of Antelope Springs had entirely ceased (DOI 1911b), and the flow 

of Buffalo Spring did not exceed 25% of the normal flow. Antelope and Buffalo 

springs were also documented as being dry from September 18, 1912 to November 

1913; from February 1918 to March 1919; in 1927; from 1938-1940, from 1951 to 

1952, and in 1956. The longest episode was from 1932 to 1939. During the 

drought of 1956, Sulphur’s water supply dropped more than 18 feet (US Senate 

1962:9).
104

In 1939, geologist Gould reported that the Pontotoc Conglomerate, being a 

surface formation, responded more quickly to precipitation and drought. The 

springs are affected by lack of rainfall, but also "by the withdrawal of water 

from the city wells of Sulphur, which are located down dip from the springs and 

obtain water from the same source" (Gould 1939:17,20).

After the 1911 drought, Superintendent French wrote, "it would appear that the 

underground current which is the source of these springs must be gradually 

rising" (Platt NP 1912a). The Indians have a theory that a subterranean branch 

of the South Canadian River supplies Buffalo and Antelope springs, because 

every time the water in the South Canadian River went dry the springs also 

dried up. Gene Delay, a professional driller, believes that the waters of 

Antelope and Buffalo springs originate in the northeast and flow out of silica 

formations (Interview Delay 1996).

According to Gene Delay, the Arbuckle aquifer is a misnomer; actually there are 

numerous underground streams traveling "through cracks and crevices in the 

limestone and that's why you get it in one spot." As the water is traveling 

down hill, it is "dammed off by the fault lines, by anticlines, where it breaks 

and then holds the water. When you penetrate this it comes up because it's 

under pressure, that's where it got the word artesian" (Interview Delay 

1996:3). The notion that "this water is going to deplete is a fallacy.... It's 

not because of consumption, because you're not going to hold this water, it's 

going to move down the line" (Interview Delay 1996:4). It will come out at a 

spring and "you use the water or you lose it" (Interview Delay 1996:4). 

Superintendent Branch noted in 1939 that the larger school of thought is that 

the water is supplied by local precipitation that "balances the outflow through 

wells and that the wells will probably not cease to flow." The revival of the 

springs came after a period of rain. This strengthened the belief that the 

"artesian reservoir, from which the wells and springs flow, is supplied by 

local precipitation, which more than balances the outflow during normal times"

(Branch 1939; 1940). 

There has always been some debate regarding the springs, and how city use of 

the water affects them. In 1907 the city of Sulphur proposed to construct a 

reservoir on Sulphur Creek near Little Niagara to divert water for the city; 

however, the USGS engineer "was not able to recommend the construction" (USGS 

1907:8). On March 12, 1907, Superintendent Swords wrote to the Secretary of the 

Interior that the city was requesting to lay pipe from Little Niagara (Platt NP 

1907a).

LITTLE NIAGARA 
105

A memo to the assistant attorney general from Secretary of the Interior 

Garfield requested that the attorney general prepare a letter of authority for 

the signature of the secretary to permit the city to put in the necessary 

connections and dams for their water supply from Sulphur Creek, but to ensure 

that 

...all proper restrictions and reservations are put in the contract, so 

that the Government will not lose control, and that all operations on the

reservation and in the use of the water and in the determination of the 

quantity to be used, are reserved to the Government, to be under the 

Superintendent of the Park (DOI 1907). 

The city was granted temporary permission to obtain water below Little Niagara 

(DOI 1909a), and they built a reservoir on Travertine Creek above Limestone 

Creek in 1907. This is probably the extant upper dam at Niagara Falls.

In March 1911, when Antelope and Buffalo springs discontinued flowing, the bed 

of Travertine Creek was entirely dry below the city's water intake and the city 

had to connect to city wells (DOI 1911b). At this point, Superintendent French 

questioned whether, after the drought, the city should be allowed to resume 

taking water from the creek (DOI 1911b). 

The following year, on April 7, Buffalo Spring resumed percolating through the 

sand at its former location, but only at one-fifth of its normal capacity. 

Antelope Spring broke through the creek bed 50 feet below the original outlet, 

with about one-twentieth of its normal flow (Platt NP 1912a). As noted in the 

local paper, "Antelope Spring has changed its spot, the water issuing out of 

the rocks about 80 feet from its previous area of activity" (Sulphur TimesDemocrat 1912). 

In a series of correspondence beginning in 1921, the issue of the city getting 

water from Travertine Creek was again addressed. The public health bureau was 

concerned about pollution in the creek coming from grazing cattle upstream and 

the effects on city water use. The park responded that even though the city had 

five wells, it continued to get water from the creek because it was less costly 

to use the water from the gravity line in the creek than to burn coal to pump 

the wells (NPS 1921a). Director Cammerer recommended that "the city not delay, 

but get all its wells in good operating order and arrange for" additional ones 

if necessary, and the spring supply was to be "abandoned permanently" by 

removing a section of the pipeline to prevent its use (NPS 1921a).

In January 1922, Director Mather tacitly granted approval to "extend their pipe 

line to one of the two springs supplying Travertine Creek" (NPS 1922). However, 

the civil engineer believed that the city "contemplated securing water from 

another source" because they had voted an $85,000 bond measure for water. The 

NPS San Francisco office recommended the removal of the dam creating the 

reservoir at the city's water intake, which "floods out the rapids" (NPS 1922). 

Soon after, the city began operating its own water source, as noted in 

correspondence from the city in 1924 requesting that the park pay the city for 

the water it received, and that leaking pipes within the park be repaired.

In the letter, the city recognized that what "helps and advances Platt National 

Park also helps Sulphur in its growth and prosperity," but city finances were 

so depleted, they were certain that the park would "be glad and ready to pay 

for the city water it consumes" (Sulphur, City of 1924). Director Cammerer 

responded that the city "has been tremendously helpful through its cooperation 

in promoting the interests of the park, although the benefits have been 

mutually advantageous" (NPS 1924). He goes on to say:
106

An examination of the records of the Department discloses that since 

September 1907 until some time in 1922 the City obtained its water supply 

to a great extent and without cost from Travertine Creek within the park. 

The exact date when the City discontinued taking water from the park is 

not of record here. However, over a period of 15 years the City was 

furnished its water supply from the park. In view of the small 

appropriations annually made available for the protection and maintenance 

of Platt Park, of the long period during which water was furnished the 

City without cost, and of the mutual interests, it would seem that the 

City could for sometime without injustice to the tax payers continue free 

water service to Platt Park (NPS 1924).

CITY OF SPRINGS

The animals of the park, the birds, trees and flowers, the rocks, streams 

and springs all help to make Platt a place where people love to come and 

rest and refresh their tired bodies. Platt is fast becoming not only a 

pleasure resort but a great health resort as well. The fame of the water 

and its wonderful cures is spreading far and wide (DOI 1924).

Early in the days of the development of the springs, the people who visited 

were mostly from the region and traveled by horseback and buggy. The Sulphur 

Railroad Company, which became the Frisco Railroad line in 1905, brought the 

first passenger train to Sulphur in 1903 from Scullin (Sulphur Times-Democrat

1999). The Santa Fe Railroad came into Sulphur from Davis in 190618 (Brown and 

Garrity 1981:97) and extolled the virtues of Platt National Park that "bubble 

forth from the foot hills of the Arbuckle Mountains, thirty-eight mineral 

springs, under the care and ownership of the U.S. Government and dedicated to 

the free use of the people forever" (Santa Fe n.d.[a]).

SANTA FE AND FRISCO RAILROAD LINES

(Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1921)

 

18The Santa Fe was abandoned December 15, 1938.
107

Platt had become a great health resort as the fame of the water and its 

wonderful cures spread. A 1930 national park brochure, Platt National Park: The 

Playground of the Southwest, states that Platt National Park "bases it’s 

highest claim to public notice on its wonderful mineral springs and their wide 

and just reputation for healing" (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1930:4).

By 1907 the city of Sulphur had 20 hotels and 13 boarding houses (Sulphur 

Times-Democrat 1999b), as well as bath houses and natatoriums (indoor swimming 

pools) that utilized the famous mineral waters. The luxurious Artesian Hotel 

had a natatorium, called the Eleazer Bathhouse, whose brochure lauded 

"experienced attendants. All known baths given" (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 

n.d.:12). "People used to stream out from the resort hotels in the morning; at 

one time you could see 20 walking the trail to Bromide, a lot of them with cups 

and small jugs" (Interview Jennings 1969).

According to a Santa Fe Railroad brochure, Sulphur was "unlike hundreds of 

American and European health resorts, [as] it is cheap-ridiculously cheap as to 

cost of living... and it actually realizes the hopes of the discouraged and 

offers genuine, robust health to those who seek [it]" (Santa Fe n.d.[a]:17). 

This sentiment had been a common theme through time; Platt National Park 

benefited "the poorer classes of people," because it enabled them "at little 

expense to obtain benefits of the health waters" (Nichols 1921). 

People just had the bare essentials and people that didn't have a lot of 

money would come here for a vacation because it was fairly reasonable. 

People that didn't have camping equipment would go up to Hicks' Sporting 

Goods, and they would rent tents and these old iceboxes where you used to 

put block ice (Interview Hill 1996:2).

During the Depression Era, migrant worker families would stay at the park. 

Harold Long remembered his family stopping at the park on their way to pick 

cotton in western Oklahoma and staying near Black Sulphur Springs. His "Mamma 

washed her clothes in the creek and hung them on the tree limbs to dry." And he 

remembers his mother placing him in a handmade swing, hung in the branch of a 

tree that is still located at the spring (Interview Long 1996).

King Stockton's grandmother used to come down to Black Sulphur Spring and wait 

while his grandfather was conducting business in Sulphur. "There is a big elm 

tree that has long reaching branches on it, and she used to put my father-who 

was born in 1894, so he was probably one or two years old-in a little swing 

under the tree to spend the day (Interview Stockton 1996:6).

"Swimming in Travertine Creek, circa 1910"

(CHIC ARCHIVES 2520)
108

Swimming was also an important part of the park's use as early as 1903, when 

the Commission of Indian Affairs wrote to the Secretary of the Interior that 

"the park reservation having been set aside by the government together with the 

natural advantages which actually exist, such as bathing pools, fishing, 

springs, falls, etc., tends to make this a very attractive place" (DOI 1903b). 

In 1904 the issue of swimming in the "bathing pools" at the east end of the 

reservation was addressed in the park regulations, which stated:

Before any bathing pool shall be established, permission in writing shall 

first be obtained of the officer in charge, and approved by the 

Secretary, who alone shall determine the location of such bathing pool 

(DOI 1904).

Special Inspector Swords noted that "there is a suitable pool at the lower or 

westerly end of the Reservation.... I therefore respectfully ask for instructions 

to permit bathing in that locality only" (DOI 1904). This is most likely the 

"commercial pool" resulting from the dam between the confluence of Rock and 

Sulphur (Travertine) creeks and Bromide Spring. This was a project initiated by 

rangers Forest Townsley and Robert Earl (Sulphur Times-Democrat 1999a:8A).

In 1908 park violations involving bathing occurred on July 6, 1908, when John 

Howard was admonished and discharged for nude bathing in Sulphur Creek, as were 

W. J. Wall and Clara Wall of Gunther, Texas, on August 25, 1908 (Platt NP 

1908b; 1908c). 

Superintendent Greene recommended constructing a bathhouse near Hillside Spring 

in 1911 (Platt NP 1911); then, in 1913, Superintendent French proposed a 

swimming pool at that location "through which the water from Hillside Spring 

could flow naturally in a constant stream." Such a pool would add, "interest to 

the park", and he would "be glad to have it available for visitors" since the 

old Vendome pool had been destroyed (Platt NP 1913).

Department of the Interior Architect Albert Winter wrote to Robert B. Marshall, 

Superintendent19 of National Parks in 1916:

Swimming as a pastime has been constantly growing in popular favor 

throughout the country and owing perhaps to the extreme heat in Oklahoma 

in Summer, has been unusually popular in Sulphur where the only swimming 

facilities lie in Platt Park. A pool situated just upstream from Panther 

Falls was in almost continuous use throughout last Summer, and I am 

informed, uncomfortably crowded, although this pool is at present too 

shallow to provide good swimming for adults. By the expenditure of about 

$200.00 for a concrete dam about three feet high at Panther Falls, and by 

clearing out a few large rocks, a very satisfactory swimming pool of 

about double the capacity of the present pool could be provided. A really 

better location for a swimming pool is available at Cave Island Falls, 

but owing to its distance from the central part of the park is only 

conveniently accessible to automobile parties, by whom it is at present 

considerably used (DOI 1916a).

 

19 Prior to the establishment of the National Park Service.
109

CAVE ISLAND FALLS

(Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1927)

Superintendent Sneed built a five-foot-high stone and concrete dam across 

Travertine Creek at Sylvan Cove, below Panther Falls, using part of the fees 

paid by the park concessionaires20. The dam held back the clear, fresh water of 

the two big springs. It was probably built in 1918, because the annual report 

states that a pool was enlarged (DOI 1918). Swimmers had been using the deeper 

pools in the creeks, but without improvements, none of these were very 

suitable. For dressing rooms, park employees stretched canvas around several 

poles set in the ground. So many swimmers used the area that Sneed asked 

Washington, D.C. for funds with which to add a second pool for the following 

season (Boeger 1987:99).

Platt National Park campers wrote a letter to the Director of the National Park 

Service in 1922 to request appropriations for the park. They stated that the 

"Artesian Wells and the 30 odd springs of the reservation make swimming" a very 

important activity here (DOI 1922). By 1930 the town of Sulphur had "five 

thoroughly equipped modern natatoriums, filled daily with fresh mineral water 

and many free swimming pools in the park" (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1930).

After the use of the automobile became more and more popular, rail travel began 

to dwindle. In 1932 an "attempt was made to revive the old time train 

excursions to the park. The result... was gratifying as the experimental 

 

20 Probably the existing Panther Falls dam.
110

excursion on the Frisco had brought 2,500 people to Sulphur (Branch 1932). 

During the travel year 1942, Platt "reached its lowest ebb" of visitation.

"The tire emergency reduced the travel...." Despite this, the number of people 

entering the park "seeking the mineral waters and baths was reduced very 

little, if any. The large reduction in visitors was mainly in the usual crowds 

of picnickers and week end visitors," and "the absence of many large family 

reunions." There were 316,499 visitors in 1941, versus 140,894 in 1942, which 

is a decrease of 52.6% (Branch 1942).

Anyone seeking relief from pain, especially such ailments as rheumatism, 

paralysis, stomach disorders, kidney and bladder troubles, and nervous 

complaints, will be greatly benefited and often completely cured by these 

waters (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1930).

The value that Oklahoma placed on the park waters may have led to the 

establishment by the state of a tubercular sanitarium for soldiers of the Great 

War, in May of 1922 (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1930). This facility had been 

previously contemplated in 1910 to accommodate "soldiers and sailors who served 

in the army or navy during the war of the rebellion or in the war between Spain 

and the U.S" (US Senate 1910). Oklahoma Senator Thomas P. Gore introduced the 

same bill to "set aside fifty acres" within Platt National Park to accommodate 

soldiers discharged from service (US Senate 1910a). The Secretary of the 

Interior questioned whether the Department should report "favorably upon the 

proposition" to set aside land within the park for this purpose (DOI 1910) and 

the facility was constructed outside of the park.

The Bromide Springs caretaker, Earl McIlwee, came to Sulphur because of the 

soldiers' hospital. It was a Veterans’ Hospital, and "most of them were 

tubercular patients." McIlwee was a veteran of World War I who had been gassed. 

"My wife’s daddy was gassed during the war. So many of them were gassed, and 

that left them with lung problems" (Interview Shaffer 1996:12). In 1922 the 

soldier's tubercular sanitarium contained 60 beds, and it was enlarged in 1927 

to 102. In 1935 a children's preventorium opened at the veterans’ hospital, 

which had 28 beds (Brown and Garrity 1981:90).

The first Oklahoma school for deaf students was at Fort Gibson in 1897 as part 

of a private school for blind children of the Five Civilized Tribes. In 1898 

the Territorial School for the Deaf was founded at Guthrie. A five-year 

contract from the territorial authorities was made to care for deaf children 

here under boarding school regulations. The state established the Oklahoma 

School for the Deaf in Sulphur in 1908 and in 1982 the Oklahoma legislature 

designated the Oklahoma School for the Deaf at Sulphur as a statewide resource 

center for the needs of deaf children and school districts across the state

(http://www.ucpreferredrealty.com/area_information.htm).

Melvin Brown remembers his time at the school in the late teens and early 

1920s, when all the students would line up and walk down to the park to swim at 

the swimming hole. At the end of the school year they would go down to the park 

and play, and "just had a wonderful good time" (Interview Brown, Melvin 1996). 

In 1932 the springs’ curing powers were still demonstrated "by the large number 

of ill people [who] apparently benefited by using the medicinal waters" (Branch 

1932). The mineral springs and their "wide and just reputation for healing"

have cured many and are "little short of marvelous" (Branch 1932).

A bill was introduced in Congress in 1935 for an Indian hospital and bathhouse 

to be located "at or in" Platt National Park. Senator Dennis Bushyhead, a 

Cherokee tribal member in the Senate, wrote to John Collier for his 

consideration in the matter, stating that "Platt Park would be an ideal place 
111

for an institution of this kind" (Bushyhead 1935). The Sulphur Chamber of 

Commerce also wrote to Collier. 

The Sulphur Chamber of Commerce and the city of Sulphur, together with 

hundreds of Indians in our community and adjacent thereto, are deeply 

interested in the location of an Indian Hospital and Bath House adjoining 

Platt National Park.... We feel that because of so many Indians visiting 

here already to derive benefits from our many medicinal waters, this 

would be a logical location for a hospital of this nature.... For your 

information, I am enclosing a statement from the Murray County Medical 

Society as to the value of our mineral waters here in the treatment of so 

many diseases, especially rheumatism, with which the Indians are 

afflicted.... A great service can be rendered the Indians of this section 

of Oklahoma with the location of such a hospital at this point (Keith 

1935). 

The Indian hospital was never built here, and the testimony concerning this 

bill was not explored, but the subject would be of interest for future study.

Through the years, the medicinal value of the waters diminished in the eyes of 

medical professionals. As one doctor told a patient, "it won't hurt you, but it 

won't help you" (Interview Jennings 1969). However, in the 50 interviews that 

were conducted for this project, the majority of people spoken with continue to 

believe in the medicinal qualities of the waters and still use the springs for 

health purposes. 

According to Scott Colbert, the sulphur water is also considered holy water by 

Native Americans and is used in sweat ceremonies, where it is both consumed and 

poured on the rocks and cedar in the sweat lodge. The vapors that emanate from 

the sulphur water on the rocks "carry the prayers and the thoughts with it up 

to the heaven or are carried with the winds to their neighbors" (Interview 

Colbert 1996:8).
112

Chapter Eight

A MECCA FOR REUNIONS AND OTHER GATHERINGS

In addition to the use of the medicinal waters, one of the major park uses has 

always been for gatherings and reunions. As far back as the 1880s, there are 

"accounts of Confederate veterans’ gatherings at Sulphur Springs, church 

conventions, and cowboys' rendezvous" (Brown and Garrity 1981:8). The 

confederate veterans boasted of an attendance around 10,000 members. Flower 

Park, which was known as West Central Park, was the meeting place for exconfederate soldiers and summer Chautauquas-very popular entertainment around 

the late 1880s (Brown 1954:54).

In 1913 the park superintendent recommended that two bandstands be set up in 

the park, one at West Central Park (Flower Park) and one at Bromide Springs, 

because visitors congregate in both locations and the citizens of the town 

generally provide two bands for the entertainment of visitors (Platt NP 1913).

Platt was becoming a mecca for reunions by 1930, especially family reunions 

(DOI 1930). Branch repeated this claim in 1936, when he wrote that the "park 

has been the Mecca for many large family reunions" (Branch 1936).

PICNIC AT BUFFALO SPRINGS 1955

(Harpers Ferry WASO-D-798)
113

Every summer there seem to be hundreds of reunions at the park. On the second 

day of our field work on September 15, 1996, we drove by a reunion sign at Lake 

of the Arbuckles. The Ashton family had been gathering there for over 20 years, 

and on this occasion 105 family members attended. Among their reunion 

activities, the family held an auction and raised $465 for cancer research. The 

Ashton family welcomed us into their fold and we talked about their encounters 

with one of the rangers, their family history, and how to cook okra. The 

matriarch and last member of the original Ashtons, Mae Goss, born in 1913, gave 

us a taste of her Sad Cake. The recipe for this reunion favorite was given to 

Mae by her cousin Jimmie Bonsol who was born in 1914. Mae mailed us the recipe 

soon after our visit and recently told us she would be happy to share it for 

this report. 

RECIPE FOR SAD CAKE

(Courtesy of Mae Goss 1996)

FIVE GENERATIONS OF ASHTON WOMEN, 1996

Carmie Allen, Mae Goss holding Isabel Alvey, Donna Hendrickson, 

and Rayna Alvey
114

In June 1999 the authors returned to the park to attend the longest continuous 

annual reunion to be held at Cold Springs Campground. The Wilkins' 60th family 

reunion was attended by 75 family members.

WILKINS' 60th REUNION, 1999

Many family members were interviewed and recalled when it all began in 1939. 

Actually it began long before that.

A Chickasaw man by the name of James Robert Baggett and his Cherokee wife, Mary 

Ann Biggs, left their home in Tennessee to avoid the Trail of Tears. They 

settled in Illinois for a short time, until the Cherokee were removed from 

Illinois. In 1854 the family moved to Montague, Texas, where they homesteaded. 

One of their daughters, Lydia Caroline, was about seven years old at the time.

Years later, in 1863, Lydia married J. J. Jones and they purchased 16 acres at 

Red River Station by Old Spanish Fort, Texas. J. J. Jones was a Confederate 

soldier, wounded at the Battle of Dove Creek. In 1879 he was one of the Texas 

Rangers at Red River Station who retaliated against the Comanche for raiding 

the town of Illinois Bend. A battle between the Texas Rangers and Comanche

ensued at Queens Peak in Indian Territory, where J. J. was wounded. He died at 

home from his injuries ten days later. J. J. and Lydia had nine children. 

Their daughter Alice Jones became the tie to the Wilkins family, as she 

eventually married Thomas Edward (T.E. or Ed) Wilkins.

T.E. Wilkins' father, Samuel Medcalf Wilkins, was a minister who married a 

woman by the name of Eliza Martin. During their marriage they had seven 

children. Around 1825 or 1826 Samuel Medcalf Wilkins, his wife and children 

loaded up their worldly possessions onto a couple of flat-bottom boats and they 

barged down the Ohio to the Mississippi, and into Arkansas. They brought their 

livestock, their horses and wagons, and a few cows. Their children were: John 

W., Amogene, Robert Homer, Thomas Edward, Joseph, Colin Albert, and Ann Eliza. 

The family made it overland from the spot where they landed in Arkansas, to 

what is now Plano, Texas, and there they established a home. 

In 1889, Ed Wilkins and his brother Bob participated in the first land run from 

Purcell, Oklahoma. They claimed land in what is now Slaughterville, Oklahoma, 

and there they built, and lived in, a lean-to. One of Ed’s other brothers, Al, 

had also participated in the run, but lost his claim when he turned back to 

retrieve his lost pocket watch. Ed moved back to Montague after marrying Alice 

Jones in 1890 in Plano, Texas. About 1898, Ed and Alice along with Ed's brother 

Bob moved to Wynewood, Oklahoma; then in the early 1900s the three moved on to 

Kiowa, where they practiced small-scale farming. Ed's brother Joe stayed in 
115

Montague, Texas, while his brother John, and two sisters Ann Eliza and Amogene, 

lived in Oklahoma. 

When Ed’s brother Al (Colin Albert) Wilkins lost his land in the run of 1889, 

he purchased a small farm near Nebo. Later, in 1934 he bought a 40-acre farm in 

Palmer, four miles north of Sulphur. In the early 1930s people from the area 

got along by using a barter system. When Al and his wife AdaBell lived in 

Palmer they had a separator, and would ride into town with their wagon to trade 

jars of cream, 6 to 8 pounds of butter, and eggs for staple goods, like rice, 

sugar, and flour, that they were unable to raise on their farm. 

All the trading took place at this little shed. That one building was 

worth more to all the people outside of Sulphur than any other thing the 

town had, because that's the only way you could get something different 

from what you raised (Interview Wilkins #6 1999:5-6).

Al's brothers were helping him build a new house at his Palmer place in 1938 

and they decided to have a get-together at the park the following year. "Papa 

made a statement that he’d like to have a picnic down in Platt National Park as 

soon as he got his corn crop laid back." This occurred in August 1939. The 

family "took one or two wagon loads of stuff down" to Antelope Springs—

"bedding, pots, pans, and groceries"-and they had a family get-together and 

stayed two nights (Wilkins 1999). The brothers and sisters decided to do this 

each year and to get the rest of the family involved. On Christmas in 1939, 

young Skeet Jones, the grandson of Al Wilkins, got a little toy printing press 

with rubber letters that could be set by hand. Skeet and his Aunt Ina Louise 

Jones printed 25 post cards and sent them out as invitations for the second 

reunion. The card read "Come one, come all. Wilkins Family Reunion, Platt 

National Park, first Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in August. Notify Ina at 

Route 2, Sulphur, Oklahoma, if you can make it" (Wilkins 1999).

FIRST WILKINS REUNION, 1939, AT BUFFALO SPRINGS

(Courtesy Kelly D. Wilkins)
116

In 1939 they probably camped at Antelope Springs, because the Cold Springs

Campground had not yet opened for use. There was not enough room at Antelope 

Springs for everyone, so the next year they held the reunion at the newly 

opened Cold Springs Campground with its "large picnic area.... "We've been here 

ever since." (Interview Wilkins #1 1999:8). In 1940 there were a few more 

family members present, but in 1941 there were 192. The only year they did not 

hold a reunion at Cold Springs was 1943, when almost everyone had joined the 

war effort and there were so few family members around they just had a small 

Sunday picnic at Antelope Springs. The largest reunion was in 1944 or 1945, 

when 214 people attended.

The first years we came here, we had no car. My grandfather Al used to 

ride down in the buckboard with two horses pulling us. They would 

actually take their springs and mattress off the bed from the house and 

bring them down here and throw them on the ground (Interview Wilkins #6 

1999:5-6).

In later years, Royce, who has attended since the third reunion, said: 

We would bring a pickup with a couple of mattresses in the back and a 

couple of quilts and sleep (Interview Wilkins #4 1999:7).

Tanya, a member of the fourth generation to have attended reunions, remembers 

renting cots and tents for many years from Hicks in town.

Just rows and rows of cots. You just picked a bed. All the kids slept 

down there. When Hicks stopped renting camping equipment, it was 

devastating, because I had to go to Wal-Mart and buy cots (Interview 

Wilkins #2 1999:7).

Ron Wilkins is the only family member who has never missed a year. He was four 

years old at the first reunion in 1939. Ron remembers that his

Grandmother used to grow what they called neck gourds, which would be a 

gourd [with a long neck]. Back then our grandmother would take a piece of 

cloth and tie it from one gourd to the other gourd, and she would put 

them around you and take a piece of binder twine through those two bows 

and tie it in a knot to keep it from coming off. Then you could just walk 

down there in the creek, fall in, and you wouldn't go under. Every 

grandchild had one of those, a set of gourds. My granny called them water 

wings. That's what I learned to swim with (Interview Wilkins #6 1999:5). 

Joe Wilkins’ favorite part of coming here as a child was swimming in the creek.

We would go to the creek around midnight and three or four times a day 

and two or three times a night. We would get up the next morning at 

daylight and go again (Interview Wilkins #5 1999:8).

When you were old enough to go swimming after dark that meant you had 

graduated to some greater level (Interview Wilkins #2 1999a:2).

One time a big group of us went night swimming. We all walked down to the 

creek... down through the trail and sang old songs (Interview Wilkins #6 

1999:1).

Night swimming continued as a practice at the 60th reunion.

When Rona Wilkins, age 28, was asked how she thought her kids would be inspired 

to carry the reunion on, she replied, "Just bringing them here. That's what 
117

everybody else has pretty much done from day one; they just bring their kids 

down here and bathe them in the creek" (Interview Wilkins # 6 1999:2).

Tanya, whose father is a full-blood Cherokee, said, "This was the biggest thing 

in our world, coming from the panhandle" of Oklahoma (Interview Wilkins #2 

1999:2). 

I always thought it was cool, Platt National Park, to come from a little 

town like Hardesty and go to a national park. It was quite the big thing 

to write in my "what did you do this summer" paper at school. 

Tanya wants her kids to camp, walk through the woods, and "dip their little toe 

in the water. That's the reunion to me" (Interview Wilkins #2 1999:5). Tanya 

expressed how important the park is to her: 

When you turned into Cold Springs campground that was the park. This is 

good; this is what we need. The swimming hole across the road... that's the 

only place I go. I would feel like I was betraying it if I swam somewhere 

else (Interview Wilkins #2 1999:4).

This is the first year Cheryl, who lives in New Jersey, has been to the reunion 

in about 27 years. Her two young sons went down to the swimming hole their

first day at the park. The author happened to be at the pool when the older one

climbed onto the rocks and proclaimed loudly, "this place is great, I'm coming 

back here next year," as he jumped into the water. 

As teens, Tanya and her cousin Cheryl were reunion buddies. This is the first 

time they have seen each other since they were 17. According to Tanya, Cheryl 

loved to hike and visit the nature center to see the snakes and coyotes. "Well, 

I lived with snakes and coyotes, so that was no big deal to me" (Interview 

Wilkins #2 1999:11).

Cheryl and Tanya remember that the older women would tell ghost stories and 

"then run out from the woods with sheets and scream and we would huddle 

together. That's one of my best memories-so family oriented" (Interview Wilkins 

#2 1999:2). 

One of the storytellers was at the 60th reunion and admitted, "Yes, I told many 

ghost stories; just made them up as I went. We would get dressed in a sheet, 

put our flashlight under the sheet and be very spooky looking. They loved to be 

frightened" (Interview Wilkins #5 1999:11).

Rona's grandparents, Charlie Wilkins and Flora Ruby Marcy Wilkins (Babe) lived 

in Sulphur, so Rona and her brothers would come up from Plano, Texas, to stay a 

couple weeks before the reunion. Her grandmother would bring them down to the 

park and let them go swimming and have picnics. They had three houses together: 

Charlie and Babe lived in the first house; Aunt Chloe, Charlie's sister, in the 

center house; and Charlie’s brother Roy and his wife Lila in the third house. 

"They all had little buzzers in their bedrooms to buzz each other and pick up 

the phone and talk" (Interview Wilkins #6 1999:1). 

When asked why there seem to be so many reunions in this area, Terry Gibson 

said "I can tell you in a heart beat!"

Back when this country was young; when your closest neighbor was five 

miles away; and the closest town, with a mill to grind your grain was 25 

miles away; you had nobody else to count on except family. Families were 

large back then; generally 5-10 strong, so they were closer knit and most 

lived within a very close vicinity of each other. Today, it's easier for 
118

families to move away, but it's important for them to come together 

traditionally as much as anything else (Interview Wilkins #1 1999:5).

It is often said that this park was so popular for locals because it was an 

inexpensive way to have a vacation. Max says that "there may have been times 

like that, as well as times we could afford to go wherever we wanted to, but we 

prefer to be here. It's just something we look forward to each year"

(Interview Wilkins #1 1999:6).

What makes this place so important to Tanya is that her "great grandfather and 

his brothers chose this spot. It must have been recreation for them after the 

harvest season was over. I think that knowing they made the effort to be here 

every year is what makes it important (Interview Wilkins #2 1999:5). 

And what does the family see as the most important aspect of the reunion? 

[Rona] Catching up on what everybody else is doing in their lives, as 

this is the only time we all get to see each other. When we get together 

its like we are all family and it's not like there's any distinction 

(Interview Wilkins #6 1999:4).

 

[Tanya] It didn't matter [who watched after you]. You went with whomever, 

and you didn't have to stay with your parents (Interview Wilkins #2 

1999:2).

[Rona] Tomorrow everybody will get together over in the picnic area, and 

usually what we do is break out the pictures and the family tree and 

everybody goes around and talks about old times. Then we have our big 

lunch (Interview Wilkins #6 1999:2).

[Roy] They come from Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, California, and we all 

make it here. Just a fellowship between cousins and uncles and brothers 

you know.... This means a whole lot. There's plenty of room here to come 

and meet, to congregate and talk. That means more to me than anything 

else (Interview Wilkins #4 1999:7).

[Cheryl] I was really fascinated by my Aunt Chloe and I knew what this 

was all about. I really loved it; it meant a lot to me that we would come 

to meet my mother's family and they would tell us stories and we would 

learn about our papa Jimmy, who helped begin this and what his life was 

like (Interview Wilkins #5 1999:12).

When Cheryl goes back to New Jersey, what will she feel about this trip? 

A connection to the family, which is important because you lose that 

connection when you live so far away.

In 1997 Eunice Dixon, daughter of Ed and Alice Wilkins who began the Wilkins'

Family reunions, attended her last reunion at 100 years of age. Family members 

remember her skipping along the road hand in hand with her daughters, and 

sitting in her chair in the creek so she could enjoy the water over her feet. 

Eunice reiterated the importance of the reunions to her family:

In order to know where you're going, first you have to know where you 

come from [Eunice Dixon 1899-1998].

Another long-held reunion is that of the Sterling family, who had their 50th

annual reunion in 1996 with an attendance of over 200 people from 11 states, 

representing five generations. 
119

The Sterling family patriarch is T. F. Sterling. His son Walter married Odessa 

Sterling (born 1907), who was interviewed for this project. Two of T.F.'s 

children were living in 1996, his son Odell and daughter Estelle are both from 

Paul's Valley. The Sterling children were raised near Wynewood, and the family 

would come to the park in the early days to camp. It was T.F.'s daughter Lily 

Sterling Vanderberg who began the reunion in 1946. Her son had died that year, 

and the family got together at her place in Shawnee to decide on a funeral. 

Family members got together there and "made their beds out in the yard"

(Interview Sterling 1996). This gathering led to the annual reunion.

The following year they had the reunion as a Sunday afternoon gathering, and in 

1948 the reunion was held in Texas City. In 1949 the reunion was held at the 

confluence of Rock, Guy Sandy, and Buckhorn creeks, and the following year they 

held it at Cold Springs where it has been held ever since. Initially the 

reunions were held in July, but it was usually too hot, so now they are held on 

Labor Day weekend. 

Before there was a reservation system, some family members would come two weeks 

in advance to reserve their campsite (Interview Shantley 1996). A 1985 

newspaper story from the Sulphur paper, titled "Annual Sterling Reunion Held at 

C.N.R.A." discusses how some years folks would "do some of their canning and 

jelly making" while reserving the campsite (Sulphur Times Democrat 1985:4a). 

One of the uncles would gather the wild plums to make jelly. 

Most food is prepared by a group at the campsite (Interview Shantley 1996), 

except perhaps for pies and cakes. They used two big fire pits to cook on. They 

fried up okra and chicken in a big skillet. The fireplaces are gone now, but it 

would be a great asset to have them once more. In 1996 Ruth Shantley prepared 

80 pounds of barbecue for one meal. They like the big tables at Cold Springs, 

and have quite a collection of cooking implements, a huge oilcloth they place 

on the dinner table, and specially-made awnings for the reunions. There used to 

be more trees in the group camp that provided shade from the summer sun. They 

had a "purse tree," where the ladies hung their purses on Sundays and a "hat 

tree" for the men. Those trees are gone now. There used to be grapevines too, 

which are also gone. 

Outdoor Kitchen, 1957 

 (Courtesy Kelly D. Wilkins)
120

A long time ago, park staff and other campers would join the reunion group for 

dinner, but the park staff has changed and they don't join in anymore. They 

feel that since the park became Chickasaw National Recreation Area, there also 

came a change in the attitudes of park personnel. The interviewees believe it 

is because employees now come to work at the park from farther away than "the 

South."

The Sterlings would like to see an electrical outlet at the group camp so they 

can use their electric ice cream makers, and a water faucet installed, "to make 

happy campers happy" (Interview Vanderburg 1996).

The family used to enjoy a hayride through the park, but they don't do it any

longer because they say the park "frowned upon it." They played games, like 

dominoes, till midnight. They had a beauty shop where they would give haircuts 

and perms. They had watermelon feasts and nature walks. "They just don't come 

to the park to sit around" (Sulphur Times Democrat 1985:4a). Some years they 

have themes and entertainment, such as a "talentless show." On Sunday mornings 

there is a small church service, with either a family member or local priest 

officiating and gospel singing. Sometimes there are crafts and white elephant 

sales at the reunion, and the proceeds go in the reunion kitty. 

Reservations can be made starting at the beginning of the year, and Odessa 

Sterling telephones in to make the reservation on January 2, leaving herself 

notes all over the house so she will remember to be sure the family will get 

site 64; they have never missed getting it. The Sterlings have never considered 

having the reunion elsewhere. The family believes that the purpose of the park 

is to provide people with a place to get together, and for recreation. They 

would like a standing reservation and wish the park would take more interest in 

the reunion. The Sterling reunion is the annual vacation for most family 

members.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Various community events continue to be held at the park. The contemporary 

Easter egg hunt is held in Flower Park. Back in 1933, the first Easter pageant 

or sunrise service was held in Platt National Park at the base of Bromide Hill, 

and was sponsored by the Sulphur Junior Chamber of Commerce. The Easter pageant 

was "staged on Bromide Hill early Easter morning and witnessed by some 7000 

people" (Branch 1934). 

Lonnie Shaffer, former chief ranger, was six years old at the time. He 

remembers it being cold, and seeing "a hundred or so camp fires" around Bromide 

Springs. Three crosses were placed on Bromide Hill the night before for the 

sunrise service. The participants would walk up the hill carrying paper crosses 

and walk up with mules to where the other crosses were located. The sun would 

rise and hit the top of the crosses as it came up, and the service was over 

soon after (Interview Shaffer 1996:40). 

In the 1930s WPA Tour Guide of Oklahoma, for Platt National Park, it says that 

at the foot of Bromide Cliff, "temporary structures are erected each year to 

seat the thousands of visitors who come to view the Easter Pageant" (WPA 

1986:367).

In 1935 the CCC enrollees conducted crowd control at the pageant for 

approximately 4,000 people, under the direction of Park Ranger Von Hetzler. The 

Easter pageant began at 4:00 a.m. on April 21, and Vernon Price, the camp 

chaplain conducted the choir (CCC 1935f).

Superintendent Branch reported in 1942 that the Easter "Victory" program was 

attended by 1,500 people. Various organizations assisted with the program, and 
121

10 churches had singers in the choir (Branch 1942). Boeger (1987:156) wrote 

that the Easter pageant was abandoned in 1942. One source said it ceased 

because of a lack of sponsors.

The opening day celebration for the summer season, an annual event in Sulphur 

similar to today's Water Festival, began in 1924 (Boeger 1987:112). In 1934 the 

opening day celebration started up again after a lapse of several years. This 

event included a mile-long parade (Branch 1935). 

In 1942 the annual "Water Carnival and Camera Derby" was held on opening day in 

Flower Park (Branch 1942). The Camera Derby included a beauty contest, in which 

a solider, a sailor, and a marine were the judges. Jamie Pettiti remembers 

being photographed in this contest when she was 15 or 16 years old.

Concern for accommodating the increasing amount of visitors was addressed by 

the NPS landscape architect in a 1936 report for the CCC program. 

In July of 1936, 1500 visitors were recorded, the largest daily 

attendance for the year. With the ever-increasing numbers came more large 

organized groups who desired facilities for picnicking, over-night 

camping, and sanitation. These groups are becoming difficult to care for. 

The location and construction of an organized group picnic and camping 

area, to be maintained for that purpose only, was discussed with Mr. Vint 

and met with his approval. Plans will be instigated for eighth-period 

approval (CCC 1936c).
122

Chapter Nine

BUFFALO PASTURE

Evidence in the archeological record dating between 5000 and 2500 B.C., and 

between 500 to 1300 A. D., shows a dearth of bison bones, which corresponds to 

pollen data indicating drought events during these same periods. After the end 

of the drought in the fourteenth century, a five-hundred-year cycle of cold, 

wet weather reigned, and there was a corresponding return of bison to the 

Southern Plains (Flores 1991:469).

There is a noted decline in the bison herds of Oklahoma in the late 1800s as 

identified in the book The Chickasaw Rancher. The author writes that the 

Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians reported to the Darlington Indian Agency that they 

had killed 7,000 buffalo and tanned 15,000 hides for traders in 1876; in 1877 

they only killed 219 and tanned 640 for traders; and, in 1878 they reported no 

buffalo killed or tanned and the following year the buffalo were gone (Johnson 

1961:34). 

The American bison had vanished from the area by the time Theodore Roosevelt 

proclaimed the Wichita Mountains a game preserve in June 190521. Roosevelt "was 

intensely interested in bringing back the buffalo to the Wichita." When Quannah 

Parker was told of the planned reintroduction by the New York Zoological 

Society, he replied, "Tell the President that the buffalo is my old friend, and 

it would make my heart glad to see a herd once more roaming about Mount Scott"

(Hatley 1973; Eliot 1982:350).

And the bison were reintroduced soonafter. Fifteen bison from the New York Zoo 

were shipped to the reserve by train in October 1907.

At Cache, a group of Indians camped out for days near holding pens, 

awaiting the return of the "Great Spirit's cattle" (Eliot 1982:350). 

Today, the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge manages 570 bison. This 

is "the only large herd left on the Southern Plains" (Flores 1991:477). The 

bison are doing so well, that every year the refuge auctions a selection of 

surplus bison to bredders, representing different age categories. In 1999 they 

auctioned 170 bison, and donated 30 to the Intertribal Bison Association 

(Interview Bryant 1999).

Platt National Park was looking at the introduction of game animals in 1908:

It would seem to be a wise provision for the success of the park to 

provide a game preserve therein, where antelope, deer, mountain sheep, 

and possibly buffalo, could be protected and propagated before these 

species of beautiful and majestic animals become extinct, or difficult to 

obtain. Offers of deer have been made as a donation to the park, but as 

no provision had been made for a zoological feature, although it was 

contemplated in the Act creating the park, they could not be accepted 

(Platt NP 1908).

 

21Proclaimed Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge April 1, 1935.
123

The issue of aquiring game animals was pursued in 1913 by Superintendent French 

who recommended building a fenced pasture of "approximately 521⁄4 acres in the 

south part of the park for the purpose of providing for the care and keep of 

some deer and antelope which should be furnished this park" (Platt NP 1913).

Then in 1919, Superintendent Ferris wrote a letter to Director Mather, stating:

Some days ago I took up with Mr. Frank Rush of the Wichita Forest 

Reserve at Cache, Oklahoma [the] matter of furnishing me with three 

buffaloes for this park, and have been advised by him that he would be 

glad to let me have them, provided the Department is agreeable.... I am 

anxious to obtain as many features of interest to visitors as possible 

for this park, and will say that there is ample feed stuff raised on 

the park with which to feed these animals, if they can be gotten.

Will also advise that the citizens of the town adjacent to the park are 

more than willing to pay all charges for bringing these animals to the 

park, so the lack of appropriations need have no weight (Platt NP 

1919).

On the same day, Ferris also wrote to Horace Albright:

I should like very much to provide every possible feature of interest 

to visitors to this park that is within my power to obtain, and if you 

can arrange to furnish these elk to this park, will ask that you kindly 

take the matter up with Mr. Mather, and advise me of your success 

(Platt NP 1919a).

Mather must have approved, as the Wichita District Forester reported on 

February 27, 1920:

On February 16 we loaded and shipped 3 buffalo, a 2 year old bull, a 2 

year old heifer, and a yearling heifer to the Platt National Park at 

Sulphur, Okla..... I accompanied them to the park and helped liberate 

them in a 25 acre enclosure which had been fenced for that purpose. I 

think the buffalo will do well on the Platt National Park since they 

have open range with plenty of grass and water. [The park and the town] 

appreciate very much the effort of the Forest Service in establishing 

the buffalo herd in the Platt National Forest [sic] (Wichita Forest 

Reserve 1920).

In August 1919, Superintendent Ferris also requested that the Wichita Reserve 

provide Platt National Park with "some antelope" (Platt NP 1919c). They shipped 

three in December 1919, and one died. The chamber of commerce also paid for the 

shipment of the elk (Platt NP 1919d).

The superintendent thanked the forest supervisor:

I particularly want to say that the buffalo are doing fine and seem to be 

enjoying the life here-they do not mind being looked at or seem to care, 

provided the people do not get close. I have let them in with the elk and 

they enjoy the change as do the elk and do not seem to notice each other 

at all. We are feeding them hay and as the alfalfa gets larger they will 

be in clover I think (Platt NP 1920).

In February 1921, Superintendent Ferris requested elk to be shipped from 

Yellowstone; Horace Albright agreed that "Platt National Park ought to have 
124

some more elk" (NPS 1921), and the park received one "fine bull calf elk" by 

early March (NPS 1922d).

 

The park superintendent reported in 1924:

Our animals are a source of much enjoyment. The elk are very fond of 

being fed and will follow tourists around the fence in the hope of 

getting eats. The Deer also are very tame and will eat from your hand. 

The buffalo do not care for society but would rather be by themselves. 

This year we have another baby elk making four elk here now (DOI 1924). 

In 1925, two more "fine buffalo cows" were added to the park herd from the 

Witchita Forest reserve and the "Chamber of Commerce settled all expense"

(Platt NP 1925).

OLD BUFFALO PASTURE AND ELK ENCLOSURE

(Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1927)
125

When the CCC camp was established at Platt, one of two "major plans for the 

park design" was the "relocation of the area for the Buffalo and Elk" (Platt NP 

1934a:16). The park's 1932 annual report states that the "most outstanding 

improvements of the year [was] the erection of the new paddock fences for the 

elk and buffalo pastures" (Branch 1932). This report also stated that a "heavy 

mesh wire fence was "erected on steel posts set in concrete" (Branch 1932). 

This seven-foot-high fence enclosed a 97-acre pasture. Superintendent Branch 

addressed the "Buffalo Paddock" in his annual report, stating:

One of the most important changes from an administrative stand point was 

the removal of the elk and buffalo to a large new paddock covering an 

area not suitable for other purposes. For years the animals had occupied 

paddocks in the most desirable section of the park adjacent to the Flower 

park area and the central camp ground. The removal of the paddocks will 

permit of developments long needed and will greatly assist in lessening 

the crowded condition in the central part of the park (Branch 1934).

NEW BUFFALO PASTURE

(NPS n.d.:6-7)
126

In November 1933 an artificial dam 200-feet long, 70-feet wide at the base, and 

20-feet high was built to provide water for the buffalo. The reservoir's water 

surface encompassed approximately three acres (Platt NP 1934a:21).

George Wright visited Platt National Park in July 1933, apparently to assess 

the health of the elk and bison. In his journal notes he reports:

These have been two rainy days. Supt’d. William E. Branch, and Temp. 

Landscape architect Walter Popham went over the park and the problem with 

me.

Elk. American wapiti number 12 including one calf of the year. They are 

as small as tule elk. Some have deformed antlers. Their condition is 

poor. Hides are mangy with large patches utterly devoid of hair. The 

animals are too thin for the time of year.

Twelve or thirteen years ago a bull and 2 cows were brought from 

Yellowstone. The first year the bull and 1 cow died. A second bull was 

brought in. All the animals now here are descended from the original 

pair.

Because wapiti are not known to be native, because they do not thrive 

here and because the present stock is too poor to merit continuation it 

is recommended that this exhibit be abolished. The animals are too poor 

to use alive elsewhere. They should be slaughtered and the meat given to 

the county. University of Oklahoma might want a skeleton.

The old bull, a fine specimen died just last year. None of his 

descendants can compare with him.

Bison. There are five bison in the pasture. One is a good bull. One is a 

young bull. There are two cows and a calf of last year. They are in 

excellent condition, a really fine exhibit. One old large bull recently 

died.

These buffalo have been here since 1920. They all come from Fort Sill 

Reservation (For. Res) Wichita N. F. Cache Okl. Originally 1 bull and 2 

cows. 4 cows since (Wright 1933).

In 1935 Superintendent Branch reported on the fine buffalo herd of 13, and 

hoped to increase it to 25 by the end of 1936 (Branch 1935) However, the next 

year he reported the herd at 16 (Branch 1936). The elk were maintained in the 

park within a fenced enclosure until January 1935. At that time the elk were 

eliminated from the park, probably following Wright's recommendation, given 

their poor condition and the fact they were not native to the area. 

Superintendent Branch reported in 1937 of the park's "wildlife exhibit" that 

was "one of the finest and most accessible in the whole United States. It is 

also one of the few now existing in the natural habitat of the buffalo."

Branch also reported "a very large number of visitors" inspecting the buffalo 

(Branch 1937). 

By 1939 the buffalo herd had reached 21 head and Branch reported that the 

carrying capacity of the paddock could not support more than "8 or 10 head 

without feeding them year-round", so the herd would be reduced to eight (Branch 

1939; 1940). Branch said that "efforts to rid the park of surplus buffalo by 

live-shipments to public institutions were only partially successful; the 

remaining surplus animals were slaughtered and distributed to Indian tribes in 

Oklahoma as follows: three to Shawnee Indian Agency; two to Kiowa Indian 
127

Agency; two to Five-Civilized Tribes Agency in Durant; and, two to the FiveCivilized Tribes Agency in Muskogee" (Branch 1940). 

Branch also comments on the "thousands of people [that] see the animals [in] 

their natural habitat that probably would not otherwise" (Branch 1939). The 

following year Branch reported: 

The continuation of the herd appeared obligatory upon the Service as this 

exhibit offers an opportunity for thousands of persons to see buffalo in 

their natural habitat in the southern portion of the original range of 

the great herds. It is the desire to present the exhibit in a natural and 

attractive manner (Branch 1940). 

A 1942 park master plan also addresses the educational purposes of the herd and 

how popular the bison are (Platt NP 1942). 

CCC enrollee Delbert Gilbert commented on how "a lot of people come to see the 

buffalo; they have been here a long time...." He then reminisced about the fun 

they had spoofing the new enrollees. "We used to tease the [CCC] rookies in 

camp there. We told them we milked those buffalo for their coffee. We'd send 

them over to milk the buffalo" (Interview Gilbert 1996:30).

The bison were tested for Bang's disease in 1942, and were reported to be one 

of the few herds in the country to be uncontaminated by the disease (Branch 

1942). 

A 1955 article in the Anadarko Daily News stated that the park was disposing of 

four bison. Soon after, the park received a letter from the Commanche War Dance 

Club, requesting buffalo meat for their powwow and war dance (Platt NP 1955). A 

few days later the park received a request for buffalo meat from the Caddo 

Veteran's Committee for their annual feast (Platt NP 1955a). Then, in 1959, the 

Pawnee Indian Veterans requested buffalo whenever there was a surplus for their 

July 4 powwow (Platt NP 1959), and the Shawnee area field representative wrote 

that back in February 1959, members of three tribes had picked up three buffalo 

for "ceremonial purposes and food" and that a forth buffalo was being saved for 

the Sac and Fox Tribe of Oklahoma. The representative for the field office was 

notifying the park that someone would be there to pick it up on July 13, and 

that the tribes that received the meat "enjoyed the preparation and eating of 

the buffaloes" (Platt NP 1959a).

A receipt for property dated July 14, 1959, lists one seven-year old bison "to 

be slaughtered for food for the Indians" as a reduction in the herd, which is 

"necessary to reduce the total count to the carrying capacity approved for the 

pasture at Platt National Park" (Platt NP 1959b). 

In August 1959, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma requested two front quarters that 

Chief Ranger Lonnie Shaffer had notified them about. The park maintained a 

mailing list for buffalo applications. A receipt appears in the files that 

states the front quarters are "to be used for ceremonial purposes by the Iowa 

Indian Tribe of Oklahoma" (Platt NP 1959c).

In December 1959, after the July reduction, Superintendent Branch wrote to the 

Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge requesting a bull buffalo the next time "you 

find it necessary to pen up any buffalo" (Platt NP 1959d).

The Shawnee area field representative wrote again in April 1961, to inquire if 

there would be "any buffalo available this year for their use in Tribal 

ceremonial dances and meetings" (Platt NP 1961). Then on April 13, they wrote 
128

back to the park, thanking the park for reserving two young buffalo bulls and 

making arrangements for the two tribes to pick them up (Platt NP 1961a).

BISON AT PARK

"Orphan Buffalo Calf hand-raised by rangers," 1956,

 by Paul F. Spangle and W.V. Appling

(Harpers Ferry WASO-D-804)
129

The bison continue to be an important component of the park's resource 

education program, and people that visit the park today, remember the bison 

from their childhoods. "The buffalo were a big deal to us kids" (Ringer 1996).

VISITORS TODAY CONTINUE TO ENJOY THE BISON
130

Chapter Ten

SPEND THE DAYS

If the waters fail to repeat the wonders, there is the spirit of health 

and happiness in the forgetfulness of care that comes with an outing, a 

contact with nature and a physical reawakening (Sulphur Chamber of 

Commerce n.d:7).

These eloquant expressions speak to the value the people of Sulphur place on 

the park.

Marian Corley commented, "We always loved the park." "I still have my mother's 

pot. It had a tripod and she took it to the park and cooked stews and stuff. 

That was fun." "She cut up the vegetables and everything there and cooked it 

over an open fire. We'd spend what we called ‘spend the days,’ and they cooked 

for hours. We kids would keep that fire going and play in the creek. We did 

this during the week in the summer. It was just my mother and her friends. The 

women cooked and the kids played in the creek. I think we always loved the 

park; Sulphur people always loved the park. Still do" (Interview Corley 1996).

"Picnicking in the Park"

(CHIC Archives 0143)

They go to the woods and have picnics and chicken fries, roasting the 

chicken on wire netting stretched over a bed of glowing coals (Santa Fe 

n.d. [b]).
131

Jamie Pettiti recalled "When I was a little girl, one thing my mother and her 

friends did, they would go up on the creek and cook breakfast, and just sit 

back. Or they would go on picnics-just spend the day, the whole day-bring their 

lunch and sit and wade a little bit in the creek, and visit. People lived so 

much slower and leisurely" (Interview Pettiti 1996:2,41).

Lacy Brown's "parents came here in 1915 for the deaf school. We used to walk 

two miles to go swimming down in the park at Bear Falls" (Interview Brown, Lacy

1996).

Eula Brown "would take part of [his] lunch and make a fire if we needed to have 

a fire for something. This was in the 1920s. My dad's folks lived out west, so 

when they would come down from out west the first place they wanted to go would 

be the park, and we would fix dinner and we all would have dinner in the park"

(Interview Brown, Lacy 1996).

Marian Corley said "we picnicked in the park, and we swam there, and often in 

the late evening we took a walk through the park. Mother, Papa and I and my 

brother. I thought Bromide Hill was as high as Pike's Peak, and sometimes, when 

I was a girl, we'd have summer breakfast-cook it up on top of that hill. And 

then we'd come back down and go swimming" (Interview Corley 1996).

Clifford Austell said "my fondest memory was when we entered the campground, 

it's just a different feeling when we drove in from Oklahoma City and entered 

the campground. A different feeling comes over you" (Interview Austell 1997).

Lonnie Shaffer says that "Bromide Hill is about the nearest thing to a mountain 

we have.... You get up on a high spot, why I don't know, but there, people are 

closer to their deity. They get up there and they are quiet and get to 

thinking. When they get through praying they get to singing. They end up 

hollering! But we don't mind anybody uttering a little prayer. That's fine. 

That's part of visitors enjoying themselves. But some of that singing-they just 

had to go back further in the boonies" (Interview Shaffer 1996:34).

Jamie Pettiti's recalled that her "Aunt Doll lived in the brown ranger house 

just across the road from the pavilion and the highlight of my visits with her 

would be the "sunrise breakfast" on top of Bromide Mountain. Climbing to the 

top of the mountain-which is really only a hill by all regular standards- in 

the early hours of dawn and watching the sunrise was about the greatest thrill 

in the world, but now that I think about it, I don’t remember ever eating any 

breakfast up there, for it seemed that the food was always secondary to 

reaching the top of the mountain before the sun came up" (Pettiti 10-18-84).

Gene Delay says that "when somebody comes to see me, the first thing I want to 

do is go to the park. We cook out, take the kids to the water and let them 

freeze to death over there. It's still a fun spot (Interview Delay 1996:9).

Marian Corley says she drives through the park almost every day, "and we wonder 

why anybody would live any place else. We've always felt fortunate to have this 

beautiful place" (Interview Corley 1996:4,8,16).

Brenda Ringer says that the "one thing I always valued the park for was that 

whenever you wanted to be alone... you could forget about being in a little town 

with glass walls... because everyone had their favorite place. The park was 

always a part of our family. We grew up appreciating the park a lot. In 1959 we 

moved to the east side of town. We would come down every summer. We would just 

spend our summers down there.... You know what the park did? It brought the world 

to us (Interview Ringer 1996).
132

Chapter Eleven

COMMUNITY AND PARK TODAY

The town of Sulphur is located in central Murray County, which encompasses 420 

square miles of primarily agricultural land in southern Oklahoma. Sulphur is 60 

miles south and slightly east of Norman, the closest large city, and about 100 

miles south and east of Oklahoma City. In 1990 the town population was 4,824: 

84.93% were white, 12.96% American Indian, 1.24% African-American, and 1.24% of 

other racial backgrounds (Oklahoma Department of Commerce 1998). Most AfricanAmerican families today have moved to nearby Tatums, which is predominantly 

African-American, or to nearby Davis or Ardmore. There has also been a growing 

Hispanic population within the last 10 years, engendered mainly by employment at 

the Mayhard Farms near Nebo, as well as Billy Cook’s Harness and Saddle 

Manufacturing Company. Overall the town’s population has remained stable through 

time, as shown in population figures of 4,970 in 1941, 5,158 in 1970, 5,516 in 

1980, and 4,794 in 2000 (Arbuckle Historical Society 1995; Oklahoma Department of 

Commerce 1998). 

As of 1997, Sulphur’s primary employers were the Oklahoma Veterans’ Center, 

Oklahoma School for the Deaf, Sulphur Public Schools, Wal-Mart, Chickasaw 

Telephone Company, Arbuckle Memorial Hospital, Sooner Foods, US Silica, National 

Park Service, Chickasaw Motor Inn, city of Sulphur, Lifestyle Center of America, 

and Mayhard Egg Company. In descending order these employers provide from 168 to 

30 jobs apiece (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1998; Oklahoma Department of Commerce 

1998). As of 1999, the Sulphur Chamber of Commerce had 150 member businesses.

In terms of sharing facilities and participating in community projects, the main 

community partners are the Oklahoma School for the Deaf, the Sulphur Public 

School system, the Veteran’s Center, Chickasaw National Recreation Area, the 

Sulphur Chamber of Commerce, and the relatively new Main Street Program.

Besides multiple employment sources, other community businesses, and partners, 

Sulphur has: fire and law enforcement departments, three utilities providers, a 

county hospital, a state veterans’ hospital, three clinics, two nursing homes, 10 

private doctors, four public schools, four banks, a newspaper, a radio station, a 

television station, two tennis courts and a golf course, two libraries, 23 

churches, and more than 20 civic and fraternal organizations (Sulphur Chamber of 

Commerce 1998; Oklahoma Department of Commerce 1998). 

Despite the availability of goods and services, however, many Sulphur residents 

lament the changes that have characterized the town since its heyday, and 

especially since World War II. The roots of some regional changes are due to the 

same economic and social factors that affect the nation as a whole. Fluctuating 

cycles of oil production have affected the availability of jobs; agriculture has 

shifted from family level to factory farm levels of production; and, changing 

modes of transportation and transportation corridors have eliminated the 

existence of whole towns and made others into regional economic centers. 

Oil and gas exploration and production began in Murray County in 1914 and has 

gone through boom and bust cycles to the present day, affecting employment and 

population levels (Arbuckle Historical Society 1988:35; Jack and Jack 1988:38). 

After the end of World War II, family farms and ranches steadily decreased in 

number, but grew in size and value. Murray County had 885 farms averaging 254 

acres in 1945 and 20 years later had half as many agri-businesses, each of which 

averaged twice the number of acres of the independent family farms. By 1966 there 

were 233,000 acres of agri-businesses in the county including livestock and feed 
133

operations, 43 dairies, two egg producing plants, and a few other minor crops 

(Arbuckle Historical Society 1988:34). Today, agriculture occupies the lowest 

percentage of the city’s labor workforce (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1998).

Train travel gave way to private automobiles after World War II, bringing with 

them the development of highways and blacktopped rural roads. Many small towns 

ceased to exist, leaving Sulphur, Davis, and Dougherty as the only towns in the 

county large enough to have post offices, and by 1972, there were only four 

schools. Today, 40% of the county’s population resides in Sulphur (Oklahoma 

Department of Commerce 1998).

With the emphasis on Sulphur as one the few economic centers in the county, many 

of those who had sold out their family farms turned to wage work instead. The 

availability of wage jobs fluctuates, depending on the presence and stability of 

industrial employers such as the Haliburton plant, which provided employment to 

machinists and other oil industry specialists until it went out of business in 

about 1990. Exsil/MCS Inc. provided jobs in computer chip cleaning from 1996 

until it left the area in 1999. As of 1999 Hannover provides employment in the 

manufacture of hydraulic pumps and gas compressors and currently has about 50 

employees (Sulphur Chamber of Commerce 1999). The number of Dairies declined in 

recent years, but some employment is still offered by remaining dairies such as 

B&R Farms. A few chicken and other livestock operations, such as Chitwood Farm, 

provide some employment for both locals and outsiders.

Along with the changes in the regional economy, local changes affected Sulphur 

uniquely. After the elegant downtown Artesian hotel burned in 1962 and the 

McClellens and Richards dime stores went out of business in the mid 1970s, 

Sulphur’s downtown changed significantly. Downtown Sulphur had been a thriving 

commercial center, housing the community’s clothing stores, department stores, 

dime stores, drugstores and other businesses. One by one, the locally owned 

businesses closed down as their owners retired; since and no new owners bought 

the businesses, the buildings remained empty (Interview Darryl Carter 1996). The 

decline in locally owned businesses, coupled with the arrival of Wal-Mart on the 

west end of town in the early 1980s emptied Sulphur’s downtown business district, 

leaving the appearance of poverty and abandonment and perpetuating the historical 

split between the town’s west and east sides which also contributes to economic 

instability.

Although the area population has remained stable, residents believe that there is 

a high unemployment rate. According to city officials and residents interviewed 

for this project in 1996, the lack of employment has been a major factor in 

Sulphur’s appearance of economic decline. Although Chamber of Commerce figures 

for 1998 indicate that only 247 members of the city’s total labor force of 1,981 

were unemployed, few young people can find work locally. For the most part, young 

people leave to find work elsewhere, or at the very least commute to larger 

cities such as Ardmore. Many more people would stay, residents say, if jobs were 

available. Eventually, many of those who do leave tend to return to the area to 

retire, making Sulphur and the surrounding area somewhat of a retirement 

community. The community has many senior citizens with low-to-moderate incomes. 

In 1997, for example, of the 12,200 people in Murray County 25.6% were under the 

age of 18 and 35.7% were over the age of 50. People in the prime of their working 

lives, between 18 and 34 years of age, comprised only 16.9% of the county 

population in 1997. Nearly 50% of the disposable annual income of Murray County 

households is under $20,000.

According to some residents, if it weren't for the park, the town would be dust. 

Others say it doesn’t need to be that way. Some residents believe that the town 

doesn’t necessarily need to grow, it just needs to employ the population that it 

has. They say that the potential to employ, develop businesses and prosper 
134

already exists and is waiting to be taken advantage of. Many residents believe 

the solution is tourism, and tourism exists because of the park. In short, the 

park is the vehicle to gain economic success, and the key for starting it is the 

citizenry’s own motivation.22

While Sulphur residents’ stories and opinions are almost uniformly based on 

hope, optimism for the future, and faith in the city’s potential to prosper 

again, at the same time they chide themselves for not taking advantage of the 

potential available to them. “People here are stagnant”, one interviewee said. 

“They are only interested in what's in it for them, not what's good for the 

community.” In general, people believe that Sulphur’s prosperity is dependent 

on the tourism generated by the park, but that the city itself has not provided 

enough goods and services upon which visitors can spend their time and money.

While the community is economically dependent on the park, some feel there is 

also a tendency for the town to blame the park whenever there is an economic 

problem, rather than helping itself.

Remarks from many interviews in 1996 included the suggestions that:

if the town was going to rely on tourism, it has to provide visitors 

with something to do and to spend money on. People here could 

easily renovate the downtown and promote the arts. Sulphur 

advertises itself as the city of springs but when people get here 

there are no springs. The private bathhouses and pools are gone. 

The city needs to revitalize some of the springs or at least develop 

a map to show where they were. But citizens also need to become 

involved. 

The revitalization of Sulphur that people see as necessary is not just for 

visitors. They also want changes for the quality of life within their own 

community. Some people point out the irony of a city that doesn’t even have its 

own municipal park, independent of the national park. While purchase of the 

former privately-owned Vendome pool site by the National Park Service is viewed 

favorably by most residents because it is well maintained and attractive, the 

purchase has also come to represent Sulphur’s inability to maintain its own 

recreational facilities for its residents. Perhaps one of the biggest issues is 

the city’s loss of its several swimming pools over the years. The loss of 

swimming pools is an issue that remains in the forefront of many residents’ 

memories and represents concerns about the future of the community. The town 

could raise money to have their own swimming pools again, people say, which would 

be great for the community. Although people acknowledge that it would be 

expensive and there is a liability issue, they say that the many swimming pools 

used to bring visitors and community members together and now they are all gone. 

Bringing visitors and community members together is a cornerstone of Sulphur 

residents’ ideas about quality of life. People want to balance tourism with 

community needs. In Sulphur tourism and community are not mutually exclusive. 

“Sulphur is so friendly”, one resident said, “because it is used to greeting 

strangers. It has always been a tourist town, so improving the quality of visitor 

services means improving the quality of life for residents. Similarly, making a 

nicer town for residents means a better town for tourists. Interviewees report 

that Sulphur is very proud of the park and its springs. And although economic 

development is desirable, it must be balanced with local use and therefore not 

 

22 Many interviewees requested that their comments about current park/community 

relations remain anonymous; therefore, most quotes in this chapter are not 

attributed to individual interviewees, but paraphrased from similar comments 

made by multiple interviewees.
135

generic development, but development in a unique "Sulphur way." And the "Sulphur

way," of course, reflects the inseparable relationship between the town and the 

park. 

Residents generally believe that the park could play a significant role in 

continued development of the town, for example, private businesses could begin 

renting camping equipment again like they used to. Some people want development 

of a recreational vehicle park for additional economic development but others 

don’t. Others hope for continued growth and development, but in a way that 

reflects the community’s history and is compatible with the beauty of the park. 

Interest in the local history of Sulphur has increased within the last 20 years 

and continues to do so. One interviewee pointed out that local historian Opal 

Brown’s newspaper column and her two books on Sulphur’s history have raised the 

town’s consciousness of its past. 

The kind of development that many area residents see as necessary and compatible 

with the community is the kind that reflects the unique history and former 

elegance engendered by the presence of the park. Combined comments of many 

interviewees suggest that 

...maybe the important thing is getting the city to take advantage of 

what's already here. Sulphur is growing in its economic influence 

and development philosophy and trying to be in harmony with the park 

in terms of types of development. Industrial development has 

contributed to the decline of the town’s elegance. Still, the 

community can support a broad economic spectrum at its base, from 

industrial to arts and crafts. We are now looking for a happy medium 

between high revenues and the old way. We want the word-of-mouth 

type businesses. Businesses such as the Olde Bathhouse can bring it 

back to the way it used to be. The future of Sulphur is wide open. 

The people can do what ever they want. They have the potential to 

make this a resort area again.

Residents generally want growth, but not necessarily population growth. They want 

better job opportunities, good housing, essential fire and law enforcement 

services, and water system improvements to go with it. They want to revitalize 

what is already here, make it grow and prosper, and retain its historic 

integrity. As of 1996 the growth philosophy was well underway. The Murray County 

Development Authority was formed a few years earlier, and Sulphur was on the 

verge of joining the national Main Street program. By March of 1997 Main Street 

certification was received by the city, and in June of 1999, 100% of the ground 

floors of the formerly inhabitable buildings in the Main Street district were 

rented to active businesses. The downtown and the local business outlook 

definitely began an upswing. 

Main Street is a National Park Service program that is administered by individual 

states. It is intended to revitalize historic districts that have been pushed 

into decline by changing market conditions and demographics. The program provides 

special loan packages from banks to private business owners, to renovate, expand, 

or start their businesses. It also provides additional services such as 

architectural design and preservation training to local municipal Main Street 

organizations, in order to revitalize their downtown business districts. 

According to Clayton Lodes, outgoing president of Sulphur’s Main Street program,

in June 1999 a few Sulphur business people spent much of 1996 in the arduous 

process of applying to become Main Street certified. After the certification was 

received in March 1997, a board of directors was formed and the Main Street 

Corporation was established. The remainder of the year was spent in educational 

activities and in starting up. Downtown was still essentially empty. By 1998, 
136

downtown redevelopment was in full swing, with the organization engaging in many 

civic activities to refocus community attention on the downtown area. Planning 

and renovations began and four committees were established to oversee 

organization, design, economic restructuring, and promotions. 

By June of 1999 the organization had a $27,000 budget with $10,000 of that coming 

from the city of Sulphur and the rest from private businesses and citizens. The 

Main Street program had more than 300 individual and business contributors. Many 

other contributors were simply people with an interest in revitalizing Sulphur’s 

historic character. As of June 1999, eight downtown buildings had been sold; 

eight rehabilitated; two had facade renovations; 20 businesses opened, relocated 

or expanded; 22 jobs were gained; and, a total private sector reinvestment of 

$965,195 had been poured into downtown redevelopment. Two statewide awards had 

already been won. Sales taxes were on the increase, providing more revenue to put 

back into the city as a whole. The number of volunteer hours donated reduced the 

burden on city services downtown, and vandalism dropped markedly. In 2004 

occupancy of downtown buildings still remains at about 90%. In addition, the Main 

Street program strengthened many community-wide partnerships.

One partnership award was won for the joint efforts between the Main Street 

businesses and the Sulphur Public Schools for an array of volunteer services 

provided by Sulphur High School clubs and organizations. Relationships among the 

City Council, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Main Street program were at an all 

time high, and the relationship between the Main Street program and Chickasaw 

National Recreation Area was not only strong but collaborative. 

The Main Street district is directly north of the park, separated by Broadway, 

the main avenue running east and west through town. At the east end of the Main 

Street district where Broadway terminates is the Chickasaw Motor Inn, which 

occupies the site of the former Artesian Hotel and is the primary representation 

of the presence of the Chickasaw Nation in the city. These three physical 

districts represent the three governmental entities that make up the Sulphur 

community: the city, the federal government, and the Chickasaw Nation. 

Partnership efforts between the National Park Service and the Chickasaw Nation 

are developing rapidly and those between the Chickasaw Nation and the Main Street 

program are beginning, while the relationship between the Main Street Program and 

the park is now solidly in place.

The city and the park share sponsorship of the “1906 Christmas” celebrations, 

begun by the park in 1996, and tours now include downtown Sulphur, as well as the 

park itself. This celebration draws the attention of both residents and visitors 

to the downtown. As of 2004, the celebration became the “Candlelight Tour” and 

highlights the period between 1902 and 1940. 

In 1996 the park and the Main Street program were discussing the possibility of 

locating some park offices outside the park boundaries and within the Main Street 

district. As of 2004, fifteen park staff occupy offices on the 2nd floor of a 

historic downtown building. Park staff, especially the park’s landscape 

architect, has donated many hours of volunteer time in historic design services, 

and other members of the park staff have helped in other capacities. Programs are 

planned in common between the two entities, and one future plan includes the 

presence of a park visitor center in the Vendome area, along Broadway, which 

would tie the park even more closely to the Main Street district.

In recent years, the city and park collabored and received a TEA-21 

(Transportation Enhancement Act)grant from the Oklahoma Department of 

Transportation for improvements between Rock Creek and the intersection of 

Highways 7 and 177. It will be used for pedestrian walkways, overhead lighting, 

underground utilities, and curbing in front of the proposed NPS visitor center. 
137

In short, the Main Street program provided the vehicle many residents were 

seeking in 1996 when they expressed frustration at having no outlet for helping 

the community revitalize. With this mechanism in place, the people of Sulphur 

were quickly galvanized to restore their community’s historic integrity, which 

is inextricable from the park.

Park Uses and User Groups

Chickasaw National Recreation Area is Sulphur’s park. The Sulphur area 

residents consider local to be everything within a 30-mile radius of the town. 

Park visitors from beyond the local area are considered outsiders, or tourists. 

Residents and park employees say that the tourism area for the park is more-orless from Dallas, Texas on the south to Oklahoma City, to the north. Official 

figures confirm these impressions.

Visitation to the park in 1996 was about 1.6 million. 15 million people visit 

Oklahoma each year and Murray County ranks 30th in visitation out of the 77 

counties in Oklahoma and captures only 5% of all tourist dollars spent in the 

state. As of 2000, travel dollars23 finance about 25% of Murray County’s 

budget, including 130 jobs and more than $11 million in non-public payroll 

(Travel Industry Association of America 2001). These figures suggest that most 

of the visitation to the park is made up of the regional population base of 

200,000 people who live within a 50-mile radius. Most of the 1.6 million 

visitors to Chickasaw NRA are repeat, local visitors, and their economic 

contribution to the area is significant.

A 1996 park-sponsored visitor survey asked how people found out about the park 

and 95 out of 129 people said they became acquainted with the park from 

previous visits or from friends and relatives. In a second question about where 

the visitor was from, 72 out of 97 people said that they were from Oklahoma or 

the immediate local area. Of the remaining respondents, 13 said they were from 

Texas, leaving only 12 visitors from other states. 

In sum, Chickasaw National Recreation Area is a regional park. It is not a 

destination point visited primarily by tourists in the conventional national 

park sense. The park has one main user group-local residents-with some nonlocal and some specialized user groups as well. 

The Local Community

Recreation

According to community representatives, the park has always had one main 

purpose: recreation. Since the construction of the Travertine Nature Center and 

concomitant development of park resource education programs, people 

increasingly see the educational purpose of the park. The purpose of the park 

that the community has a bit more trouble perceiving is that of preservation. 

“The park has always been for recreation”, interviewees say. “This park was 

always a recreation area, not a place for preservation. The emphasis [of the 

park] has always been on recreation. The park is here for recreation and 

education.”

 

23 According to the Murray County Extension Service, travel dollars is money 

spent by people coming from 50 miles away or farther.
138

Traditional recreational uses of the park have been constant throughout the 

lifetime of the park and the community, especially walking, picnicking, 

camping, and family reunions. Generally, people say that the way they have used 

the park has been consistent over time, although the emphasis on use of certain 

places has changed in response to development of park facilities. 

Individuals, families, and organizations from the surrounding region beyond 

Sulphur heavily use the Lake of the Arbuckles for boating, fishing, and 

recreational vehicle camping, while Sulphur residents engaged in traditional 

recreational activities generally use the Platt District. Many Sulphur 

residents say the Lake of the Arbuckles does not seem like part of the park at 

all, while many tourists who camp at the lake rarely go to the Platt District 

to visit the nature center, use the trails, and so forth.

Respondents to the park’s 1996 visitor use survey ranked their uses of the park 

in descending order as camping, walking, boating, swimming, wildlife viewing, 

fishing, going to the nature center, participating in ranger guided activities, 

and biking. Some interviewees mentioned that the emphasis is now on exercise as 

opposed to leisurely recreation, but these uses are still considered 

recreational. Some of the comments regarding park use were:

Lots of friends walk in the park, starting at 6:00 am-mostly in Flower Park. 

People park by the exercise equipment in the morning and at noon hour to walk 

and jog. 

There is a beautiful trail around Veterans Lake, but it is frequently too hot 

so folks tend to stick to the shady trails, like Buffalo Pasture.

The best thing about picnicking is that its right here and you don't have to plan 

ahead. Just pick up some KFC and you're there.

The group areas are pretty much in the places people traditionally like to use.

You get to see the same people here all the time and the same church groups meet

here, and there are fish fry's at Travertine.

Nature Center and Environmental Education

According to interviewees, the community was very proud when the nature center 

was opened. Some people say it also changed the focus of the park by stressing 

the natural environment and bringing in schools for outdoor education 

experiences. Now, local people go there a lot, for example, the 4-H club comes in 

and asks about plants, which evidently never happened before. People are starting 

to slowly realize the educational opportunities at the park. 

The influence of the nature center on environmental education has greatly 

increased the number and kind of park programs available to the community and the 

manner in which community members or community groups interact with the park. 

Park Programs

Interviewees reiterated that the park provides good free programs and does a good 

job of community outreach. There seems to be more emphasis in recent years on 

providing educational opportunities and mixing with the public than there was in 

years past. Interviewees report that NPS interpreters have implemented several 

great activities in the community like Bald Eagle Day, when you bring a sack 

lunch and see movies or go watch real eagles. Not long ago a science instructor 

whose husband worked at the park teamed up with the nature center to provide a 
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four-week summer school enrichment program for students. Many other educational 

activities have recently involved the schools.

Besides school activities, in 1996 the park supported other activities that 

involve the community as a whole, such as Art in the Park, Sulphur Days (now 

called the Sulphur Water Festival), and the Candlelight Tours. 

According to interviewees, there wasn't much park/community interaction until Art 

in the Park, Sulphur Days (Sulphur Water Festival), and the Christmas open houses 

at the park administration building began. Although it has not taken place since 

2000, as of 1996 people felt that the Art in the Park program and the Sulphur 

Water Festival helped the community a lot because all the civic clubs 

participate. People say that the park has done a lot to promote these programs 

and they demonstrate wonderful cooperation between the park and the town. Through 

sponsorship of these and similar community oriented activities, residents say,

the park will play a role in the town's revival. In fact, it used to be that the 

park and the city had separate planning processes, but now, according to 

interviewees, they plan jointly for things like Art in the Park and the Sulphur 

Water Festival. The Sulphur Water Festival is seen as a critical event for 

economic prosperity because businesses pay dues all year to the chamber of 

commerce which in turn sponsors the event. Since about 2000 the event has taken 

place in the downtown historic district. Similarly, local sentiment in 1996 was 

that the newly established 1906 Christmas Program (Candlelight Tour) at the park 

was great for the community. If the park continues to encourage community 

participation, people say, the program will continue to be very successful. 

Additionally, booths at the State Fair began again in 1996, which was also seen 

as a very good thing to do. 

Some residents perceive the community oriented programs as especially important 

so that people begin to understand how the park works. As one interviewee noted 

“what the public sees they understand. What they don't see they don't 

understand.” Although it is sometimes difficult to get citizens involved in 

park programs, according to some people, the park should keep trying. “The park 

needs to find the balance between soliciting the publics’ ideas for programs 

they would like to see and maintaining control over the types of programs the 

NPS sponsors.” Highlighting community history is one area some people suggest 

as a way to really get citizens involved in the park, potentially through the 

Historical Society. Other ideas mentioned are programs that invite people to 

talk about where they are from, or a good will ambassador to welcome visitors 

and invite them to churches.

Specialized User Groups

Special Activity Permits issued by the park for fiscal years 1995 and 1996 

illustrate a general pattern. Of the 24 permits issued in fiscal year 1995, eight 

were for Sulphur organizations, including the high school track team, the Kiwanis 

Club, and the chamber of commerce, for events such as track meets, Art in the 

Park, bike tours, employee appreciation days, and walk-a-thons. With one 

exception, all permits issued to Sulphur organizations were for areas within the 

park other than the Lake of the Arbuckles. The remaining 16 permits were for 

groups based outside of Sulphur but all within Oklahoma. With two exceptions, all 

these special activity permits were for bass or other fishing tournaments, or 

events on Lake of the Arbuckles. The last two permits were for trail rides.

Fiscal year 1996 permits followed the same pattern, with 11 permits issued to 

Sulphur organizations, and the remaining fifteen to organizations outside 

Sulphur-but all from within Oklahoma. Of the latter, 12 special activity permits 

were for fishing events on Lake of the Arbuckles. Of the 11 permits issued to 

Sulphur-based groups, only three were for the Lake of the Arbuckles, and only one 
140

of those was for a fishing event (the others were for an Easter egg hunt and a 

baptism). The remaining Sulphur permits were for events held in park areas other 

than the lake. 

In fiscal years 2002 and 2003 the park issued 30 special use permits each year 

for special events such as weddings, 20 and 24 permits respectively for fishing 

tournaments, and 95 and 81 permits respectively for pavilion reservations at 

Buckhorn and Veterans Lake.

Local town events held in the park are a continuation of the traditional 

community gatherings for which the park has always been used: church events, fun 

runs, bike tours, and other things that are by, and for, the community. 

In general, the boating, fishing and other activities that take place on Lake of 

the Arbuckles are mainly by and for non-Sulphur groups and families that come in 

recreational vehicles to take advantage of the nice camping and RV facilities at 

the lake. One exception to this generalization is the Goddard Youth Camp, which 

has a small portion of the lake dedicated for its use by park special use permit. 

Goddard Youth Camp

Goddard Youth Camp is a privately funded facility that provides low-cost, highquality camping experiences for non-profit youth organizations. The program began 

as a pilot project based on a model established at Fire Island, New York. The 

Goddard family had ranching operations south of the park and when the camp began 

in 1965, the Goddard family looked for a suitable place to locate it. The 

creation of Lake of the Arbuckles provided the perfect impetus for the camp’s 

current location, as well as the National Park Service jurisdiction. Goddard 

Youth Camp opened in 1967, the same year that the lake filled. The camp received 

a special use permit from the NPS to use 250 acres and exclusive use of Cedar 

Canyon within Lake of the Arbuckles. 

In 1969 the NPS was involved in the N.E.E.D. (National Environmental Education 

Development) program, and the town of Ada agreed to provide a group of fifth 

grade children to try out the program. Although the program was very successful, 

the NPS turned its attention to other things and dropped out after a few years. 

The Goddard Youth Camp stayed, however, and began publishing its own 

environmental education literature. As of 1996 the camp served 27 school systems 

from within a 150-mile radius, including Lubbock, Dallas, and Oklahoma City. 

Goddard Youth Camp hosts over 5,000 fifth and sixth graders each year who

participate in its program. 

Throughout the intervening 30 or more years since its inception, the camp’s 

relationship with NPS has fluctuated, but has always been excellent overall. The 

camp recently invested 2 million dollars in building a children’s museum 

dedicated to the ecology of the Arbuckle Mountains. Paramount to the 

organization’s decision to invest in such elaborate facilities was the fact that 

the camp is within the park, which the Goddard organization considers to be well 

managed and stable, with high quality services and experiences available to its 

youth. The park and the camp are able to share programs and trade collections, 

and the park serves both recreational and educational functions. The park nature 

center fulfills educational functions for the camp through its interpretive 

programs, and the education emphasis is always growing. 

Goddard Youth Camp feels very protective of the continued NPS management of the 

park, as their investments in the camp’s facilities were made with the 

intention that the camp will have a long partnership with the NPS. This 

relationship provides a consistent approach to resource stewardship. 
141

Local Schools

Related to, but independent of the camp, the local schools are an important 

stakeholder in the park. Interviewees pointed out that the school board is an 

integral component of the community, and because the schools are involved with 

Goddard Youth Camp they are also involved with the park. Both Goddard and the 

park serve necessary functions for the schools and school-age children. Some 

interviewees suggested that there was little for kids to do in Sulphur. People 

felt that because kids are not busy on farms anymore and there are not enough 

sports activities, kids need other places to go. Interviewees also pointed out 

that there are no longer any movie theaters or swimming pools in Sulphur, and 

that skating is only good to about 7th grade. In the summer, particularly, the 

park serves an important role, as do the community churches that provide youth 

programs and a social role as well. 

The First Baptist Church has the largest membership and sponsors the Oasis 

program for 7th to 12th grades. Kids can eat dinner there and play basketball 

and pool. Up to 200 kids participate every Wednesday night, making it the thing 

to do, for kids. For parents who hope to involve their children, church 

programs, the community education program, the Goddard Youth Camp, school 

sports, soccer, baseball, softball and basketball leagues, FFA/4-H, the Key 

Club (a branch of the Kiwanis), a local children’s gymnastics business and a 

dance studio are the only activities available. Interviewees claim that 

children and youth, whose parents are not involved with them, are the ones who 

ultimately hang out and tear things up at the park. Some people feel that the 

families in which all members are still involved in farming are the most stable 

families, those whose kids are not at loose ends. With unemployment high, there 

are many welfare dependent families with children who need to be targeted for 

programs geared toward children and youth. 

The need for these kinds of programs is where the park can play an especially 

important role, in the opinion of some community members. Interviewees state 

that the park could provide summertime activities. One suggestion is that it 

would be better to have something with limited enrollment, charging a small 

fee, and advertise in the paper and at the schools. Such classes could include 

geology, aquatic life, exercise training, heart rate monitoring,

mountaineering, camping skills, and so forth. For example, there was once a gun 

and boat safety class and it was very successful. They charged a small fee for 

ammunition and had a big enrollment. Similar courses could be sponsored by the 

park. The park also participates in career day at the schools and sponsors the 

DARE program for Sulphur and Davis 5th grades which are good programs in the 

public perception.

Chickasaw Nation

As with the Goddard Youth Camp, the Chickasaw Nation is an especially important 

stakeholder in the park, reflected in no small part by the fact that the park 

was renamed in 1976 to honor the tribe’s history and significance. The park’s 

name change, some town residents recalled, was confusing because many people 

thought the Chickasaw Nation had assumed ownership of the new recreation area. 

Many interviewees expressed that people in general do not understand what the 

Chickasaw Nation, in terms of a tribal government, really is. Many people 

relayed that they are proud to have Native American ancestors somewhere in 

their own lineages. At the same time, they do not understand why Indian tribal 

governments have a “special status” (sovereignty) and what it really means, for 

example, in terms of applicability of taxes and so forth. 
142

Some interviewees felt that the Chickasaw Nation is not an active participant 

in the development of the community, but one individual pointed out the 

“Chickasaw Nation first wanted to put their headquarters here, but the town 

said ‘no’ so they put it in Ada.” Some people say, nonetheless, that the tribe 

should become an active participant in community development and a contributor 

to the economic base. Other residents say that “the tribe is damned if they do 

and damned if they don't, people like to go play bingo but at the same time 

they resent the tribe's special status.” 

As of 1999, the tribe was working with the park on the development of a 

Chickasaw Cultural Center within the park boundaries. While some interviewees 

felt that it would be a fine addition, others were suspicious about changes in 

the purpose and character of the park. Some of the residents were concerned 

about the tribe operating in the park and wanted the NPS to retain 

jurisdiction. The smoke shops were the biggest issue of concern. Others felt 

that tribal development in the park should not be a major issue: 

If the tribe builds a visitor center, some people will mind, 

some won't. It shouldn't be a big deal if people treat each 

other respectfully. Some people are upset about Wal-Mart, but 

a lot of people get employment from it. The same thing will 

happen with a new visitor’s center (Anonymous interviewee).

Since the completion of the fieldwork a new collaboration has occurred. The 

Chickasaw Nation has become a primary stakeholder within Chickasaw National 

Recreation Area. The National Park Service will trade 29-acres west of Rock 

Creek for 39-acres of city of Sulphur land. The city will then give the 29-acre 

parcel to the Chickasaw Nation for trails, ceremonial events, and Mississippian 

style buildings. An adjacent parcel owned by the Chickasaw Nation will be used 

for a cultural center and associated exhibit hall, Omni theatre, amphitheater, 

restaurant, genealogy library, parking area, cabins and an outdoor sculpture 

garden. The Chickasaw Nation is hoping to begin construction in fall of 2004.

PARK AND COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS AND ROLES

The city and the park have been inseparable since the town site and the park were 

both established a century ago. The relationship between the two entities has 

fluctuated from time to time but has always been mutually dependent and almost 

always good. 

This relationship was acknowledged as early as 1903 in a statement by a federal 

inspector that he considered it “highly important that the town site and the 

reservation should be considered as to the relation that one bears to the other; 

in fact as much depends on this as the economical and utilitarian features of the 

park” (DOI 1903f).

These sentiments have carried forward through time, as reflected in a February 

27, 1913, issue of the Sulphur Times Democrat:

Our Park is Saved

The flurry over the fear of the loss of Platt National Park 

caused by the paragraph that passed the House providing that the 

United States cede the park to the state of Oklahoma is now a 

thing of the past. When the bill reached the Senate Tuesday, 

Senator Owen raised a point of order, which was suspended, 

knocking out the clause thus saving the park. Senator Owen is
143

considered a hero in the Senate by the citizens of Sulphur and 

his popularity is greater today than ever before (Sulphur TimesDemocrat 1913).

Attempts to undermine the national park status at various times since then have 

raised the same level of community defense as recalled by one 1996 interviewee 

who stated that:

People love the park in the community. The reason why I say that 

is because we had one superintendent come here and he tried 

everything to get the federal government to give the park to the 

state. And he wanted to get rid of the buffalo and different 

things, and the people showed how they felt about the park—all 

these people got together and they started raising sand, I want 

you to know. They went to their congressman (Ervin 1996:16).

Congressional investigation of park management was again sought by the cities of 

Sulphur and Davis and the Murray County Commissioners in 1993. The communities 

passed resolutions complaining about campground closures, management of the 

park’s budget, hiring practices, road construction and maintenance, and 

harassment by park rangers. The complaints stemmed from the closure of two 

campgrounds in May 1993 due to budget shortfalls. The community criticized the 

decision and by early July the allegations of park mismanagement had escalated to 

include an array of issues and a request for congressional investigation.

As a result of the congressional inquiry and the local media attention on the 

park issues, a National Park Service panel developed a set of recommendations for 

implementation by the park superintendent, focusing heavily on community 

relations. Among the recommendations, the superintendent was asked to:

• Conduct an "Economic Impact Analysis" of the role the park plays in the local 

economy

• Develop a full-scale public information initiative covering local news media, 

chambers of commerce, state, county and local officials, local organizations, 

etc.

• Develop news releases explaining the next fiscal year’s funding appropriation 

and its implication for park operations

• Develop a plan for briefing the community in the event of future budgetinduced cutbacks in services

• Develop a public relations strategy for ranger activities that target "special 

emphasis constituencies"

• Implement special emphasis training for rangers "that address the 

sensitivities unique to Chickasaw user constituencies"

• Review staff needs, training, promotions, and hiring practices

The recommendations reflect the community’s level of awareness of and 

involvement in park operations and management and the importance of maintaining 

communication among the various entities. The relationships among Sulphur, the 

surrounding communities and the park are fundamental to the life and identity 

of each one individually.

Since the last low period of 1993-1994, the community opinion of the park has 

been favorable. According to community residents interviewed in 1996, the 

relationship between the park and the community is very good right now, as it has 

been for the most part for the last one hundred years. The best thing the park 

can do to maintain the positive relationship, according to some people, is to 

remain consistent.
144

The century of interdependence between the park and the town has created a 

community identity that values historical continuity, integrity, and respect. The 

park’s federal status and physical relationship adjoining one side of the city 

makes it distinct and separate from the town, yet at the same time, it is seen as 

the town’s own park. It is at one time a federal space—with the advantages and 

disadvantages that come with that status—as well as, according to one person, 

like a city park on the edge of town. At the same time, according to another 

resident, there is a physical separation between the town and the park, even with 

no boundary fence. It is reported to be a physical difference in feeling that is 

noticeable immediately upon entering the park, and one that has never changed.

This sense of separation also creates some conflict in the way people 

perceive the role of the federal government as an integral part of the 

community in which their history and identity is rooted. On the one hand, 

people place extremely high value on the park’s integrity. They see the 

park as beautiful and having stayed pretty much the same over the years. 

They view the park as being managed consistently and believe it will 

remain so into the future. People are proud of the fact that the park is 

clean, well cared for, safe, and presents a high quality image to 

visitors. From Memorial Day on there are a lot of visitors, but according 

to residents, it is “high quality” visitation, not trashy, and without a 

lot of crime. The park offers a good image, good upkeep, and good 

services. While Oklahoma has many places to go for water recreation, this 

is the only one that's federal, and, according to interviewees, that 

makes a big difference. The park is safe, there is a lot of law 

enforcement, it’s not rowdy, and as a result, the park has a devoted 

following.

At the same time, the federal requirements necessary to ensure these standards 

are sometimes seen as controlling, heavy handed, and decisions can be made 

independently by the NPS that will affect the town. A sampling of comments 

reveals that 

...there is some tension between businesses and the park when 

business owners can't put signs, stores, and so forth right next to 

the lake because of federal restrictions. This is the only 

federally administered lake in Oklahoma and people expect to see 

the same facilities as at others in state. State lakes, even Army 

Corps [of Engineers] lakes allow gas stations on the lake, but NPS 

doesn't allow commercial development. People don't understand 

environmental protection. Sometimes federal guidelines are too 

strict. 

But, some people note, if use of the park goes unregulated then it destroys the 

resource people came to enjoy. On the other hand, if the government regulates too 

much, then it affects the traditional use and potentially the town’s economy. 

There is a desire for the park to strike that perfect balance between benefit to 

the community and preservation of resources, symbolically characterized by one 

interviewee in the suggestion that the park needs more RV set-ups and camp 

hookups, but without detracting from nature.

A similar example pointed out by residents is when the NPS acquired management of 

the lake and built new camping facilities there, the lake eventually drew 

visitors away from town, where the local businesses had always provided services 

to tourists. On the other hand, “...the city wasn’t able to manage the lake and now 

because of NPS management it is well cared for and people will keep coming back.... 

The city didn't have the resources to manage it and wouldn't today either. The

NPS has taken good care of it,” but NPS management shouldn’t detract from 
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bringing people to town either. A sampling of comments indicates common opinions 

about the necessity of drawing visitors to town.

Visitation hasn't declined as much as shifted emphasis away from Platt and 

to the lake. If going to the lake, then the visitors are not in town. 

Visitors now camp in the park, which makes them separate from the town. It 

used to be people in town would rent rooms to visitors. The town is 

dependent on the park. The park drew the tourists and the town provided 

them the services. Townspeople loved the tourists. 

The park was more integrated with the town. Now everyone has their own cars 

and stay to themselves, which makes the park seem more isolated from the 

community. When people came in by train, they went to the town first, now 

they just drive straight to the park. The NPS needs to find ways to bring 

the visitors into the town. Maybe town meetings to bring campers in or have 

townspeople meet with campers.

This sense of “meeting half-way”, as implied in the last statement, is 

consistently repeated in peoples’ comments about the necessary give-and-take 

between the community and the park. For example, one person pointed out that when 

the state agriculture conference was held in town the park allowed them to have 

catering trucks in the park. Although it might have been outside NPS’s normal 

rules, the interviewee pointed out, such compromises end up being mutually 

beneficial, as the park and the city share resources for law enforcement, fire 

fighting, surplus equipment, and so forth.

This give-and-take is perhaps most strongly expressed in terms of the use of the 

Vendome area, which is the most visible point of contact or overlap between the 

park and the town. As of 1999, according to interviewees, there is now more use 

of Vendome area than ever before-it is used, as one person said, “to the max.” 

But there are restrictions that come along with the use, such as restrictions on 

the amount of commercial activity that can go on there and the necessity for 

permits for activities that are allowed. Some people feel that the Vendome area 

is important joint space and if the city still owned it, there would be fewer 

restrictions on its use.

People don’t like, according to some, having some activities on the park side of 

the road and food booths on the town side of the road due to NPS restrictions on 

concessions, because it creates traffic and safety problems with people going 

back and forth across the road. But, people say, these matters are easy to 

resolve, especially when park employees are actively involved in municipal 

activities. In 1999 these efforts were especially visible in joint efforts 

between the chamber of commerce and the park, and the park’s assistance to the 

city in development of designs and plans for adjacent visitor center and chamber 

facilities in the joint space between the park and the town. As of 2004, these 

plans were somewhat modified and the Sulphur Chamber of Commerce has built a new 

welcome center across Rock Creek from a proposed NPS visitor center. 

Perhaps the most notable example of the effort to protect the community’s 

interests within the context of federal regulations was during the “government 

shutdown” in 1995. Due to the inability of the U.S. Congress and the President to 

agree on a budget, all but essential government services were shut down for a 

period of several weeks, including closing most national parks. But because of 

the magnitude of the impact it would have had on Sulphur, the Superintendent at 

Chickasaw NRA determined to keep the park open throughout the shutdown. The 

respect for the well being of the community demonstrated by the Superintendent’s 

decision earned him as much in return and spoke to a value that people in Sulphur 

hold closely. 
146

Respect is a strong theme in interviewees’ comments. Older residents especially

talk about the way people, both local and visitors, used to respect the park, 

particularly the park rangers. Some people recall that park rangers were revered, 

that they had a special status and were looked up to. Similarly, the park itself 

was almost like sacred space, almost “scary” according to one person. Park 

visitors and employees all kept the park clean, campers left camp sites cleaner 

than they found them, no one would think to litter and there was little crime. 

Some people believe that societal changes in the value of respect are reflected 

in attitudes towards park resources and park employees. Some of these changes, 

interviewees point out, are inevitable with greater numbers of people, visitors 

staying in their own recreational vehicles at the lake, lack of attachment to 

community or place, and a general dislike for the federal government. People in 

town have a history of accommodating visitors and enjoy being hosts, but resent 

it when visitors demonstrate a lack of respect for the park or park employees.

In general, the park employees are seen very favorably by the residents. Park 

employees are generally considered to be part of community “...especially the 

maintenance folks who have been here for a long time. Others need to get out in 

the community and join the churches and civic organizations. The non-local park 

employees sometimes don't do enough of that.” “The good thing is park employees 

who stay for a long time at the park share the city's vision and participate.” 

Some residents recognize that the park tries to hire locally. At one time, some 

interviewees observed “...almost all the women in administration were local, and 

the maintenance workers. But the ones people see are the rangers. Most of them 

are not local and it gives people the impression that the park is now run by nonlocals.” 

As with all its other kinds of regulations, people recognize that it is difficult 

to be flexible in the application of personnel rules, but point out that it is 

very important in a community like Sulphur to be flexible and try to hire 

locally. People like having NPS employees represented by locals. But if employees 

can not be from the local area, interviewees point out, it is especially 

important for park people, particularly the Superintendent, to be involved in 

civic and church activities. At the same time, non-locals shouldn’t be too 

outspoken, as one resident said, they should strive to be friendly and “just live 

with the people and be one of them.” 

After a century of thoroughly intertwined histories, Chickasaw National 

Recreation Area and the Town of Sulphur seem, in the community’s perception, to 

“just live with each other and be part of one another” very well, with no 

expectations for anything other than positive changes in the future. 
147

Chapter twelve

RECOMMENDATIONS

This project has brought to light the incredible history contained within 

Chickasaw National Recreation Area, and will contribute to the park’s resource 

education programs, as well as providing an administrative record for future 

park managers. 

There is a wealth of future study that could branch off from this report. The 

park's history is tied to the Great Depression as people survived by living in 

the park and finding viable work still available in the community, while others 

survived by working for the CCC at the park. For example, Frank Beaver stated 

that during the depression, the town was helped considerably by the ice cream 

factory and the cheese plant (Interview Beaver 1996:4). Since the park is tied 

so closely to this era, with its migrant camps, and people on their way out of 

the dust bowl, the Carl Albert Center Congressional Archives could be 

researched for the era 1929-1941, to present the depression and New Deal as it 

related to Platt National Park. Topics such as drought relief, farm security, 

Civilian Conservation Corps, Works Progress Administration dams, "The Grapes of 

Wrath," oil tariffs, prohibition, and relief programs can be found in these 

archives.

In addition to historical research, this project also affirms the importance of 

documenting contemporary perceptions, attitudes, and values that speak to the 

relationship between parks and the communities that have deep cultural and 

historical associations with them. Interviewees for this project recommended a 

number of actions the park could take to address community connections to the 

park.

The CCC men interviewed said they would like to see some type of monument at 

the CCC camp area, perhaps with a diagram of the camp, and text that might 

capture what it was like there. Since the completion of the fieldwork for this 

report, the NPS installed a wayside exhibit at the CCC campsite including a 

photo and information about the CCC camp.

Many people agreed with the words of one interviewee: “The two best changes the 

park could make is to get the Bromide spring running again and open the road back 

up to Antelope and Buffalo Springs. The old folks would like to see wells and 

springs back.”

Similarly, in her interviewees with Chickasaw Tribal members, Clara Sue Kidwell 

reported that Chickasaw people “...hope that that steps can be taken to restore the 

flow of springs to previous levels, i.e., to make the park more as they remember 

it in the past” (Appendix F).

Other recommendations made by members of the Chickasaw Nation include:

• Continuing maintenance of facilities

• Increase possible job opportunities for tribal members, especially in 

interpretation

• Keeping access to the park free for everyone

• Keeping the English/Chickasaw language signage

• Waiving boat docking fees for Indian people.
148

Other recommendations made by Sulphur residents include:

• Maintaining uses of the Vendome area that are compatible between the city 

and the park

• Bring campers to town meetings or have townspeople come to visit campers as 

“community ambassadors”

• Increase and improve signs to the park and increase advertising, especially 

in major metropolitan areas like Dallas

• Highlight community history in park programs and get the community 

involved, such as a photo exhibit of historical scenes from the community 

and have people come in and identify them or have the community members 

bring in the photos

• Have programs that invite campers to meet with community members and tell 

about the places they are from; have community members invite campers to 

things in town, such as churches

• Provide summertime classes such as physical training, heart rate 

monitoring, mountaineering, aquatic life, camping skills and so forth. 

• Keep working with the town on joint programs such as Art in the Park, 

Sulphur Water Festival, Candlelight Tours, and other mutually beneficial 

joint programs

• Update this study periodically.

The park and the community are dependent upon the continuity of this lifelong 

relationship. The authors look forward to a day when they can again spend time 

at this incredible park, as it evokes something of the past-value placed on 

community that feels peaceful and serene, just like its waters.
149

REFERENCES

Arbuckle Historical Society 

1984 [1913] Reprint of "Sulphur, Oklahoma" postcard booklet.

1988 Murray County Oklahoma, Volume II.

1995 Sulphur: A Chronological History, 1830-1995.

Barker, Ballard M. and William Carl Jameson

1975 Platt National Park: Environment and Ecology. University of Oklahoma 

Press: Norman, Oklahoma.

Boeger, Palmer H.

1987 Oklahoma Oasis: From Platt National Park to Chickasaw National 

Recreation Area. Western Heritage Books. Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Branch, William E.

1932 Annual Report Platt National Park.

1934 Annual Report October 1, 1933 to September 30, 1934.

1935 Annual Report Fiscal Year July 1, 1934 to July 31, 1935.

1936 Annual Report Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1936.

1937 Annual Report Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1937.

1938 Annual Report Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1938.

1939 Annual Report Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1939.

1940 Annual Report Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1940.

1941 Annual Report Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1941.

1942 Annual Report Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1942.

Bridges, Doris Payne

1982 Notes taken at Travertine Nature Center on September 17, 1982.

Brown, Loren N.

1937 The Work of the Dawes Commission Among the Choctaw and Chickasaw 

Indians. Thesis, University of Oklahoma.

Brown, Perry E.

1952 Draft of A History of Platt National Park. Recorded September 3, 1952.

1954 A History of Platt National Park. Unpublished. Located in archives of 

Chickasaw NRA. 

Brown, Opal and Richard Garrity 

1981 City of Many Faces – A Diamond Jubilee Project in Cooperation with the 

Arbuckle Historical Society of Sulphur. Western Heritage Books, 

Oklahoma City.
150

Bushyhead, Dennis

1935 Letter to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, John Collier from Dennis 

Bushyhead, State Senate. January 30, 1935.

Carter, Kent

1994 Preliminary Inventory of the Five Civilized Tribes Agency and the 

Muskogee Area Office. Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Record Group 

75). Compiled by Kent Carter, September 1994.

CCC(Civilian Conservation Corps)

1934 Emergency Conservation Work Narrative Report 4th Period. October, 

November, December 1934, submitted January 7, 1934 by Superintendent Branch.

1934a Emergency Conservation Work. Camp NP-1, Platt National Park. March 

1934. Superintendent Branch. 

1934b Emergency Conservation Work Narrative Report July – August – September 

1934, Third Enrollment Period.

1934c Specifications for an Addition and Alteration to Administration 

Building. Drawing No. NP/PLA-3028. ECW/NP No.1, Project 19, Classification 

21. Office of the Chief, Western Division, Branch of Plans and Design, San 

Francisco, Calif. December 4, 1934.

1935 Report to the Chief Architect through the Superintendent of Platt 

National Park. Construction Report. Conservation Work, C.C.C. Camp No. 808 

(NP1). October 1, 1934, to March 31, 1935 by Charles A. Richey - Resident 

Landscape Architect and Jerome C. Miller - E.C.W. Landscape Architect.

1935a Report to the Chief Architect through the Superintendent of Platt 

National Park. Construction Report. Conservation Work, C.C.C. Camp No. 808 

(NP1). April 1, 1935 to September 30, 1935 by Charles A. Richey - Resident 

Landscape Architect and Jerome C. Miller - E.C.W. Landscape Architect.

1935b Report to the Chief Architect through the Superintendent of Platt 

National Park. September 25 - October 25, 1935 by Charles A. Richey -

Resident Landscape Architect Field trip October 22-25 and Jerome C. Miller -

E.C.W. Landscape Architect.

1935c Emergency Conservation Work Narrative Report 4th Period. October 1, 

1934 to April 1, 1935, submitted April 1, 1935 by Superintendent Branch.

1935d Emergency Conservation Work Narrative Report 5th Period. April 1, 1935 

to October 1, 1935, submitted October 15, 1935 by Superintendent Branch.

1935e Report to the Chief Architect through the Superintendent, Platt 

National Park. Dec. 26, 1934 – Jan. 26, 1935. By Jerome Miller, ECW 

Landscape Architect, February 7, 1935.

1935f The Reveille (The Voice of Co. 808 CCC) Second edition, Vol. One, 

Sulphur, Okla. April 25, 1935.

1935g Correspondence to Hommon, Public Health Service from Superintendent 

Branch, April 1, 1935.

1936 August Report of Associate Landscape Architect Jerome Miller, Branch of 

Planning and State Cooperation, September 1, 1936.
151

CCC(Civilian Conservation Corps)

1936a November Report of Associate Landscape Architect Jerome Miller, Branch 

of Planning and State Cooperation, December 1, 1936.

1936b Civilian Conservation Corps, Eighth Corps Area. Certificate of 

Proficiency. To James Hudler, Company 808, elementary masonry. January 1 to 

March 31, 1936.

1936c July Report of Assist. Landscape Architect Jerome C. Miller [dated 

page missing].

1937 Monthly Narrative Report to Chief Architect by Jerome C. Miller, 

Resident Landscape Architect, Branch of Plans and Design. January 20 to 

February 20, 1937.

1937a Monthly Narrative Report to Chief Architect by Jerome C. Miller, 

Resident Landscape Architect, Branch of Plans and Design. June 21 - July 20, 

1937.

1937b Monthly Narrative Report to Chief Architect by Jerome C. Miller, 

Resident Landscape Architect, Branch of Plans and Design. July 21 to August 

20, 1937.

1937c Monthly Narrative Report to Chief Architect by Jerome C. Miller, 

Resident Landscape Architect, Branch of Plans and Design. August 21 to 

November 20, 1937.

1937d Monthly Narrative Report to Chief Architect by Jerome C. Miller, 

Resident Landscape Architect, Branch of Plans and Design. February 21, to 

March 20, 1937.

1937e Monthly Narrative Report to Chief Architect by Jerome C. Miller, 

Resident Landscape Architect, Branch of Plans and Design. April 21 to May 

20, 1937.

1937f Monthly Narrative Report to Chief Architect by Jerome C. Miller, 

Resident Landscape Architect, Branch of Plans and Design. November 21 to 

December 20, 1937.

1938 Monthly Narrative Report to Chief Architect by H.H. Cornell, Regional 

Landscape Architect, March 1938.

1940 Existing Unoccupied Camp Report, CCC Form "H" by W.F. Ayres, Inspector. 

July 1, 1940

Chickasaw Nation

1879 Correspondence to Major A.L. Hough, Fort Gibson, from B.C. Burney, 

Governor, Chickasaw Nation, July 22, 1879.

1970 Correspondence to Superintendent Jack Stark, from Robert Kingsbery, 

Acting Secretary, Chickasaw Advisory Council. November 4, 1970.

Chickasaw NRA

1996 DRAFT Strategic Plan for Chickasaw National Recreation Area. Prepared 

by Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Sulphur, Okla. July 1996.

1996a Chickasaw Strategic Planning Meeting notes, by Alexa Roberts. February 

12, 1996. 
152

Conlan, Czarina C.

1926 Chronicles of Oklahoma. Platt National Park. Oklahoma Historical 

Society, Vol. IV 1926, pp 11-13.

Debo, Angie

1934 [1961] The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic. Norman: University 

of Oklahoma Press.

1966 And Still the Waters Run. Gordian Press, Inc. New York. 

Dilbeck, Donna

1973 Correspondence to President Nixon, from Donna Dilbeck. Dated 

approximately June 4, 1973.

DOI (Department of the Interior)

n.d. Extracts from letters of recommendation furnished to Eugene E. White. 

National Archives.

1894 Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith from Thomas

McRae, 3rd Ark District, September 25, 1984.

1895 Exhibit A (quit claim) June 11, 1895. National Archives.

1898 Exhibit B (Deed of Trust) December 29, 1898. National Archives.

1901 Letter to U.S. Indian Inspector for the Indian Territory, Muskogee, 

I.T. From Thos. Ryan, Acting Secretary, September 21, 1901. In Brown 

History File, Chickasaw NRA.

1901a Correspondence to "My Dear Senator" from Henry L. Dawes, February 12, 

1901.

1901b Correspondence to Hon. W.A. Jones, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 

from Senator O.H. Platt. June 25, 1901.

1901c Correspondence to Sec. of the Interior, Hitchcock, from Platt, June 

11, 1901. National Archives 32540.

1901d Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior from Indian Inspector 

Wright, June 17, 1901. National Archives 33084.

1901e Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock, from Platt, 

June 19, 1901. National Archives.

1901f Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from E.E. White, July 

30, 1901. National Archives 43255 or 50152.

1901g Correspondence to Indian Inspector George Wright from D.H. Johnston, 

Governor Chickasaw Nation, September 2, 1901. National Archives 15499 or 

50152.

1901h Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior from Indian Inspector 

Wright, September 9, 1901. National Archives 50152.

1901i Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior from Acting Commissioner 

Indian Affairs, September 16 1901. National Archives 50152.

1901j Correspondence to Indian Inspector from E.E. White, September 26, 

1901. 
153

DOI (Department of Interior)

1901k Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from T.R. Cook, Dennis 

Flynn Republican Club, September 30, 1901. National Archives 59995.

1901L Resolution to U.S. Indian Inspector from Dennis Flynn Republican Club, 

June 4, 1901. National Archives 50152.

1901m To Indian Inspector from E.E. White, October 17, 1901. National 

Archives 59995.

1901n Correspondence to Indian Inspector George Wright from T.R. Cook, 

Dennis Flynn Republican Club. October 19, 1901. National Archives.

1901o Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior from J. George Wright, 

Indian Inspector, October 23, 1901. National Archives 59995.

1901p Correspondence to Indian Inspector Wright from E. E. White, October 

31, 1901. National Archives.

1901q Correspondence to Indian Inspector Wright from E.E. White, November 

29, 1901. National Archives 17509.

1901r Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior from E.E. White, December 

5, 1901. National Archives 17357.

1901s Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Sulphur Mayor 

Kendall, December 9, 1901. National Archives 5550.

1901t Correspondence to Indian Inspector from Commissioner in Charge, 

December 11, 1901. National Archives Southwest Region 17857.

1901u Correspondence to Indian Inspector Wright, from E.E. White, December 

17, 1901. National Archives Southwest Region 18025.

1901v Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Commissioner of 

the Five Civilized Tribes, December 30, 1901. National Archives 1004.

1901w Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior from G.W. Robberson, 

February 4, 1901. National Archives College Park.

1901x Correspondence to George Wright, Indian Inspector from E.E. White, 

March 26, 1901. National Archives Southwest Region 11600.

1902 Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Indian Inspector 

Churchill, July 24, 1902. National Archives.

1902a Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from the Commissioner 

of the Five Civilized Tribes, January 3, 1902. National Archives 1006.

1902b Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from J. Geo. Wright, 

U.S. Indian Inspector. March 3, 1902. National Archives 13524.

1902c Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Superintendent 

Swords, May 17, 1902. National Archives 35518.

1902d Correspondence to U.S. Indian Inspector from Acting Secretary Ryan, 

May 27, 1902. In Brown History of Platt file.
154

DOI (Department of Interior)

1902e Correspondence to U.S. Indian Inspector Wright from Mayor E.E. White, 

June 10, 1902. National Archives 35518.

1902f Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Acting Director, 

USGS, July 10, 1902.

1902g Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from J. Geo. Wright, 

U.S. Indian Inspector. June 13, 1902.

1902h Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Acting 

Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July 19, 1902. National Archives 41667.

1902i A Copy of a Report made by Frank C. Churchill, Special Inspector, and 

Joseph A. Taff, geologist of the U.S. Geological Survey, which report was 

made under the provisions of section 64 of the act of July 1, 1902, 32 Stat. 

642, (the Choctaw-Chickasaw Supplemental agreement) which was ratified by 

the tribes Sept. 25, 1902. And also under the directions of the Dept. of 

July 8, 1902, rel. to the matter of selecting lands for a reservation at 

Sulphur Springs in the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory. Received Oct. 10, 

1902 (In Brown history file).

1903 Correspondence to the Secretary of Interior from J.W. Zevely, Acting US 

Indian Inspector. April 4, 1903. Oklahoma Historical Society, Dawes 

Commission #127, Frame 674-682, page 136.

1903a Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior from Indian Commissioner, 

January 10, 1903. National Archives 77017.

1903b Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Acting 

Commissioner Tanner. March 12, 1903.

1903c Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock from Senator 

O.H. Platt. March 16, 1903.

1903d Letter to the Secretary of Interior from J.W. Zevely, Acting U.S. 

Indian Inspector. April 4, 1903.

1903e Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Acting 

Commissioner Tanner. April 9, 1903.

1903f Letter to U.S. Indian Inspector from E.A. Hitchcock, Secretary of 

Interior October 20, 1903.

1903g Rules and Regulations for the Management of the Sulphur Springs 

Reservation, in the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory. Signed by Secretary 

Hitchcock, November 4, 1903. 

1903h Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Acting 

Commissioner Tanner, February 17, 1903. National Archives 1684.

1903i Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Special Inspector 

Churchill, January 19, 1903.

1903j Memorandum to the Secretary of the Interior, March 19, 1903. 

1903k Correspondence to the Secretary of Interior from Indian Inspector 

Churchill, March 23, 1903. National Archives 21409.
155

DOI (Department of Interior)

1903L Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Acting 

Commissioner Tanner, April 11, 1903. National Archives 3762.

1903m Correspondence to Secretary Hitchcock from Indian Inspector Churchill, 

October 1, 1903. National Archives 7386.

1904 Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior From Special Inspector 

Joseph F. Swords, July 7, 1904.

1904a Correspondence to Frank Churchill, Indian Inspector from E.E. White, 

August 1, 1904. National Archives.

1906 Correspondence to Secretary Hitchcock from Committee on Forest 

Reservations and the Protection of Game, May 31, 1906. National Archives.

1906a Correspondence to Mrs. Platt from Superintendent Swords, August 7, 

1906.

1907 Memo for the Assistant Attorney General from Secretary of the Interior 

Garfield, March 23, 1907.

1907a To DOI from C.M. Cade, State National Bank, Shawnee, Okla, April 6, 

1907. National Archives.

1907b Memorandum for the Secretary filed through the Speaker of the House, 

April 12, 1907. National Archives.

1908 Correspondence to Superintendent Green from Acting Secretary Pierce, 

June 16, 1908. National Archives Southwest Region General Reports, 

Appropriations 1908.

1908a Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Superintendent 

Greene, August 29, 1908. National Archives Southwest Region.

1908b Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Superintendent 

Greene, November 7, 1908. National Archives Southwest Region.

1908c Correspondence to the Secretary of Interior from Superintendent 

Greene, April 13, 1908.

1908d Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Superintendent 

Greene, October 12, 1908.

1909 Extract from Monthly Report of Superintendent for Month of March 1909. 

December 8, 1906.

1909a Report on Wind Cave, Crater Lake, Sullys Hill, and Platt National 

Parks, and Casa Grande Ruin. Office of the Secretary of Interior, GPO 1909.

1910 Correspondence to Superintendent French, from Secretary of the 

Interior. February 2, 1910.

1911 Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Superintendent 

French, August 3, 1911. 

1911a Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Superintendent 

French, March 13, 1911.
156

DOI (Department of Interior)

1911b Correspondence to the Secretary of Interior from Superintendent 

French. March 15, 1911.

1916 Letter to the Secretary of the Interior from the Superintendent Platt 

National Park. April 6, 1916.

1916a Correspondence to R.B. Marshall, Superintendent of National Parks, 

from Architect Albert Winter. November 27, 1916.

1916b Improvement and Management of National Parks. Letter from the 

Secretary of the Treasury. January 8, 1916. House of Representatives; 64th

Congress, 1st Session; Document No. 515 (History of Legislation file, 

Compiled by Edmund B. Rogers, 1958, Chickasaw NRA Superintendent’s Office).

1917 Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior from D.L Houston, 

Department of Agriculture. March 24, 1917. Santa Fe System Office files.

1917a Correspondence to Supervisor Sneed from Joseph Cotter, Acting 

Superintendent, NPS Washington, March 27, 1917. Santa Fe System Office 

files.

1917b Correspondence to Superintendent NPS, Washington from Supervisor 

Sneed, March 30, 1917. Santa Fe System Office files.

1918 Report Director National Park Service for Fiscal Year 1918. 

1922 Correspondence to the Director of the National Park Service, from 

Campers at Platt National Park. August 11, 1922.

1923 Letter To: A.B. Cammerer; From Superintendent [Hot Springs]. April 13, 

1923. From Hot Springs National Park archives.

1924 Report of Director of National Park Service. Fiscal year ending June 

30, 1924.

1924a Letter to Superintendent Morris from Acting Director A.E. Demaray. 

June 2, 1924.

1924b Memorandum for the First Assistant Secretary from Acting Director A.E. 

Demaray. June 2, 1924.

1929 Report of Director of National Park Service. Fiscal Year ended June 

30, 1929.

1930 Report of Director of National Park Service. Fiscal Year ended June 

30, 1930.

 1930a Correspondence to Director from Superintendent, July 15, 1930. (NARA-

 Southwest Region)

1931 Report of Director of National Park Service. Fiscal Year ended June 30, 

1931. 

1932 Report of Director of National Park Service. Fiscal Year ended June 30, 

1932. 
157

DOI (Department of Interior) 

1933 Memo to the Director from Harold Bryant, Field Experiences Summer 

1932, January 27, 1933, Inspections, 1922-33, Box 10, Central Files, Platt 

NP, RG 79, NARA, Fort Worth, Texas

1933a Correspondence to the Director, NPS from H.B. Hommon, Sanitary 

Engineer, U.S. Public Health Service, August 8, 1933.

1937 Correspondence to NPS Director from George Martin, Executive Secretary, 

Board on Geographical Names, February 5, 1937.

1937c Correspondence to the Director from Superintendent Branch, Platt NP, 

July 30, 1937

1958 Memo to Regional Chief, Recreation Resource Planning; From Regional 

Chief NPS Planning and Landscape Architect, January 20, 1958.

1958a Memo to Chief, Division of Recreation Resource Planning from 

Assistant Chief, Branch of Recreation Surveys, August 14, 1958.

1966 Memo to Secretary of the Interior; From Chairman, Advisory Board on 

National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments, October 6, 1966.

 

1971 NPS Criteria for Parklands. National Park Service, U.S. Department of 

the Interior.

1971a Memo To: Secretary of Interior, From: Chairman, Advisory Board on 

National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments, October 6, 1971.

1975 NPS Management Policies

Eliot, John L.

1982 Roosevelt Country: T.R.'s Wilderness Legacy. In National Geographic 

162:3, September 1982. Pp. 340-363).

Flores, Dan

1991 Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy: The Southern Plains from 1800 to 

1850. The Journal of American History. September 1991 pp. 465-485).

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1930 [1996] Traveler in Indian Territory: The Journal of Ethan Allen 

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Norman.

Gibson, Arrell Morgan

1971 The Chickasaws. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman and London.

1981 Oklahoma A History of Five Centuries. University of Oklahoma Press, 

Norman.

Gould, Charles N. 

1939 Geological Report on Water Conditions at Platt National Park, Oklahoma. 

By Chas. N. Gould, Regional Geologist, NPS, Region III and Stuart L. Schoff, 

Ground Water Division, USGS, December 1939.

Hatley, Jack Dan

1973 A History of the Establishment of the Wichita National Forest and Game 

Preserve, 1901-1908, University of Oklahoma Masters Thesis.
158

Heltzel, Daniel L.

1972 Correspondence to Honorable Carl Albert, from Daniel L. Heltzel, 

Sulphur Chamber of Commerce, October 26, 1972.

Henderson, J. Neil

1993 Spa in the Dust Bowl: Oklahoma’s Hidden Paradise in The Culture of 

Oklahoma. Howard F. Stein and Robert F. Hill, Editors.

Hommon, H.B.

1935 Correspondence to Supt. Branch from Sanitary Engineer, U.S. Public 

Health Service, April 4, 1935.

Hough, Major A.L.

1879 Correspondence to Assistant Adjutant General, Headquarters Department 

of the Missouri, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, July 26, 1879.

Hudler, Iva 

1996 Documents provided by wife of James W. Hudler. Canton, Texas.

Interview Austell, Clifford and Isabell and Ruth DeGroat

 1997 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on March 27.

Interview Beaver, Frank and Vinita

 1996 Interview conducted by Jacilee Wray on October 1, and by Jacilee Wray 

 and Ken Ruhnke on October 16. 

Interview Bridges, Doris Payne

 1982 Interview by Jamie Pettiti on September 17, 1982.

Interview Brown, Lacy and Eula 

 1996 Interview conducted by Jacilee Wray on October 18.

Interview Brown, Melvin and Inez 

 1996 Interview conducted by Jacilee Wray, with sign language translation by 

 their daughter Melba Davis, on October 18.

Interview Bryant, Ralph [Wichita Mountains NWR]

 1999 Telephone interview by Jacilee Wray on July 28.

Interview Cade, Eugene

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 15.

Interview Carter, Darryl

 1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts on October 3. 

 2004 Telephone interview by Jacilee Wray on July 29.

Interview Cobb, Truman

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 19.

Interview Colbert, Scott

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 16.

Interview Condriff, Retha

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 11.

Interview Corley, Marian

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 16.
159

Interview Delay, Gene

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 11.

Interview Ervin, Cleve

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 3.

Interview Gilbert, Delbert

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 27.

Interview Hill, Allen "Butch"

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 20.

Interview Jennings, Harry

 1969 Interview by Palmer Boeger on October 11.

Interview Kennedy, Fuzz

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 18. 

Interview Little, Ina

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 26.

Interview Long, Harold

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 23 and October 1. 

Interview Pettiti, Jamie

 1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts and Jacilee Wray on October 8.

Interview Pinkston, Jay

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 10.

Interview Pollard, Earl

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 16. 

Interview Ratliff, Velma Parker

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 3.

Interview Ringer, Brenda

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 27.

Interview Rutledge, Joe Deveraux

 1997 Interview by Judy Kahlor on May 16. 

Interview Shaffer, Lonnie and Frieda. 

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 27.

Interview Shatley, Ruth

 1996 Telephone Interview by Alexa Roberts, September 26.

Interview Sterling, Odessa

 1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts and Jacilee Wray on October 14. 

Interview Stockton, King and Julia

 1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 17.

Interview Vanderburg, Gene

 1996 Phone interview by Jacilee Wray on September 26.

Interview Wilkins, Max [Wilkins Interview #1]

 1999 Interview on June 26.
160

Interview Wilkins, Tanya (Weavel) [Wilkin's Interview #2]

 1999 Interview on June 26.

Interview Wilkins, Terry (Gibson) [Wilkin's Interview #4]

 1999 Interview on June 27.

Interview Wilkins, Joe [Wilkin's Interview #5]

 1999 Interview on June 27.

Interview Wilkins, Rona [Wilkin's Interview #6]

 1999 Interview on June 27.

Ise, John

1961 Our National Park Policy: A Critical History. Johns Hopkins Press, 

Baltimore.

Jack, James R and Tom

1998 History of Oil in Murray County. In Murray County, Oklahoma, Volume II. 

Arbuckle Historical Society of Sulphur and Davis.

Johnson, Neil R

1961 The Chickasaw Rancher. Redlands Press, Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Keith, B.F.

1935 Letter to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, John Collier from B.F. Keith, 

Sulphur Chamber of Commerce, January 31, 1935.

Kennedy, Roger 

1996 "The State of the Parks." The Best of America, For All America. Speech 

from Director Roger Kennedy to the National Leadership Council, October 31,

1996.

Littleheart, Oleta

1908 The Lure of Indian Country and A Romance of its Resort. A. Abbott, 

Sulphur, Okla.

NARA (National Archives Records Administration)

1882 "Map of Lands Ceded by the Choctaw Nation to the United States, and by 

the United States to the Choctaw Nation. Compiled from Maps and Plats 

printed for the U.S. General Land Office." BIA Special Case Files and 

General Service. Record Group 75, Entry 102, Box 63/Volume 163.

NACCA (National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni)

1999 "Two-Year Limit Ruling Will Permit Re-enrollment of 65,000 Now in Cs"

from September 18, 1937 Happy Days CCC paper in the NACCCA Journal. 

September 1999:11.

NPS (National Park Service)

n.d. Platt National Park, Oklahoma. National Park Service. [Booklet] Arno 

Cammerer Director [circa 1933-1940] 

1921 Correspondence to Superintendent Ferris, from Horace Albright, 

Superintendent Yellowstone National Park. February 7, 1921.

1921a Correspondence to Stephen Mather c/o Superintendent Ferris from 

Director Cammerer. October 20, 1921.

1922 Correspondence to Director, National Park Service, from Chief Civil 

Engineer, George E. Goodwin, January 11, 1922.
161

NPS (National Park Service)

1922a Correspondence to D.R. Hull, from Director Cammerer. January 5, 1922. 

1922b Correspondence to Superintendent Ferris, From D.R. Hull, Landscape 

Engineer. January 13, 1922.

1922c Correspondence to Superintendent Platt National Park, from D.R. Hull, 

Landscape Engineer. January 26, 1922.

1922d Correspondence to Superintendent Ferris, from Chester Lindsley, Acting 

Superintendent Yellowstone National Park. March 6, 1922.

1924 Correspondence to Superintendent Morris, from Acting Director Cammerer, 

December 29, 1924.

1932 Park Service Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 7, September, 1932

1934 Road, Trail and Developed Area Plan. Part of the Master Plan for Platt 

National Park. Drawn by Branch of Plans and Design. NP/PLA-3007.1. June 15, 

1934 signed by William Branch.

1950 Map, Soil and Moisture Conservation--Part of Master Plan, Platt 

National Park, NPS, Division of Landscape Architecture, Regional Office, 

Region Three. NP-PLA 2105, March 1950

Nichols, Joseph F.

1921 Correspondence to Mayor Riley of Sulphur, from Mayor Nichols of 

Greenville, Texas. October 24, 1921.

Oklahoma Department of Commerce

1998 Sulphur, Murray County, Oklahoma. Research Division. On file,

Sulphur Chamber of Commerce.

Platt [Papers]

n.d. Correspondence to Secretary Hitchcock from J.M. Bayless. Connecticut 

State Library #406. 

1903 Correspondence to Senator Platt from Secretary Hitchcock, March 18, 

1903. Connecticut State Library.

1903a Correspondence to Platt from Superintendent Swords, October 30, 1903. 

Connecticut State Library #414.

1903b Correspondence to Platt from Secretary Hitchcock, April 17, 1903. 

Connecticut State Library #405.

1903c Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock from E.E. White, 

April 9, 1930. Connecticut State Library #408.

1903d Correspondence to Platt from Swords, December 24, 1903. Connecticut 

State Library.

1903e Correspondence to Platt from Superintendent Swords, April 21, 1903. 

Connecticut State Library #413.

1903f Correspondence to Platt from Superintendent Swords, April 23, 1903. 

Connecticut State Library #412.
162

Platt [Papers]

1903g Correspondence to Platt from Hitchcock, October 20, 1903. Connecticut 

State Library.

1903h Correspondence to Platt from Hitchcock, November 4, 1903. Connecticut 

State Library #415.

1904 Correspondence to Swords from Platt, April 20, 1904. Connecticut State 

Library #364.

Platt NP (National Park)

1907 Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior Garfield, from 

Superintendent A.R. Greene. June 12, 1907.

1907a Correspondence to Secretary of the Interior Garfield, from 

Superintendent Joseph Swords, March 12, 1907.

1908 Report of Conditions at Platt National Park for the fiscal year ending 

June 30, 1908. September 25, 1908.

1908a Correspondence to the Secretary of Interior from Superintendent 

Greene. October 12, 1908.

1908b Report to Secretary of the Interior from Superintendent Greene, August 

17, 1908.

1908c Report to the Secretary of the Interior from Superintendent Greene, 

September 3, 1908.

1908d Correspondence to the Secretary of the Interior from Superintendent 

Greene, September 28, 1908.

1909 Correspondence from Superintendent Greene regarding notice of 

physician's certificate. May 7, 1909.

1909a Report for Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1909. July 5, 1909.

1911 Superintendents Report for Fiscal Year 1911, October 6, 1911.

1912 Superintendents Report for Fiscal Year 1912, September 18, 1912. 

National Archives Southwest Region.

1912a Correspondence to the Secretary of Interior from Superintendent 

French. April 15, 1912.

1912b Memorandum: Financial History of Platt National Park. August 24, 1912.

1913 Report of the Superintendent of the Platt National Park to the 

Secretary of the Interior, July 28, 1913.

1913a Correspondence to W.H. Austin and Company, from Superintendent, Platt 

National Park. May 8, 1913.

1915 Correspondence from park "report of the condition of affairs" since 

June 30, 1914. August 16, 1915.

1915a Correspondence from Platt National Park, report on conditions. August 

16, 1915.
163

Platt NP (National Park)

1916 Correspondence from Platt National Park regarding "condition of affairs 

and the management," August 26, 1916.

1916a Correspondence from Platt National Park, August 26, 1926. Missing 

pages.

1917 Regulations Governing the Platt National Park, in effect May 1, 1917.

1919 Letter to the Director from Superintendent Thomas Ferris, August 9, 

1919.

1919a Letter to Superintendent Albright from Superintendent Ferris, August 

9, 1919.

1919b General Statement of Thomas Ferris, Superintendent, Sulphur Oklahoma. 

1919-1920.

1919c Correspondence from Superintendent Platt National Park to Frank Rush, 

Superintendent Wichita Indian Reserve, August 18, 1919.

1919d Correspondence to Superintendent Yellowstone National Park, from 

Thomas Ferris, Superintendent, Platt National Park, December 20, 1919.

1920 Correspondence to Frank Rush, Wichita Forest Reserve, from 

Superintendent Platt National Park, March 14, 1920.

1921 Correspondence to Director National Park Service from Thomas Ferris, 

Superintendent, December 29, 1921.

1922 Correspondence from Superintendent Platt National Park, from Chester 

Lindsley, Yellowstone National Park, March 10, 1922.

1923 Annual Report to NPS Director from Superintendent Morris, August 31, 

1923.

1924 Letter to the Director from Superintendent Robert G. Morris, May 26, 

1924.

1924a Correspondence to Superintendent Morris from City Manager Pittman, 

December 11, 1924. 

1924b Letter to the Director from Superintendent Robert G. Morris, May 17, 

1924.

1925 Letter to the Director from Superintendent Robert G. Morris, January 

17, 1925.

1933 Memo to Director from Assisstant Director, Harold C. Bryant, January 

27, 1933

1934 Report to the Park Superintendent through the Resident Landscape 

Architect. Yearly Report. Conservation Work C.C.C. Camp. First and Second 

periods – May 27, 1933 – March 31, 1934. Edmund B. Walkowiak Landscape 

Foreman, April 1, 1934.
164

Platt NP (National Park)

1934a Report to Chief Architect through the Superintendent of Platt 

National Park. Construction Report. Conservation Work, C.C.C. Camp No. 808. 

May 16, 1933 to April 1, 1934. By Chas. A. Richey, Jr. Landscape Architect 

and Walter D. Popham, temporary Landscape Architect assigned to E.C.W. 

Office of Chief, Western Division. Branch of Plans and Design. San 

Francisco, California, June 12, 1934.

1934b Report to Thos. Vint, Chief Architect by Charles Richey, Resident 

Landscape Architect and Jeorme Miller, ECW Landscape Architect, December 

1934. 

1934c Report to the Chief Architect through the Superintendent of Platt 

National Park. July 26 to Aug. 26, 1934, by Jerome Miller, August 27, 1934.

1934d Report to the Chief Architect through the Superintendent Platt 

National Park, Field Trip – May 19 – June 5, 1934. By Chas. Richey, July 13, 

1934.

1935 Platt National Park. Place Names Recommended for Approval or 

Abandonment, submitted November 16, 1935.

1935a The Civilian Conservation Camp and Its Work at Platt National Park.

Brown History file.

1935b Progress Map, Non-Construction Projects, 4th Period, October 1, 1934 -

March 31, 1935, Camp NP #1, Office of the Chief Engineer, San Francisco. ECW, 

Platt National Park, Submitted April 15, 1935.

1935c Proposed Recreational Dam, Central Campground Area. Office of the 

Chief Engineer. San Francisco, Calif. May 1935. 

1937 Correspondence to Superintendent Platt NP from Director Cammerer, July 

24, 1937.

1937a Correspondence to Superintendent Platt NP from Acting Director 

Demaray, August 5, 1937.

1939 Memorandum to Superintendent Platt NP from Acting Assistant Director,

September 8, 1939.

1940 Platt National Park, Park Development Outline, as of January 1, 1940.

1942 Platt National Park Development Outline 1942, Miscellaneous 

Development, (Interpretation: Scenic – Scientific) sheet 2.

1955 Correspondence to Superintendent Platt NP from Joe Attocknie, Comanche 

War Dance Club, January 24, 1955.

1955a Correspondence to park from Charles Williams, Oklahoma City, January 

31, 1955.

1959 Correspondence to Head Ranger, Platt NP from Pawnee Indian Veterans, 

Inc., April 4, 1959.

1959a Correspondence to Superintendent Branch from Robert Grover, Area Field 

Representative, Shawnee Field Office, BIA, June 29, 1959.
165

Platt NP (National Park)

1959b Receipt for Property from Superintendent Platt NP to BIA, July 14, 

1959.

1959c Correspondence to Superintendent Branch from Robert Grover, Area Field 

Representative, Shawnee Field Office, BIA, August 12, 1959.

1959d Correspondence to Superintendent Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge 

from, Superintendent Branch, December 7, 1959.

1961 Correspondence to Superintendent Platt NP from Robert Grover, Area 

Field Representative, Shawnee Field Office, BIA, April 4, 1961.

1961a Correspondence to John Stephens, Acting Superintendent Platt NP from 

Robert Grover, Area Field Representative, Shawnee Field Office, BIA, April 

13, 1961.

1966 Correspondence to Robert Kingsberry, Chickasaw Tribe, from Donald M. 

Spalding, Superintendent, December 6, 1966.

Pope, Jno.

1879 Correspondence from Brevet Major General Pope to Assistant Adjutant 

General, Headquarters Military Division, Department of the Missouri, 

Leavenworth, Kansas. July 26, 1879. 

Rettie, Dwight F.

1996 Ranger: The Journal of the Association of National Park Rangers. 

Letter to the Editor. Fall 1996. 

Rothman, Hal 

1989 The American National Monuments. Preserving Different Pasts. 

University of Illinois Press. Urbana and Chicago.

Sallee, Katherine N.

1996 DRAFT Cultural Landscape Inventory. No date, portions sent to Wray by 

Sallee on October 25, 1996.

1996a A Cultural Landscape Inventory of the Travertine District: Chickasaw 

National Recreation Area, Sulphur. Okla. Prepared by The Center for 

Environmental Design Research. The University of Texas at Arlington, Texas. 

August 30, 1966.

Santa Fe [Railroad]

n.d. Platt National Park, Sulphur Oklahoma. The Greatest Health Resort In 

the Southwest. 

n.d.[a] Brochure [Missing cover sheet, copy includes pages 4-23].

Schmeckebier, Laurence F.

1927 The Office of Indian Affairs: Its History, Activities and Organization. 

 The Johns Hopkins Press. Baltimore, Maryland.

Shankland, Robert

1951 Steve Mather of the National Parks. New York. Alfred A. Knopf.

Sheridan, P.H.

1879 Correspondence for the General of the Army from Lieutenant General 

Sheridan. August 4, 1879.
166

Sulphur, City of

1924 Correspondence to Superintendent Morris, from F.D. Pittman, City 

Manager, December 11, 1924.

Sulphur Chamber of Commerce

n.d. Platt National Park: Sulphur, Okla. "where the life-giving waters 

flow."

Sulphur Chamber of Commerce

1921 Platt National Park "Where life-giving waters bubble from Artesian 

wells and Springs."

1927 Platt National Park - Sulphur, Okla. "The Playground of the Southwest."

1930 Platt National Park: The Playground of the Southwest. Sulphur, 

Oklahoma.

1998 Sulphur, Oklahoma, Community Profile.

1999 Welcome to Sulphur, Oklahoma, City of Springs.

Sulphur Community Bank

n.d. A Pictorial History of Sulphur’s Centennial Celebration. Compiled by 

Sulphur Community Bank.

Sulphur Times-Democrat

1912 April 12.

1913 February 27.

1980 "Nature’s the Thing" by Jamie Pettiti, August 28.

1981 "Nature’s the Thing" by Jamie Pettiti, August 13.

1985 "Annual Sterling Reunion Held at C.N.R.A.," Pg.4A, September 5. 

1996 "Sooner Footprints" by Opal Hartsell Brown, September 5.

1999 "Sooner Footprints" by Opal Hartsell Brown, February 18.

1999a "Sooner Footprints" by Opal Hartsell Brown, March 4.

1999b "Sooner Footprints" by Opal Hartsell Brown, April 1.

1999c "Sooner Footprints" by Opal Hartsell Brown, March 11.

1999d "Sooner Footprints" by Opal Hartsell Brown, May 13.

Travel Industry Association of America

2001 The Economic Impact if Travel on Oklahoma Counties 2000. Prepared for

Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department. On file, Oklahoma Cooperative 

Extension Service, Sulphur, Oklahoma.

USGS (United Stated Geological Survey)

1907 Correspondence to Mr. M.O. Leighton, Acting Chief Hydrographer, from 

USGS Engineer. January 29, 1907.
167

USGPO (United States Government Printing Office) 

1934 Form 1-022.

1977 H.R. 4979, Hearing before the Subcommittee on National Parks and 

Recreation of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, House of 

Representatives, 94th Congress, To Establish the Chickasaw National 

Recreation Area. Hearing held October 31, 1975. Serial No. 94-38. U.S. 

Government Printing Office. Washington 1977. 

US [United States] Senate

1894 Senate Report 377 submitted by Mr. Teller, from the Select Committee on 

the Five Civilized Tribes, March 29, 1894.

1897 Senate Report 127, Agreement with the Chickasaw Nation, presented by 

Mr. Jones of Arkansas, referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs and 

ordered to be [printed February 13, 1897. February 8, 1897.

1910 House Report 19256 in the House of Representatives, introduced by Mr. 

Morgan of Oklahoma to the Committee on Military Affairs, January 25, 1910.

1910a Senate Bill 5784, introduced by Mr. Gore to the Committee on Indian 

Affairs, January 26, 1910.

1962 Report on Proceedings: Hearing held before Subcommittee on Irrigation 

and Reclamation of the committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. S 892 

Relating to Arbuckle Reclamation Project, Oklahoma. June 20, 1962. 

Washington D.C. 

1976 Senate Report Number 94-678. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs 

Report on Chickasaw National Recreation Area, March 3, 1976.

Vincent, Mrs., H. Lester

1974 Correspondence to Senator Lloyd Bentsen, from Mrs. H. Lester.

August 15, 1974.

Wichita Forest Reserve

1920 Letter to District Forester from Frank Rush, Forest Supervisor. 

February 27, 1920.

Wirth, Conrad L.

1980 Parks, Politics, and the People. University of Oklahoma Press, 

 Norman.

WPA (Work Projects Administration)

 1986 [1941] WPA Guide to 1930s Oklahoma. University Press of Kansas.

Wray, Jacilee and Alexa Roberts

1996 In Praise of Platt--Or, What is a 'Real' National Park? In The George

Wright Forum 15(1):68-78.

Wright, George Melendez

1933 Field Notes Platt National Park, July 23 and 24, 1933, pp. 502-503. 

Courtesy of Pamela Wright Lloyd.
168

APPENDIX A

PLACES, PLACE NAMES, AND RESOURCES

WATER RESOURCES

Antelope Springs

Frank Miles, an Indian born in this locality, told Architect Albert Winter that 

Miles' father, in commenting on the ways of the white man, had said that 

Antelope Spring was known as Buffalo Spring. Miles showed Winter a striking 

likeness from a certain point of view of a buffalo with its calf running at its 

side, formed by a rock in the center of the spring. He further stated that what 

is now Buffalo Springs, which is on level ground, in a grove of trees, with a 

thick growth of moss, watercress, and underbrush, was at one time frequented by 

antelope (DOI 1916a). The suggestion is that the two names had been switched 

later.

There was a small dairy owned by a man named Cunningham at Antelope Springs 

before 1900 (Brown and Garrity 1981; Sallee 1996a:22)

The two non-mineral springs, Antelope and Buffalo, named after the early herds 

that watered there, flow at a rate of 5 million gallons daily and are the main 

source of water for Travertine Creek (Brown 1952:2). "The condition of Antelope 

and Buffalo springs is not unique to this drought period. The undersigned has 

seen them dry a number of times during the past 10 years and park employees who 

have been here 20 years or more report many dry periods" (Platt NP 1939). The 

periods of dryness of Buffalo and Antelope springs have become more frequent 

"during the past few years." NPS geologists believe this condition has been 

brought about very largely by the "continued and unrestricted flow of water 

from the numerous artesian wells in the city of Sulphur" (Platt NP 1939).

The name "Antelope Springs" long antedates the park’s establishment. The 

Indians had probably named it after the animal that had inhabited the park area 

before the white man’s arrival (Platt NP 1935).

Beach Springs

This area has been used for sunbathing, wading, swimming, and picnicking. One 

consultant said people used to take the sand for personal use and it naturally 

replenished itself (Interview Shaffer 1996). These springs were continually 

overflowing from Rock Creek, and in 1929 a large drum was sunk around the 

spring and cemented at an elevation where it was impossible for it to be 

polluted from the creek water. The spring water was then piped and carried to a 

suitable place, from which it was taken to the new cement pavilion fountain 

(DOI 1929). A hydraulic ram was installed to accomplish this a few years later 

(DOI 1932).
169

CHILD WADING AT BEACH SPRINGS

Bear Falls

Located between Sycamore and Lost falls.

This name has no specific significance. Arbitrarily chosen by the topographer 

of a 1908 map to designate it as one of the more definite and interesting of 

the 75 falls within the park (Platt NP 1935). Bear Falls Recreational Dam, 

E.C.W. project-fifth period, May 1935.

Black Sulphur Springs

These springs are referred to as Black Sulphur Springs because of the black 

deposits that accumulate from the sulphur water. In a 1923 annual report, the 

superintendent states that after Bromide Springs, these are probably the second 

most valuable. There are three springs here and they are often called the Beach 

Springs because of the sandy beach nearby. The waters are fast becoming famous 

as a blood purifier, especially beneficial in all kinds of skin diseases such 

as chronic sores, eczema, and some blood diseases. A 1924 report states that 

people also use the mud to take baths and claim many wonderful cures from its 

use and that the waters from the Black Sulphur Springs are fine for many 

diseases (DOI 1924:2). 

The water used to come out of an old stump here (Interview Beaver 1996:14).

In 1937 the Master Plan was corrected to relocate the Black Sulphur Spring 

Pavilion. "It is proposed that the Black Sulphur Spring Pavilion be moved to 

the south of the Park drive opposite the present location. The old structure 

will be torn down and the parking area and walks obliterated. Relocation is 

possible because the spring flow is now equipped with a hydraulic ram and the 

water can be forced to any nearby location. This change seems desirable due to 

the non-conformity of the present structure [with] all other developed park 

architecture. The present structure is conspicuous and the site is necessarily 

restricted. It is planned that the new structure be set into the hillside south 

of the park road with amble space around it for proper use and with adequate 

planting and screening for proper subordination of the structure. Parking 

facilities are now available" (CCC 1937f).
170

Bromide Spring

The name existed long before the park’s establishment and originates from the 

bromide content which characterizes the water. This spring was originally 

called salt spring, because of its salty flavor. Bromide is considered a cure 

for stomach trouble, nervousness, and rheumatism. People came from all over to 

drink bromide water at the park. They came on stretchers and walked away when 

they left. Numerous testimonials that extol the waters healing powers can be 

found in historic brochures from the era.

The house currently located at Bromide Springs was built circa 1907-1908 to 

house the custodian of the springs.

The Bromide Pavilion lily pond held gold fish.

LILY POND 

The CCC laid the piping in the sand across the creek from Bromide Spring to the 

pavilion location.

Bromide Spring No. 2

Formerly known as Chloride Spring; located in the center of Rock Creek. The 

concrete box around the spring and over it divides the flow of water in the 

creek during the low-water and during high water the box is completely covered 

with water. Bromide Spring No. 2 was a health concern, as it became 

contaminated in high water and Superintendent Branch discontinued the use of 

the water from this spring (DOI 1933a). 
171

Buffalo Spring 

A spring in the extreme northeastern part of Platt National Park, in the NE 

quarter of Sec. 1, T1S, R3E, Indian Meridian. It is about one sixth of a mile 

southeast of Antelope Spring (See Antelope Spring).

Cave Island Falls

A small niche or cave under several huge conglomerate rocks on the left bank of 

Travertine Creek. A small island in the creek near this niche suggested the 

name "Cave Island Falls," where there is now a series of beautiful falls.

Central Campground Recreational Dam 

Planned May 1935. Approved E.C.W. project-fifth period.

Cliff Bromide Spring

Name antedates establishment of park; obviously derived from name of the cliff 

where the bromide spring issues.

Cold Spring

In 1912, a small cold spring just above the edge of Travertine Creek at the 

first crossing east of Pebble Falls was confined by sinking a 15-inch tile into 

it. One spring that has never been previously confined was enclosed by sinking 

an 18-inch tile pipe around its outlet, onto which a small iron pipe was 

cemented for an outlet. A board platform about five feet square was then built 

around the spring, because of the fact that it is located low on the bank and 

the flood waters of the creek would make the spring inaccessible. The water 

obtained from this spring is clear and cold, and apparently devoid of mineral 

qualities, hence it has been named "Cold Spring" (Platt NP 1912:7). During 

Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1913, the Cold Spring "had been developed and 

confined" (Platt NP 1915). When Travertine Drive was built, this spring was 

almost destroyed-and there are plans to investigate the possibility of 

restoring it to its former status (Platt NP 1935a). Note: the name is singular.

COLD SPRING
172

Coney Island Ford

The junction of Rock Creek and Travertine Creek (Platt NP 1935).

Ellen Wilson Spring

Located 90 feet northwest of Bromide Springs. 

Analysis composition similar to Bromide contained in folder by Atchison, 

Topeka, and Santa Fe, except that Ellen Wilson Spring contains iron and 7.2 mil 

per liter of hydrogen Sulfide (DOI 1917). Analysis of water at recently 

impounded mineral spring in the bed of Rock Creek. Mineral content is not 

materially different from Bromide Spring. Authorize $100 to pipe water to 

Bromide Pavilion. "These enclosures show the spring to have been named Ellen 

Wilson Spring, can you advise?" (DOI 1917a).

Sneed named the spring after President Wilson's deceased wife, but since the 

analysis I desire to add the name and call it "Ellen Wilson Sodium Chloride 

Spring" (DOI 1917b).

Garfield Falls 

About 250 feet southwest of Lost Falls.

Named in honor of former President James A. Garfield. "In compliance with the 

recommendation contained in your letter of the 24th, you are authorized to name 

one of the cascades on Travertine or Sulphur Creek Garfield Falls. You will 

cause the same to be indicated on an appropriate sign" (DOI 1908a). 

Recreational Dam Plan shows two dams to be constructed here. May 1935, approved 

E.C.W. project-Fifth period. Note: The lower dam flood gate creates a space 

where you can crawl in and watch the water cascade over you.

GARFIELD FALLS
173

Grand Rapids

Between Little Niagara and Lake Placid. 

Name due to rapids, which at time of designation were more developed here than 

elsewhere on Travertine Creek. Since their designation, position of rapids has 

slightly changed and their intensity diminished. See flooding story relative to 

Little Niagara. Original Little Niagara was located north of the current falls, 

near the junction of Limestone and Travertine creeks. Original Little Niagara 

was 16 feet high with a jutting rock separating its flow (Platt NP 1908a).

LAKE PLACID

Hillside Springs

This is a name of long standing derived from the fact that this spring flows 

from a hillside located about 500 feet southwest of Pavilion Springs. It was 

formerly known as Beauty Spring. The Hillside Spring was renovated and a ditch 

dug to carry away all surface water from the spring in 1929 (DOI 1929). The CCC 

tore down the old pavilion there and built the new hillside retaining wall, 

fountain, and 2 drinking fountains in June of 1935.

Lake Placid 

A pool just above Grand Rapids. 

In contrast with the rapids and falls which characterize much of Travertine 

Creek, a stretch of the creek for several hundred yards just above what is now 

called Little Niagara Falls is unusually calm and placid. Hence the name "Lake 

Placid" was the designation for this part of the creek before the park's 

establishment (Platt NP 1935).
174

Little Niagara Falls

1⁄4 mile northeast of Cave Island Falls. 

Supt. Greene reported that during 1905-according to photographs and statementsLittle Niagara Falls was 16 feet high and was separated at the brink by a 

jutting rock into two divisions, "hence the resemblance of its great namesake, 

and the adoption of the diminutive designation of 'Little Niagara.' "When I 

came here a year and a half ago, the height had diminished to less than 12 

feet, and the feature of the separation of the waters into two falls, was 

noticeable only when the stream was swollen by heavy rains. The floods of last 

season have reduced the height of the main fall to less than 8 feet, with a 

cascade of some 4 feet above this where the work of erosion is rapidly 

progressing" (Platt NP 1908a). 

The fall was originally formed by "a drift of logs, some of which may be seen 

protruding through the face of the fall. These are liable to catch floating 

logs at the time of the next freshet and tear loose other masses of the fall, 

to its complete destruction." Greene goes on to recommend construction of 

concrete dam and the wing wall at the end to prevent cutting the bank (Platt NP 

1908a).

The pool, called Little Niagara today, is depicted as Grand Rapids on a circa 

1913 photo, and on a map accompanying a 1908 report. 

Proposed Recreational Dam, May 1935. Approved E.C.W. project-5

th period.

Lost Falls

Between Bear Falls and Garfield Falls.

Because of its wilderness environment one of the park falls which supposedly 

had remained undiscovered by the white man until found was named "Lost Falls"

(Platt NP 1935). 

Medicine Spring

The Medicine Spring near Bromide Mountain was discovered by William J. French 

in 1911 and the water pumped to Bromide Pavilion where it was under the care 

and distribution of watchman George Clark. This spring was developed and 

improved, and placed in commission at an expense of $140 (Platt NP 1911:4). 

In 1929 the Medicine Spring container was made higher and cemented, and the bed 

of the creek was lowered and a cement walk made with waterways under the walk 

to keep the creek from the spring. An electric pump was installed to pump the 

water from the spring to its container in the Bromide Pavilion. The sodium 

chloride spring in the center of the creek was repaired and water pipes laid to 

the pavilion (DOI 1929). The CCC took a team of mules and cut a ditch to 

reroute the creek so they could build up the spring. They put a pipe down and 

cemented and tarred around it.

Medicine Creek

This creek "is located with[in] a few feet of the water in Rock Creek and is 

housed with a circular brick and concrete enclosure that extends above high 

water. Occasionally samples of water from this Spring has shown contamination. 

The basin which holds the water from the Spring is excavated out of rock and 

the inflow is over natural rock sloping toward the west. The housing over the 

spring and around it is not water tight at the bottom and the contamination 

occasionally found in samples is no doubt due to a small amount of River water 

filtering through to the Spring. There is very definite evidence that the 

original outlet of the spring is higher up on the bank and at an elevation that 

will preclude infiltration of River Water. It was recommended that an 
175

excavation be made in the rock above the Spring and at a place where Travertine 

Rock indicated the original outlet was" (DOI 1933a). 

The spring was found to be contaminated around 1934 and a new location was 

drilled into solid rock. Superintendent Branch reports that they are awaiting 

final analysis of the water to determine if the spring will be used or not 

(Branch 1935). In April 1935, the sanitary engineer approved a test to develop 

the spring by tapping the Medicine Spring at a higher level in order to 

eliminate creek seepage, as the present spring container was below creek level. 

This was one of the parks most popular springs and unfortunately became 

infected with bacteria. Sewage was being discharged into the creek a few 

hundred yards below the spring that led to the recommendation of developing 

this new outlet. Rather than continue to use it as it was set up, park 

management decided to close the spring (CCC 1935g; Hommon 1935). 

In Superintendent Branch's 1936 report he states that "fortunately the same 

stream of water was encountered in solid rock at the base of the Bromide Bluff 

at considerable distance from the creek" (Branch 1936).

Merry Widow Spring

This spring can be found northwest from Big Tom (Platt NP 1912).

Panther Falls

A quarter-mile northwest of Pebble Falls. (See Sylvan Cove)

The name has no known special significance. It was apparently arbitrarily 

chosen by the topographer in 1908 to designate one of the more definite and 

interesting of the 75 falls within the park (Platt NP 1935). 

There was a footbridge near Panther Falls where church groups used to go to 

hold their baptisms (Interview Jennings 1969). The road formerly crossed the 

bridge just above Panther Falls. 

Pavilion Springs

Diamond Z Ranch was established here by Noah Lael in 1878 (Sallee 1996:18). 

Lael sold the improvements to Perry Froman, who sold it to the Sulphur Springs 

Development Company (Sallee 1996:22). This site was the former center of the 

original Sulphur Springs town site. The name comes from the pavilion that was 

built over the springs before 1900. This site was owned by Clay Webster before 

the park’s establishment and was formerly called Big Tom and Buffalo Suck 

(Platt NP 1935).

Pebble Falls

The falls are about one third of a mile west of Garfield Falls (Platt NP 1935)

Rock Creek

Name of a creek over which park has no jurisdiction since both head and outlet 

of creek are outside of the reservation. Name "rock" is obviously derived from 

the very rocky country through which the creek flows and its designation was 

well fixed, long before the park was established (Platt NP 1935).

Sulphur Bromide Spring

This name is to be abandoned. Not to be used any longer (Platt NP 1935).

Sulphur Springs

(Located in NE1⁄4 of the NW1⁄4 and the SW1⁄4 of the SE1⁄4 Sec. 3). The former name

Black Sulphur Spring to be abandoned. The name is already used elsewhere (Platt 

NP 1935).
176

Sycamore Falls

Between Cave Island Falls and Bear Falls.

 

Because of several large and picturesque sycamores around whose roots a deposit 

of travertine had created a breast for a falls, the falls long ago were 

appropriately designated "Sycamore Falls" (Platt NP 1935). 

Sylvan Cove 

Superintendent Richard Alexander Sneed, who wanted desperately to build a 

swimming pool in the park near Hillside Spring, built a pool at Panther Falls. 

This simple dam held back the clear, fresh water of the two big springs. For 

dressing rooms, park employees stretched canvas around several poles set in the 

ground. So many swimmers immediately invaded the area that Sneed asked 

Washington for funds with which to add a second pool for the 1918 season 

(Boeger 1987:99). This probably occurred in 1918 as the annual report states 

that a pool was enlarged (DOI 1918).

Travertine Creek

The "falls of Sulphur Creek are in many cases formed by concretions of lime 

carried in solution in the waters of this stream, which might very properly be 

called by the more euphonious name of Travertine Creek. Any obstruction of the 

waters, such as a drift of logs or accumulation of leaves soon becomes a means 

of forming one of the falls which are the chief attraction of this stream. The 

process is inconceivably rapid and the twigs and branches of a fallen tree, 

lying for a few months in the water, become encrusted until their original 

character is completely lost in what would appear to be a coralline formation, 

or fragile stone in most fantastic designs. The falls thus made are subject to 

frequent changes, and easy injury" (Platt NP 1908a).

This creek, formed by Buffalo and Antelope springs was originally called 

Sulphur Creek until 1907. Recommended to be changed by Supt. Greene in 1908 

(DOI 1908b). "There are approximately 75 falls on the creek caused by 

formations of travertine rock across the channel of the stream, which are its 

chief attractions. This formation is peculiar to this creek. None is found 

elsewhere in the vicinity." Name change approved December 2, 1908 (DOI 1937). 

 

The creek was historically called Sulphur Creek. In his 1906 report to DOI 

geologist Charles N. Gould noted the name Travertine is more suggestive of the 

character of the stream than the word Sulphur. The creek was renamed in 1908 as 

requested by Greene (Sallee 1996a:75).

Travertine Falls

500 feet north of Pavilion Springs.

Although the deposit of travertine is a common characteristic throughout 

Travertine Creek, its presence at this particular falls was specially 

pronounced at the time of the falls’ designation, otherwise "Travertine Falls"

has no special significance (Platt NP 1935). 

The Vendome Plunge/Well

According to early day brochures this "Largest Flowing Mineral Well in the 

World" flowed 3,500 gallons of water per minute-or 210,000 gallons of water an

hour-or over 5 million gallons of water a day! (Sulphur Times-Democrat 1981).

The Vendome Plunge was constructed around 1926 and was named after a famous spa 

in Europe. The trains came within less than 5 minutes walking distance to the 

Vendome. The water ran through the middle of the restaurant. Above it was a 

dance hall. In the summer there were nightly pavilion dances and in the winter 

local organizations gave parties and balls. There was a honkey tonk there where 
177

famous artists, including Bob Wills played. The CCC boys went to dances there 

and some met their future spouses. Boys came from Oklahoma City and all over. 

Velma Ratliff, who was born in 1903, said that they had big time bands there 

and on Wednesdays and Saturdays and the women wore long dresses. On the Fourth 

of July there was a band at each end (Interview Ratliff 1996:8).

VELMA RATLIFF

The Townsley’s bought the White Sulphur Inn that stood on the hill east of 

Pavilion Springs (Seven Sisters) and moved the hotel to Sulphur number 3. It 

became the Park Hotel on Broadway across the street from the Sulphur library. 

They drilled a well and used it to supply a swimming pool across the road in 

about 1906. They operated the hotel until 1925 when it was razed (Sulphur 

Times-Democrat 1999d). The pool must have been removed earlier, because in a 

1913 superintendent's report, it states "the old Vendome building has been torn 

away and the bathing pool there destroyed" (Platt NP 1913).

Frank Louis Payne and two other Indian men were hired by Mr. John Townsley in 

1922 to locate water and dig a well to furnish water for a hotel located across 

the street from the Vendome. Mr. Payne’s mother was Choctaw and he had learned 

to witch wells from his Indian relatives. He had to use a certain type of wood 

from a secret type of tree for it to work. Mr. Townsley needed a good, deep 

well to furnish plenty of water for the hotel guests. He owned the property 

where the Vendome is located and told Mr. Payne to try to find water there. 

Mr. Payne said the witching stick kept moving down at the same spot, and they 

dug until they reached 100 feet, yet found no water. Mr. Townsley said to 

abandon the spot and try someplace else. Suddenly they heard loud roaring like 

running water. The water was uncontrollable-issuing 3500 gallons per minute. 

In about 1926 the well was cased and the flow regulated to about 10-15 feet 

high. The well is now (1982) about 3-4 feet. Mr. Townsley and his brother-inlaw, Frank Lewis, built the Vendome Plunge, restaurant, and dance pavilion to 

utilize all the water. The pool was used until the pavilion burned in the 

1960s. The pool was closed and filled in. The NPS purchased the land in 1979 

and the well was reconstructed in 1980. Mr. Payne said the Vendome well was the 

main underground stream, like a huge river (Interview Bridges 1982). John 

Townsley's brother was a ranger at Yosemite in 1932 (DOI 1933).
178

There was a big restaurant underneath, and a dance pavilion on top. That 

parking lot was built by the park. So the parking lot was there when the 

Vendome Plunge was there. I think that was an example of cooperation, because 

they didn't have to build that big parking lot for the dance pavilion. There 

was a cotton gin years ago, a feed store, a little filling station, a skating 

rink, and the NPS bought all that. It was sort of run down. They bought it all 

and returned it to a natural state during the 70s. The Vendome pool was filled 

prior to the NPS acquiring it. They sold it to the park in 63 or 64 (Interview 

Pettiti 1996:33).

G. Dixie Colbert used to own the Vendome. The guy that owned the skating rink 

owned it all, and then it sold and my friend bought it, and he finally sold it 

to his friend, borrowed money from him until he owned it, his name was G. Dixie 

Colbert. Colbert just bought it to get his money out of it, because of my 

friend that couldn’t pay for it, but he actually bought it for $50,000.00 

(Interview Pinkston 1996:21;23). It was closed down when he got it. Probably 67 

or 68 (Interview Colbert 1996:17).

The waters of the plunge were not chlorinated. The constant flow through the 

pool kept them clean, and the water was drained at the end of each day and the 

pool was swept out. 

There was a carnival there with Ferris wheels and all kinds of rides, as well 

as the skating rink. When Delbert Gilbert’s parents came into town from Nebo to 

shop, he and his brothers would sneak off and swim at the Vendome for 25 cents. 

The artesian well squirted up about 18 feet in the air (Interview Gilbert 

1996:8,12,14). Harold Long remembers that Gene Autry wanted to buy it

(Interview Long 1996:23-24).

According to some folks who remember the Vendome fondly, the Vendome bathhouses 

were comparable to Hot Springs, Arkansas and people flocked there.

When the Vendome Well was added to the park (NRA) it wasn't long before the 

well was completely renovated and restored. However, you couldn't fill your jug 

with sulphur water. A drinking fountain and a pipe where you can fill your jug 

have recently been added to the Vendome Well (Sulphur Times-Democrat 1981).

FRANK AND VINITA BEAVER AT VENDOME WELL
179

Wading Pools

Mud baths were taken along the creek flowing out from the Vendome. The Flower 

Park area was thoroughly reorganized by the CCC in 1934. The work was based on 

the sidewalk rearrangement and the realignment of the stream, which crossed the 

area. The sulphur-water ditch from Vendome Well was relocated to give it a more 

natural appearance (Platt NP 1934b). The stream was realigned to create an 

attractive waterfall into Travertine Creek, which was visible from Lincoln 

Bridge and the Buckhorn Road. Two large wading pools were constructed for 

children and places were provided for those who used the water for medicinal 

purposes such as foot ailments. On almost any summer day there were numerous 

people sitting with their feet in this stream and they claim beneficial results 

(CCC 1934b). 

"Finish work on the wading pools and stream is now in progress" (CCC 1935e). 

The stream out of the Vendome Well emerges spring-like beyond the area at the 

beginning of the first wading pool in the stream course across Flower Park (CCC 

1935c).

The completion of the two wading pools provided a collection site for sulphur 

mud which people would rub over themselves and then bake in the sun. The mud 

baths cured chronic sores, eczema, and arthritis. If you had chiggers on you 

and rub yourself with mud, "you wouldn’t have no chiggers when you come out."

People would come there with sores, and after they took the mud baths the sores 

would heal (Interview Gilbert 1996:9,22).

The sulphur water got a black sticky scum on it, and they mixed that with mud, 

and plastered it all over, even under bathing suits, and they walked around 

with it all over them (Interview Jennings 1969).

"They’d be sitting up and down there all along painted up just as black as old 

coal" (Interview Gilbert 1996:30). 

This was a place where people came and took the sulphur baths and got the 

sulphur mud. You could see them across the bridge, and they'd be all up 

and down in that area. The pond was originally quite a bit larger and 

more or less free form. It was quite beautiful. There was a 

superintendent that caused such an uprising from the town.... Just filled 

it in! It was a lazy little pond and they made it so the water would run 

right through it for reasons unknown. Ecologically it was a disaster. It 

was destroying so many of our species that bred there and lived there 

that were rather rare. And they were bulldozing it in! His reason behind 

it was that people from up above there with cups and papers and things 

that would blow in there, and it was too wide for maintenance men to keep 

it cleaned out. So he made it narrow so water just flowed right through 

(Interview Pettiti 1996:31-32).

Wilson Spring

Named after Virgil R. Wilson, the man who owned and settled the property south 

of Bromide Hill Drive before the property was included within the reservation 

(Platt NP 1935). The USGS recommended that the name "Sulphur Asphalt Spring"

suggested by Mr. Branch be adopted. This was done on January 18, 1937 by the 

board of names. It was so named because "there are asphalt deposits in the 

vicinity of the spring and the mineral contents of the spring water appear to 

be more or less sulphur and asphalt compounds" (Platt NP 1935).
180

PLACES AND PLACE NAMES

Administration Building

Erected in 1894 by Graves Leeper, who came to Sulphur from Oklahoma City for 

his health. It was used as his family residence while he managed the adjoining 

lumber yard. It was later used for federal court commission meetings. Numerous 

Indian Land claims were settled here and it was also used as a schoolhouse, a 

community center, a court, and a church. It was the location where the payment 

for lot improvements of the old town site was made. In 1904 it became the 

office of the park superintendent.

In December of 1934 the CCC received specifications for an addition and 

alteration which required local native stone obtained from quarries within the 

park or picked up loose within park areas (CCC 1934c). After the CCC remodel it 

contained an office for the superintendent, a room for the clerk, a public room 

for visitors, and a large porch across the eastern side. The public room had an 

attractive fireplace, a file room, and a natural history museum. The old 

superintendents’ office was made into the file room.

Anvil Rock 

The park contains numerous free swimming pools; those at Sylvan Cove, Bear 

Falls and Anvil Rock being the best known (Sulphur Chamber of 

Commerce 1930:12)

Bromide Camp

First camping permitted in the park here around 1920 according to 

Superintendent Branch (Branch 1935). Public Camp located near Bromide Spring. 

Bromide Camp area popular prior to WWII (Platt NP 1935).

Bromide Hill

This is a hill located on the extreme southwestern part of Platt National Park 

in SW4, Sec 3, T1S, R3E. 162 feet high (Platt NP 1935). (See Robber's Roost).

Brookside Trail

Meanders along Sulphur Creek (Travertine) to its source (Platt NP 1908).

Buckhorn Road

Also known as State Highway #18. This is a road over which the park has no 

jurisdiction. Buckhorn name derived many years ago from community named 

Buckhorn, about 6 miles south of park. Buckhorn Road named by Supt. Greene. 

"The principal one of these roads leads from Second Street in the City of 

Sulphur by the most practicable route, to the south-eastern corner of the park. 

This is the great thoroughfare between Scullin and Sulphur and also 

accommodates a large farming community along Buckhorn and Oil Creeks. I have 

named this Buckhorn Road" (Platt NP 1909a).

Buffalo Pasture

During the winter of 1920 two elk and three bison from the Wichita Forest 

Reserve were released in the park into separate paddocks. Later, in 1932 the 

CCC built a 97-acre pasture in the existing location.

Cat’s Eye

A spot in Rock Creek, near the north end of Rock Creek campground (Platt NP 

1935).

Central Camp 

An area used for public camping and known for years as "Central Camp" because 

of its central location. East Central Park, locally known as the Assembly 

Ground, comprises approximately 6 acres. Located on the north side of Sulphur 
181

Creek and immediately east of an extension of First Street East, coming from 

the City of Sulphur. Large gatherings were restricted to these assembly grounds 

in 1908. The eastern section became a colored campground after 1937 (Platt NP 

1935).

Chigger Hill - Gobbler’s Knob

The top of the hill in Rock Creek campground. Reservation system was created 

for the weekend crowd. Those that came on weekdays got stuck on Chigger hill 

(Interview Shaffer 1996:23).

Cliffside Trail 

Cliffside Trail is an abandoned name that was never really used. Sulphur 

Springs objective of trail (Platt NP 1935). "During the year a foot trail was 

constructed from Sulphur-Bromide spring along the meanders of spring Run to 

near its confluence with Rock Creek and thence down the face of Bromide Cliff 

to Bromide Springs. This trail is approximately 3⁄4 of a mile in length and is 

one of the most frequented places in the Park. The scenery is romantic and in 

places approaches grandeur. It is called Cliffside Trail" (Platt NP 1909a). 

Cold Springs Camp

Area used for public camp known as Cold Springs Camp by reason of many cold 

springs along creek in vicinity (Platt NP 1935).

Easter Pageant

Mules carry three crosses to top of hill the night before Easter. Different 

churches and thousands of people from all over participate. People carry small 

crosses up to the three crosses; the sun rises behind the crosses. The Easter 

pageant officially opened town for season, but was discontinued before World 

War II.

End of the World

Travertine Island and the area just west, which was named by Marian Corley’s 

mother. 

Flower Park

Known as Flower Park for years by reason of cultivated flowering plants 

formerly grown in the area. Most used area in the park has suffered a great 

deal of abuse in the past. All old concrete walks have been removed and 

replaced with informal gravel paths. Eroded and scarred banks have been 

regraded and planted. Old roads have been removed and obliterated. Uneven 

surfaces have been smoothed out and in many cases sodded with Bermuda grass 

(Platt NP 1934b:7).

Guy Sandy

William Malcom Guy, former Chickasaw Governor, took an allotment along a stream 

that ran from Sulphur Springs to Davis. The stream became known as Guy Sandy 

Creek. Today it is one of the main streams flowing into Lake of the Arbuckles. 

Guy established the Guy National (Chickasaw Indian) School about 1900 and was 

its trustee. In 1906 the Guy Institute was closed (Sulphur Times-Democrat

1996).

Mather Memorial Tree

"There is herewith a picture of Mather Memorial Tree planted in Platt NP."

White or American elm (Ulmus americana L.); this species of elm is a hearty 

tree with strong and very durable wood and is a fitting memorial to the late 

Honorable Stephen T. Mather. The tree is planted on the bank of Travertine 

Creek as it flows from Antelope Spring (DOI 1930a). 
182

In the book Stephen Mather of the National Parks, it states that after Mather's 

death "there was launched a Mather memorial tree-planting" (Shankland 

1951:288).

Monkey Tree

Delbert Gilbert remembers the Monkey Tree when he was about 15 (circa 1935). "I 

guess kids were called monkeys in them days. You could hardly get room up in 

that monkey tree for the kids in it" (Interview Gilbert 1996:11).

The tennis court used to be right there, almost up to it. And those little 

monkeys climbing on it is what caused it to look that way (Interview Shaffer 

1996:43).

It was probably 20-25 years ago that that came about as a favorite place for 

kids to climb on (Interview Pettiti 1996:35).

Mount Airy

Because of its high elevation in relation to its immediate surroundings and its 

bleakness and exposure on all sides to the wind, the airish condition of the 

hill so impressed the original topographer of the park that he named the hill 

"Mount Airy". Elevation 1047 feet (Platt NP 1935).

Nigger24 Run

Before the park was established, a black family lived near a small creek then 

known as a "run". This was Eugene Cade's grandmother's place (Interview Cade 

1996:1). In 1937 a request to withdraw that name and substitute "Limestone 

Creek" was submitted. Branch suggested the name Limestone Creek. The original 

name had been given prior to creation of the park because a colored family 

lived on the stream. The name was used for 50 years or more. "No one with whom 

I have talked, liked the designation" (Platt NP 1937; Platt NP 1937a; DOI 

1937c). Sallee says this name was protested in 1937 by the Chicago Branch of 

the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Correspondence 

from George Martin July 20, 1937 (Sallee 1996a:73). 

Order of the Arrow

An area where the boy scouts had a secret ritual, called the Order of the 

Arrow. They had a small campground here, where they could build a fire and "do 

their thing for their scouting" (Interview Stockton 1996:5). This location is 

on the south side of the road, where the back road to the nature center meets 

the main loop road. 

Riverside Trail

Trail from Pavilion Springs west follows Sulphur Run to its mouth and along 

Rock Creek to the junction with the Cliffside Trail a short distance south of 

Spring Run. This trail is one of the most romantic in the park and affords the 

shortest route from north Sulphur to Bromide Springs for pedestrians (Platt NP 

1935). 

Robber’s Roost

Summit 1072 feet, on the south slope of Bromide Hill, on the southwestern 

boundary of Platt NP. SW4 Sec 3 T1S R3E. 

The peak of Bromide Hill was known to the Indians as "Council Rock" (WPA 

1986:367). In later years it became locally known as Robber’s Roost, as there 

was a tradition that in territorial days robbers and bandits frequented near 

the summit of Bromide Hill. From there they could survey the surrounding 

 

24 While this terminology is considered to be offensive, it should be 

understood in its historical context as common vernacular.
183

country to prepare to hide, kill, or steal as the situation demanded. One can 

view the country for many miles in every direction. The principle mineral 

springs of the park issue from the base of this hill (Platt NP 1935). 

Robert’s Trail 

A gravel walk or trail was constructed from the end of Second Street across the 

West Central Park to Lincoln Bridge. This is the greatest thoroughfare for 

persons on foot in the park. The entire population of North Sulphur and 

visitors at the principal hotels use this trail in reaching West Central Park 

and Pavilion Springs. It was named Robert's Trail in honor of Miss Una Roberts, 

the park clerk who projected it (Platt NP 1909a:5-6). Ms. Roberts was acting 

superintendent around 1905 (Sulphur Times-Democrat 1999e).

Rock Creek Drive

Proposed name by reason of drive being along bank of Rock Creek (Platt NP 

1935).

Squatter's Camp

"When I was a little bitty girl there was a squatter's camp on Rock Creek. 

That was during the depression. We drove up there one day and it depressed me 

greatly. I was about four, five or six-when people were living in big old 

cardboard boxes, like you see these pictures of people living in some of the 

disaster areas. I would say there were 40, 50, 60 people at least in that area. 

That was in the 1930s" (Interview Pettiti 1996:38).

In 1933 Superintendent Branch reports "the unsatisfactory conditions beyond 

Bromide Hill outside the park's jurisdiction and the town [continues]. This 

area is peopled by wandering people who for years were permitted to live on the 

park. It is hoped by next winter the property owners will close the area to 

camping and thus complete the cleanup of the vicinity of the park of problems 

of this nature" (Branch 1934). This camp was abandoned by fiscal year 1935 

(Branch 1935).

Suspension Foot Bridge

At Bromide and Medicine Springs. With a coat of paint, can be put in very good 

condition, excepting the floor, which will require to be replaced during the 

coming year. The bridge is in continual use as will be shown by the number of 

visitors to those springs, all of whom pass over the bridge (Platt NP 1911).

Travertine Drive

This is a drive along Travertine Creek (Platt NP 1935).

Travertine Island

This was originally called Wildcat Bend. Notes indicate new channels were cut 

by 1908 floods (Platt NP 1935) 

Travertine Trail

Trail along Travertine Creek called Brookside Trail in 1908 (Platt NP 1935). 

Veterans Lake

Veteran’s Dam is an earth fill embankment located on Wilson Creek, a tributary 

of Rock Creek. Constructed from 1933-1936 by the WPA as a memorial to the 

Veterans of World War I. It was intended for recreational use. In a 7th period 

CCC report it said that "in all probability lake development will be presented 

to the park at a future time" (CCC 1936c). Private enterprise was taking 

advantage of the narrow strip of land between the lake and the park, which 

would make condemnation within the area difficult. 
184

Surface area of 67 acres, has a normal capacity of 600 acre-feet. Maximum 

capacity is approximately 1,200 acre-feet. Maximum reservoir depth of 43 feet.

Veteran's Trail

The Veteran's Trail follows what used to be the road to the Veteran's Hospital.

Walnut Grove

Between Black Sulphur and Travertine Ranger Station near Monkey Tree. There are 

black walnut trees here. Former site of CCC Camp and tennis courts.

Washington Bridge

This bridge crosses over Rock Creek on Davis Ave. Steel structure on abutments, 

with concrete floor reinforced, the... [Missing pages] (Platt NP 1911). This 

bridge was moved to Wynewood Street, two blocks north, when the current bridge 

was constructed. In June 2004 the Washington Bridge was cut up and removed from 

Wynewood Street. Ken Ruhnke measured the largest span and it is a match to the 

remaining stone abutments (one full height, the other razed to 3 feet of 

riverbed) located under the Hwy 7/Rock Creek Bridge. The plaque that was 

removed shows that it was constructed by Midland Bridge Co. in 1909.

Watercress

Buffalo Spring is well known by locals for its good watercress (Interview 

Stockton 1996).

Wildcat Bend

See Travertine Island

WILDCAT BEND (DOI 1908d)
185

APPENDIX B

PLANTINGS BY THE CCC

COMPLETED BY MARCH 1934

(CCC 1934a)

A. Small Trees and Shrubs 

 Kind Size Where Planted # Planted Obtained

Red Cedar 2 1/2 - 11' Along eastern and northern boundaries. At supt. 

house along Okl. #18 Hwy – Black Sulphur Spring 

- CCC Camp - southern park entrance.

 489 7 miles south of park

Red Cedar Seedling In denuded areas 2,000 Nursery

Privet Hedge 18-24" Along N. boundary CCC Camp 2,200 Nursery

Sumac 2-4' Along park boundaries – Buffalo Spring 15,000 In park

Chickasaw Plum 2-4' Along park boundaries – Buffalo Spring - Island 

picnic grounds

 7,500 

 

In park

Elm 1-2" diameter Along park boundaries – Buffalo Spring - Bromide 

Camp- Central Camp

 2,000 In park

Oak 1-2" diameter Along park boundaries – Buffalo Spring 1,000 In park

Hackberry 1-2" diameter Along park boundaries – Bromide Camp 200 In park

Dogwood 2-4' Buffalo Spring - Along park boundaries - supt. 

House - Island picnic grounds

11,000 In park

Buckbrush 2' Buffalo Spring - Island picnic grounds - along park 

boundaries

 9,500 

 

In park

Flowering Dogwood 1-2" diameter Buffalo Spring - Flower Park - Travertine Creek 230 

 

27 miles S of park

Lemonade Sumac 3' Along park boundaries 1,500 In park

Redbud 4-8' Supt. House - along park boundaries - Buffalo 

Spring - Island picnic grounds

 700 In park

Flowering Crab 3-4' Supt. House - Flower Park - Bromide Camp 10 Nursery

Euonymus 2-4' Buffalo Spring 75 In park

Red Haw 2-6" Supt. House - Flower Park - Bromide Entrance –

Buffalo Spring

 200 In park

Magnolia 5' Supt. House - Flower Park - Bromide Entrance –

Buffalo Spring

 10 Nursery

Austrian Pine 3' seedlings On denuded slopes throughout park - Supt. House –

Flower Park - Bromide Camp 

 1 ,050 Nursery

Shortleaf Pine Seedlings On denuded slopes 1,000 Nursery

Chaparral 2-4' Buffalo Spring - Along park boundaries 500 In park

Holly 5' Supt. House - Flower Park - Bromide Entrance –

Buffalo Spring

 31 Nursery

Blue Cedar 5' Supt. House - Bromide Entrance 5 Nursery

Prostrate Junipers Small Supt. House - Black Sulphur Spring - Buffalo 

Spring

 40 Nursery

B. Large Deciduous Trees

 Kind Size Where Planted # Planted Obtained

Elm 4-11" Supt. House – CCC Camp - Buffalo Spring – City

School – Bromide Camp – Black Sulphur Spring

18 In park

Oak 3-4" Supt. House – CCC Camp 2 In park

Flowering Dogwood 3-5" Buffalo Spring – Main Entrance 4 27 miles S. of park

Hackberry 4" diameter Buffalo Spring 1 In park

Redbud 8" diameter Black Sulphur Spring 1 In park

Red Haw 5" diameter Buffalo Spring – Main Entrance 2 In park

Black Walnut 4" diameter Supt. House 1 In park

Sycamore 6" diameter Cold Springs 1 In park
186

C. Trees and Shrubs in Park Nursery.

 Kind # Planted Size Location Obtained

Red Oak 561 Seedlings In the park

Crae tegus Paracanthous 5 3-5 ' high Outside nursery

Hackberry 10 3-5' high In the park

Red Haw 10 2' high In the park

Holly 5 5' high Outside nursery

Euonymus 5 1-3" high In the park

Privet 102 Cuttings Outside nursery

Red Oak 100 1-2" diameter In the park

Sycamore 50 Seedlings In the park

Sycamore 9 1-2" diameter In the park

Elm 100 1-2" diameter In the park

Buckbrush 35 1-2" high In the park

Red Cedar 262 Seedlings In the park

Burr Oak 451 Acorns In the park

Black Walnut 120 Nuts In the park

Redbud 13 3-5' high In the park

Austrian Pine 200 Seedlings Outside nursery

Austrian Pine 8 3' high Outside nursery

Andena 12 2' high Outside nursery

Short-leaf Pine 200 Seedlings Outside nursery
187

APPENDIX C

VISITATION

1907 

25,000 visitors came to the park 

3,000 campers came by wagon 

1908 

Approx. 25,000 people by rail

1000 by wagon

106,332 at Bromide Springs

Many of these from Sulphur and vicinity

1909 Annual Report

25,000 visited the park during the fiscal year July 1, 1908, to June 30, 1909. 

1000 came by wagon and camped for a period of three days or more. The others 

came by rail. 

141,179 Bromide Spring attendance during the year. Many returnees. 

1911 

877 campers by wagon 

124,956 Bromide Springs 

4,594 head of cattle driven through the park.

1912 Annual Report

30,000 people

754 camped for three days or more, the others coming by rail and stopping in 

the city. Falling off of campers, last year 768. Attributed to the excessive 

drought which prevailed over this section of the country during the past year, 

and the financial stress caused by the failure of crops.

89,365 Bromide Springs attendance 

MISSING PAGES

Report of 1912 

734 campers, camped more than three days

89,371 people visited Bromide

Actual no. of visitors about 31,000

2,000 head of cattle

1913

35,000 visitors 

481 camped for three days or more, decrease of 253 

Greater number of persons came by rail and stopped in hotels and boarding 

houses in Sulphur.

1914

112,667 Bromide Springs 

1915

Estimate that about 18,000 to 20,000 visitors came last year

Fewest visitors yet no appropriation and European War

113,563 Bromide Springs visitors, exceeding last year by 896.
188

1916 At least 30,000 visitors

547 camped three or more days

100,337 Bromide Spring

Since the 1st of July this summer the campground has been crowded, and there 

have been more of them who came in their own cars, and who have the appearance 

of being a more prosperous class of people than at any other year previous 

during the history of the park.

1918

Campers 1,265

1919

107,976

1920 Annual Report

October 1, 1920, to September 30, 1921

The park has never been traveled by so many cars of all kinds and makes

Visitors 107,918 

Hot Springs had 150,000

Campers 689

1920

Visitors 173,318 

90% visitors 

10% home people

Campers 2,981

1921

Visitors 216,022

Campers 10,526

1922 Visitation Bromide Springs October 1, 1922 to September 30, 1923

Visitors 470,841

Campers 74,589 

Automobiles used by campers 18,840

Automobiles used by visitors 50,000 approx.

Visitors 246,998, Campers 23,170

1923 July 4th 18,617 people visited Bromide Springs. The park is becoming very 

popular as a health and pleasure resort.

Visitors 470,841

Campers 74,589

1924 Annual Report

Opening day at Platt was May 23, 1924

Year round park, but thousands of visitors come to enjoy the opening of the 

busy season. July 4, over 20,000 visitors at Bromide that drank the water. We 

feel 550,000 people will visit Platt this year.

Visitors 539,495

Campers 95,272

1925

Visitors 573,522

Campers 43,823

1926

Visitors 248,569 

Campers 45,798
189

1927

Visitors 294,954 

Campers 51,584

1928

Visitors 280,638

Campers 54,314

1929

Visitors 204,598 

Campers 60,985

1930

Visitors 178,188

Campers 64,057 1931

Visitors 325,000 

Campers 68,140

1932

200,471 Visitors 

21,148 Cars

1933 

220,606 Visitors 

27,894 Cars

1934 

233,855 Visitors

1935

235,831 Visitors

1936

235,945 Visitors

1937

284,144 Visitors

1938 

286,488 Visitors

1939 

Visitors 358,240 

Cars 36,092

1940

Visitors 309,749 

Cars 37,979
190

APPENDIX D

PARK SUPERINTENDENTS

Frank C. Churchill Indian Service Inspector 

Joseph F. Swords 1903-1907 Relative of Platt

Albert R. Greene 1907-1909

William J. French 1909-1913 9/11/09

R. A. Sneed 1914-1919 2/14/14 - 6/30/19

Thomas Ferris 1919-1923 7/16/19 – from Supt. Pawnee Indian School

Robert G. Morris 1923-1925

Forest L. Carter 1925

William E. Branch 1925-1926

King Crippen 1926-1930 10/1/26

William E. Branch 1930-1944

Thomas Cal Miller 1944-1951

Perry E. Brown 1951-1954

William Supernaugh 1954-1956

William E. Branch 1956-1960

Johnwill Faris 1961-1963

Paul M. Steel 1963-1964

Donald M. Spalding 1964-1967

Jack E. Stark 1967-1971

John Higgins 1971-1979

Paul V. Wykart 1979-1981

John D. Linahan 1981-1988

Robert W. Peters 1988-1994

Pat McCrary 1994-1995

John Welch 1995-1997 

Gerard Baker 1998-2001

Rick Shireman 2001-2003

Connie Rudd 2003-present
191

APPENDIX E

LIST OF INTERVIEWEES

Ashton Family Reunion

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 15.

Austell, Clifford and Isabell and Ruth DeGroat

1997 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on March 27.

Beaver, Frank and Vinita

1996 Interview conducted by Jacilee Wray on October 1 and by Jacilee Wray and 

Ken Ruhnke on October 16. 

Brandon, Lonnie

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 23. 

Bridges, Doris Payne

1982 Interview by Jamie Pettiti on September 17, 1982.

Brown, Lacy and Eula

1996 Interview conducted by Jacilee Wray on October 18.

Brown, Melvin and Inez 

1996 Interview conducted by Jacilee Wray, with sign language translation by 

their daughter Melba Davis, on October 18.

Brown, Opal

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 18.

Bryant, Ralph [Wichita Mountains NWR]

1999 Telephone interview by Jacilee Wray on July 28.

Cade, Eugene

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 15.

Carter, Darryl

1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts on October 3. 

Carter, Wesley

1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts on October 19. 

Cobb, Truman

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 19.

Colbert, Scott

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 16.

Condriff, Retha

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 11.
192

Corley, Marian

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 16.

Delay, Gene

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 11.

Drury, Gerald and Joy

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 15.

Edgar, Wayne

1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts on October 3. 

Ervin, Cleve

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 3.

Fields, Virginia

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 15. 

Gilbert, Delbert

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 27.

Hicks, Bill

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 19.

Hill, Allen "Butch"

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 20.

Hood, Gene

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on October 11. 

Jennings, Harry

1969 Interview by Palmer Boeger on October 11.

John, Harold Eugene

1999 Interview by Judy Kahlor on March 23. 

Kahlor, Joyce

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 20. 

Kennedy, Fuzz

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 18. 

Lansford, Joe and Maud

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts [Never transcribed].

Laxton, Kathy

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 14.

Little, Ina

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 26.

Long, Harold

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 23 and October 1. 

Paul, John

1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts and Jacilee Wray on September 26.

Pettiti, Jamie

1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts and Jacilee Wray on October 8.
193

Pinkston, Jay

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 10.

Pollard, Earl

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 16. 

Ratliff, Velma Parker

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on October 3.

Ringer, Brenda

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 27.

Rutledge, Joe Deveraux

1997 Interview by Judy Kahlor on May 16. 

Shaffer, Lonnie and Frieda. 

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray on September 27.

Shatley, Ruth

1996 Telephone Interview by Alexa Roberts, September 26.

Sterling, Odessa

1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts and Jacilee Wray on October 14. 

Stockton, King and Julia

1996 Interview by Jacilee Wray and Alexa Roberts on September 17.

Stromme, Phyliss

1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts and Jacilee Wray on October 11.

Underwood, Jerry

1996 Interview by Alexa Roberts on September 27. 

Vanderburg, Gene

1996 Phone interview by Jacilee Wray on September 26.

Wilkins, Max [Wilkins Interview #1]

1999 Interview on June 26.

Wilkins, Tanya (Weavel) [Wilkin's Interview #2]

1999 Interview on June 26.

Wilkins, Ron [Wilkin's Interview #3]

1999 Interview on June 26.

Wilkins, Terry (Gibson) [Wilkin's Interview #4]

1999 Interview on June 27.

Wilkins, Joe [Wilkin's Interview #5]

1999 Interview on June 27.

Wilkins, Rona [Wilkin's Interview #6]

1999 Interview on June 27.
194
195

ETHNOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW

AMERICAN INDIAN OCCUPATION AND USE OF THE

CHICKASAW NATIONAL RECREATION AREA

BY

CLARA SUE KIDWELL
196

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This report was prepared pursuant to contract number 1443PX751097113 with the 

National Park Service. I would like to thank Mr. Gerard Baker, Superintendent 

of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, and Ms. Judy Kahlor, of the 

Travertine Nature Center, for assistance in providing documents and answering 

questions about the Area.

Dr. Alexa Roberts and Ms. Jacilee Wray, National Park Service anthropologists, 

shared the results of their research in Phase I of the Overview.

Ms. Patricia Furnish and Mr. Willy Bauer provided able research assistance, and 

Ms. Johnnie Jacobs assisted with interviews.

Mr. Jefferson Keel and Ms. Glenda Galvan, staff in the Chickasaw Nation 

Cultural Resources Department, were especially helpful in making suggestions 

concerning the interview process.

ABSTRACT

This study examines the protohistoric and historic evidence of the use of the 

cold springs that constitute the heart of the Chickasaw National Recreation 

Area. The archaeology of the region indicates that it sits in an area of 

physiological diversity that has been visited by Native people since the 

seventeenth century A. D. Its mineral springs constitute a distinct part of the 

environment. Early European explorers encountered a number of Caddoan speaking 

peoples, ancestors of the contemporary Wichita and Caddo tribes, along the Red 

River, the Sabine, and the Brazos River of the southern plains and the 

Arkansas, Cimarron, and Canadian rivers further to the north. A number of 

tribes currently located in Oklahoma have had some historical association with 

the south-central part of the state in which the recreation area is located. 

The United States government acquired this territory as part of the Louisiana 

Purchase in 1803 and resettled tribes from east of the Mississippi River after 

1830. The Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes were moved into the area of the cold 

springs. The federal government's policy of allotment led to dissolution of 

tribal governments and distribution of tribal lands. The Chickasaw tribal 

government ceded a tract of 640 acres around the springs to keep them 

accessible to the public. The contemporary tribes of Oklahoma, especially the 

Chickasaw within whose territory the springs lay, have no long standing 

traditions of use of the springs. Tribes that arrived in the area in the 19th 

century brought other traditions. Tribes that lived in the area before European 

contact have experienced such significant cultural change that cultural 

meanings associated with the springs are very different from those of the early 

inhabitants of the region.

MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

The archaeological record for the area of the Chickasaw National Recreation 

Area shows evidence of camp sites dating from about 1600 A. D., but there is no 

evidence of permanent habitation by native people. The Area is located in the 

Cross Timbers region, the mix of prairie and forest that was historically 

recognized as a barrier to travel from east to west. It served as a hunting 
197

ground for bands of Caddoan speaking people who are ancestors of the Wichita 

and Caddo Tribes. The Caddoan linguistic group today comprises the Wichita, 

Pawnee, Arikara, and Caddo languages. Kitsai is an extinct language of this 

group, and Waco, Tawakoni and Wichita proper have been recognized as separate 

dialects in the past.

The Cross Timbers supported small game and small herds of elk, bison, and 

horses, and it served to separate the Wichita people on the western side from 

the Caddo people on the eastern side. Although it was good hunting territory, 

both the Wichita and Caddo lived in settled villages on major rivers and relied 

on agriculture for their primary subsistence. 

Although the contemporary Wichita and Caddo Tribes are recognized as separate 

political entities, when they were first encountered by European explorers they 

were dispersed groups. The Hasinai, Kadoacho, and Natichitoches constituted 

major divisions of the Caddo people, while the Wichita, Waco, Towakoni, and 

Kichai were closely allied peoples. Ancestral groups of the Caddo lived along 

the Red River near the intersection of the present boundaries of Oklahoma, 

Texas and Arkansas. Wichita and related groups lived primarily along the 

Arkansas, Cimarron, Canadian and Washita rivers, while the linguistically 

related Pawnee lived farther north along the Loup, Platte and Republic rivers 

in Nebraska.

First encounters with ancestral Wichita groups were those of Francisco Coronado 

(1540-41) and Juan Oñate (1601) who reached the Arkansas River in their search 

for the fabled Quivira. Bénard de la Harpe, a French explorer, encountered 

Caddo villages along the Red River in 1719. These early contacts led to trade, 

to the spread of infectious diseases, and to movements of native peoples. The 

Osage, who in about 1700 were located on the upper Osage River and south bank 

of the Missouri, obtained guns and began to extend their hunting range 

southward into the upper Cross Timbers region, where they encountered Wichita 

hunters and generally outfought them with superior weaponry.

The Wichita, harassed by Osages and plagued with disease, moved westward, and 

by the 1750s were living primarily along the Brazos River in Texas and on the 

western edge of the Cross Timbers region. This move brought them into contact 

with the Comanche to the West.

By the time of formation of the United States, there had been significant 

shifts in location for the Wichita, the Osage, and the Comanche as groups 

sought to establish trade relations with Spanish and French traders in the 

Mississippi Valley and along the Red and Arkansas rivers. The Louisiana 

Purchase in 1803 brought their territory under the control of the United 

States, and in Thomas Jefferson's mind it also raised the prospect that all 

Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi River in American Territory could 

be moved west of the river to these new lands.

Origin traditions of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes indicated that these 

people had originally lived west of the Mississippi River and that they had 

migrated to their eastern homelands, led by a sacred pole that leaned toward 

the southeast. Hernando de Soto encountered Muskogeean speaking peoples 

identified as the ancestors of the Choctaw and Chickasaw in his entrada through 

the southeast in 1541-43, but historical accounts by European explorers also 

identify Choctaw and Chickasaw west of the Mississippi in the 18th century and 

Choctaw and Chickasaw traditions tell of warfare with the Osage.

The United States government sought to clear Indian rights of occupancy of land 

through treaties, and in 1818 the area encompassing the cold springs that are 

now the heart of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area was ceded to the United 
198

States government by the Quapaw Tribe. The western extent of that cession was 

defined by the meeting of the Arkansas and Red rivers, an area not yet explored 

and one that included the traditional range of the Wichita and related peoples. 

In 1820 the Choctaw Tribe signed the Treaty of Doaks Stand agreeing to exchange 

much of their homeland in central Mississippi for land which the federal 

government now felt it owned because of the Quapaw treaty. Although some 

Choctaw moved west, the majority of the tribe remained in Mississippi. 

In 1830 the Indian Removal Act was passed by the United States Congress, and 

the state of Mississippi extended its laws over the Choctaw and Chickasaw 

nations, effectively outlawing their national governments. The Choctaw were the 

first major southeastern tribe to sign a removal treaty. By the terms of the 

Treaty of Dancing Creek the Choctaw agreed to leave their homeland and move 

west. In 1832 the Chickasaw signed the Treaty of Pontotoc, agreeing to removal 

when they found a suitable territory. In 1837 the Choctaw and Chickasaw signed 

a treaty with the United States government by which the Chickasaw could settle 

in the western part of the Choctaw territory as a district of the Choctaw 

government. In 1855 another treaty allowed the Chickasaw to establish an 

autonomous tribal government, although the land remained held in common. The 

treaty of 1855 also allowed railroad right of way through Indian country and 

provided for the lease of Choctaw and Chickasaw lands west of the 98th meridian 

for the government's use in settling western tribes and those in Texas.

In 1859 the commissioner of Indian affairs ordered the removal of the Wichita 

and related tribes and the Caddo from two reservations in Texas and relocation 

to the Leased District. Raids by Comanche and Texans had led to considerable 

suffering for these tribes. The Treaty of Medicine Lodge in 1867 led to the 

settlement of the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache in the Leased District. These 

treaties thus created more settled communities in proximity to the current 

Chickasaw National Recreation Area, although still at some distance from it.

The Civil War proved disastrous for the tribes of Indian Territory. The Five 

Civilized Tribes, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole, signed 

treaties with the Confederate government, and although some tribal members fled 

north to fight for the Union, most tried to remain out of the fighting. The 

defeat of the Confederacy led to the signing of treaties with the Choctaw and 

Chickasaw that forced the complete cession of the Leased District to the 

federal government, reiterated the right of way for railroads, required tribal 

enrollment for black freedmen, and subjected tribal members to federal courts 

for some offenses.

The passage of the Dawes Act, also known as the General Allotment Act, in 1887 

marked the full implementation of the federal policy of allotting Indian land 

in an attempt to assimilate Indians into American society as individual 

landholders rather than as tribal members. It was perceived that the breakup of 

communal land holdings would destroy tribal identity. The Dawes Act 

specifically exempted the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Seminole and Creek, the 

Five Civilized Tribes, whose treaties had given them title to the land. Lands 

in the Leased District, however, were subject to the Dawes Act, and a special 

commission headed by David Jerome negotiated allotment agreements with the 

Kiowa, Comanche and Apache in 1891. The influx of white settlers into these 

areas because of the sale of surplus land put more pressure on the five tribes 

to agree to allotment. 

In 1893 Congress authorized the Dawes Commission to begin negotiations with the 

Five Civilized Tribes to get them to agree to allotment. In 1895 a law allowed 

the Choctaw and Chickasaw to initiate a suit against the Wichita and Affiliated 

Tribes to recover the money paid for the sale of surplus lands in the Leased 

District. The Wichita replied with a claim to original title to the lands, 
199

denying that the Quapaw had any right to cede the land to the federal 

government in the first place. The original suit was decided in favor of the 

Choctaw in the U.S. Court of Claims, but the decision was overturned by the 

Supreme Court. The Wichita then filed a suit against the United States claiming 

right of original title, but that suit was rejected by the U.S. Court of Claims 

in 1939 because issues of original title were outside its jurisdiction.

The dispute over title did not deter the Dawes Commission from negotiating the 

Atoka Agreement with the Choctaw and Chickasaw in April of 1897. The agreement 

provided for allotment of lands, establishment of town sites, and protection of 

coal and sulphur as resources for tribal members. It also called for the 

establishment of tribal rolls and dissolution of tribal governments in 1906, 

thus paving the way for Indian Territory to become part of a new state, 

Oklahoma. 

The Chickasaw had reason to support the idea of allotment. If they owned their 

land individually they could use it as they pleased, but they rejected the 

Atoka Agreement when it was put to a vote of the tribal membership. They were 

violently opposed to the provisions for enrollment of black freedmen and to the 

granting of land to railroads. They were also, however, a small minority of 

some 5,000 Indians in a population of about 150,000 whites who had moved into 

their territory. 

When the Atoka Agreement was rejected, the U.S. Congress passed the Curtis Act 

(1898), which encompassed the Atoka Agreement and other agreements with tribes 

and mandated that they be put to the vote again. Tribal members voted in favor 

of the agreements, and the Curtis Act formally imposed allotment on the tribes. 

The Dawes Commission established citizenship courts to determine tribal 

membership. The slowness of the process of enrollment, however, led the Choctaw 

and Chickasaw to sign a supplementary agreement with the government, one 

provision of which was the ceding of a tract of 640 acres along the banks of 

Sulphur Creek to protect the mineral springs from exploitation by white 

entrepreneurs who were turning the area into a major health spa and tourist 

attraction.

The development of railroads played an important role in this tourist 

enterprise, and a spur of the Saint Louis, Oklahoma and Southern Railroad was 

brought into Sulphur. The Chickasaw saw the area not as a sacred site but as a

source of impetus for economic development by whites in their territory. With 

their ability to maintain their land and self-government slipping away from 

them, they saw the area of the springs as worth saving from commercial 

development and keeping available to the public.

After the initial Chickasaw cession to set aside the Sulphur Springs 

Reservation in 1902, about two hundred additional acres were acquired by the 

government in 1904. The reservation became Platt National Park in 1906, a part 

of the National Park Service. The area was named Platt National Park in honor 

of Orville Platt, Senator from Connecticut who was a member of the Committee on 

Indian Affairs. 

Although the governments of the Five Civilized Tribes were ostensibly to be 

dissolved with the admission of Oklahoma to the Union in 1907, the work of 

allotment continued, and it was necessary to maintain some semblance of tribal 

government to oversee the distribution of land and to collect funds due to 

tribes. After 1906 the five tribes continued to have official leaders appointed 

by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to sign necessary documents. These pseudogovernments existed throughout the twentieth century until, under the impetus 

of a growing civil rights movement that sought rights for minority groups, 
200

Richard Nixon, president of the United States in 1971, declared that tribes 

could elect their own leaders.

The contemporary tribes in the state of Oklahoma have used governmental powers 

to establish businesses and operate social service programs for their members. 

With regard to the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, the following findings 

are most pertinent.

o The Choctaw and Chickasaw were moved into Indian Territory from other 

homelands, in which they had already had significant contact with

European influences and been subject to policies of the American 

government, including Christian missionaries. Their feelings of 

association with the Chickasaw National Recreation Area are that they 

used it for family events in ways similar to other citizens of the state. 

Although some people assert a general Indian sense of respect for nature, 

there are no special spiritual associations with the places in the 

recreation area.

o The Wichita Tribe maintain a cultural affiliation claim to the territory 

encompassing the Chickasaw National Recreation Area pursuant to NAGPRA. 

That claim is based on historical records and archaeological findings. 

Archaeological evidence to support direct association between 

protohistoric Wichita and the contemporary tribe has been disputed in 

scholarly literature.

o The Wichita moved to the west of the current recreation area in the late 

eighteenth century, and they have no cultural associations with the park 

lands based on current memory.

o Caddo people have no cultural traditions specifically related to features 

of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area.

o Choctaw people, like the Chickasaw, have no associations with the area as 

a sacred site. Their associations are primarily ones that are similar to 

those of non-Indians. Because they moved into the area from another place 

their association is historic rather than part of their original culture.

o Interviews with tribal members indicate no special spiritual significance 

of the mineral springs or the surrounding area. If such significance 

existed for the Caddoan speaking people who inhabited regions in 

proximity to the contemporary Chickasaw National Recreation Area, it was 

lost when the historic tribes moved into Texas. 
201

RESEARCH DESIGN

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objective of this ethnographic overview is to review literature about 

historical and contemporary relationships between American Indian tribes and 

the land and resources included within the Chickasaw National Recreation Area. 

The results of this research will contribute to a comprehensive ethnographic 

overview based on Phases I and II of the project, in addition to this are indepth interviews with knowledgeable representatives of park-associated tribes. 

The study will provide park managers with comprehensive baseline data upon 

which to base informed decisions about resource management, planning, and 

interpretation.

METHODS

The research was carried out using both published and archival historical and 

ethnographic sources and interviews and consultation with members of American 

Indian tribes. The attached bibliography lists sources consulted. The Oklahoma 

Historical Society holdings of Chickasaw Nation records and Department of the 

Interior typescripts were consulted. A survey was made of holdings at the Fort 

Worth branch of the National Archives and Records Administration. Other useful 

sources were the published records of the U.S. Court of Claims available 

through the Lexis-Nexus search service at the University’s law library. The 

study focused on those tribes identified in historical sources as the earliest 

inhabitants of the region between the Arkansas and Red rivers and south of the 

Red River. These groups were Caddoan speaking peoples ancestral to the 

contemporary Caddo and Wichita tribes. The second focus was on the Choctaw and 

Chickasaw nations as inhabitants of the area of Indian Territory encompassing 

the Chickasaw National Recreation Area’s extent. Other tribes identified by 

National Park Service personnel as utilizing areas in Oklahoma that might have 

been associated with the area included Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Delaware, 

Kickapoo, and Shawnee. The Kiowa and Comanche occupied lands to the west of the 

general region, and the Apache, Delaware, Kickapoo, and Shawnee tribes were 

relative latecomers to the state during the late nineteenth century. Given that 

there are thirty-nine federally recognized tribes in the state of Oklahoma, and 

representatives of sixty-seven tribes living in the state, research was limited 

to those most likely to have utilized the mineral springs that constitute the 

heart of the Chickasaw National Recreational Area.

A series of interviews was conducted with knowledgeable individuals from the 

Choctaw and Chickasaw nations during the summer of 1998. Subsequent telephone 

interviews with representatives of the Caddo, Wichita, and Kiowa tribes were 

carried out over the fall and winter. The summer interviews were conducted by a 

graduate student researcher according to a protocol approved by the 

University’s Institutional Review Board, which oversees implementation of 

Department of Health and Human Services regulations concerning protection of 

human subjects. Consent forms were obtained. The individuals interviewed were 

identified through the Chickasaw Nation Community Center, which has a program 

of meals for senior citizens, and through the office of the Chickasaw Cultural 

Center in the tribal complex in Ada. Questions were designed to elicit 

information about community use of the springs and any cultural associations' 

people had with the area. 
202

Phone interviews and other personal contacts were made with tribal officials of 

the Caddo and Wichita tribes and a member of the Kiowa tribe and dealt with 

specific inquiries about their knowledge of the springs and possible cultural 

associations with them. 

Interviews with tribal members knowledgeable about the history and culture of 

the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes were carried out, and members of the Caddo and 

Wichita tribes were consulted for their input. Tribal chairmen and cultural 

resources officers of all tribes mentioned above were informed of the study, 

and chairs of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Wichita, and Caddo tribes were asked to 

review preliminary draft reports.
203

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

The Chickasaw National Recreation Area is the result of a unique combination of 

geography and historical circumstances. Tremendous physical forces within the 

earth's crust folded rock formations from the bottom of an ancient inland sea. 

The resulting uplift of land contained layers of rock through which both the 

receding sea and falling rain could percolate to produce waters rich in 

minerals. The folds produced downward flow and pockets which trapped water. 

Pressure then forced the water upward through vents where it emerged as 

artesian wells. The cold mineral springs of the Chickasaw National Recreational 

Area had distinctive tastes and smells that became associated with medicinal 

properties for the area's historic Chickasaw Indian inhabitants and white 

settlers. This unique environment of the springs produced an oasis that 

attracted game animals. Its name in historical records, the Buffalo Suck, 

indicates its importance as a watering hole (Brown n.d.:9). Evidence indicates 

that various Indian groups camped in the region of the springs well before 

European contact. 

The area around the springs is one of significant physiographic diversity, and 

it is an area that served as a crossroads for native people and European 

explorers. Although it was a hunting ground for native people, it did not 

support either agriculture or permanent habitation. Archeological evidence of 

temporary camps around the area supports its use for hunting. Ancestors of the 

contemporary Wichita tribe are generally accepted to be the people who hunted 

in the area.

Historical records indicate the presence of many different groups of people in 

what is now Oklahoma. Osage, Wichita, Caddo, Pawnee, Kiowa, Kickapoo, Apache, 

Delaware, and Comanche are reported, and before the tribes were confined to 

reservations their members might have visited the area of the springs. The lack 

of historical records of the movements of the groups must make any attempt to 

place them at the springs conjectural.

The history of the creation of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area involves 

the removal of the Chickasaw and others of the Five Civilized Tribes (the 

Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole) from aboriginal homelands east of the 

Mississippi River in the 1830s to Indian Territory, what is now the state of 

Oklahoma, the reestablishment of their tribal governments, and the dissolution 

of those governments in 1907 when Oklahoma Territory became the state of 

Oklahoma. In the course of a little more than a century, Indian tribes went 

from being recognized by the United States as autonomous governments to seeing 

their governments destroyed by actions of the U.S. Congress.

The legal area that constitutes the origin of the park is 640 acres. The 

Chickasaw Nation ceded this land to the United States government in 1902, as 

part of the dissolution of the Chickasaw government and the allotment of the 

land base under the Atoka Agreement of 1897. The act took place in a time of 

extraordinary political stress for the Nation, and it resulted in the creation 

of an area that became part of the public domain and that has been enjoyed by 

members of the American public and Indian nations since the creation of Platt 

National Park in 1906. 

The geographic and historic area within which the park resides is much broader, 

and the contemporary Choctaw and Chickasaw residents of the area around the 

park remember past associations with it. Historical and ethnographic data thus 
204

provide the ethnographic context for interpreting the cultural significance of 

the park from the viewpoint of Indian people.
205

Chapter Two

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE AREA

The most distinctive archaeological site in the Chickasaw National Recreation 

Area is associated with Indians of the southern Plains who were the ancestors 

of contemporary plains tribes. Generally designated as Wichita and Caddo, these 

peoples lived in widely scattered villages and hunted over an even wider range. 

The terms as used in anthropological literature can refer to either language 

groups, as the Wichita are speakers of a particular Caddoan language or as a 

collective of subgroups sharing similar languages. Vehik associates the 

sociopolitical group known today as the Wichita with several distinct early 

Historic and Late Prehistoric cultures representing the Tawakoni, Wichita, 

Iscani/Waco, and Taovaya/Tawehash (Vehik 1992:311).

Called the Lowrance Site after the original owner of the property, the area has 

yielded stone tools, pottery sherds, bone beads, postholes, and animal bones. 

Wyckoff notes that "... the site was inhabited more than once and by groups with 

diverse cultural backgrounds." Both Caddoan and Wheeler focus materials were 

found at the site. The Wheeler complex, a group of sites in western and central 

Oklahoma, dates to about A. D. 1650-1725 and reflects the activities of Wichita 

or Caddoan peoples (Wyckoff 1973:144-45; Drass and Baugh 1997:183-84) [See Map 

1]. 

The location of the Lowrance site is in an area of geological and geographical 

diversity. Within 20 miles of the site are five major physiographical zones--

the Arbuckle Mountains, the Arbuckle Plain, the Ardmore Basin, the Redbud 

Plains, and the Gulf Coastal Plains. It is also located in the Cross Timbers 

transition zone between the Temperate Grasslands to the west and the Temperate 

Deciduous Forest to the east (Wyckoff 1973:5; Shelford 1965:Fig. 1-9). Such 

zones contribute to a diversity of flora and fauna in the park area.

 

The area in which the springs are located, west of the Ouachita Mountains and 

north of the Red River, was historically Indian hunting territory, populated 

primarily by bison and antelope. The degree, however, to which this 18th 

century utilization reflects prehistoric Caddoan-Wichita patterns of usage is 

uncertain (Wyckoff 1973:145). 
206

Chapter Three

THE ETHNOHISTORY OF THE AREA

The wider area of the southern plains within which the springs are located was 

inhabited by a number of people by the time of European contact. Although the 

archaeological record does not support the idea that the springs were a site of 

large scale settlement during the period before European contact, it does 

support the possibility that ancestors of present day Caddo and Wichita used 

the area on an occasional basis. Given the widespread extent of villages 

associated with Wichita and Caddo cultural elements and the difficulties of 

interpreting early historical records of exploration of the southern plains, it 

is very difficult to draw lines of direct, lineal descent between prehistoric 

peoples and current tribes.

In the period from about A. D. 1400-1450 to about 1700, prehistoric Caddoan 

villages were located along the Arkansas, Ouachita, and Red River valleys 

(Smith 1995:7). When first encountered by European explorers, these early 

Caddoan villages depended upon intensive agriculture for their major food 

supplies. They had a hierarchical system of government (Swanton 1996; Pertula 

1992). They believed in a great creator, the caddi ayo, whose name meant "great 

captain above." Their social structure paralleled this belief in a creator. 

Each village had a hierarchical system of governance. Each village had a leader 

called a xinesì. Fire was a central element of life, and a ceremonial fire was 

kept burning in a special house. A pipe decorated with feathers was kept in the 

house (Swanton 1996:210-17). 

The Caddo villages designated each other as techi or friends. The main centers 

of Caddoan population were the Hainai, concentrated along the Neches and 

Angelina rivers in west Texas, and the Kadohadacho along the bend of the Red 

River near the present border of Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana (Swanton 1996; 

Swanton 1942:4-5).

Spanish interest in the reports of a fabulously wealthy province named Quivira 

led exploring parties onto the southern plains. Francisco Coronado's expedition 

(1540-41) crossed parts of what is now Oklahoma, and Juan Oñate (1601) possibly 

followed a similar route, crossing the Canadian River (Weber 1992:1-78). 

Hernando de Soto's entrada (1540-43) through the southeast brought him into 

contact with ancestors of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes. After de Soto's 

death, Luis de Moscosco assumed leadership of the entrada and led it across the 

Mississippi River and into Caddo territory in an attempt to find an overland 

route back to Mexico. In the provinces of Amaye and Naguatex (the native 

names), in what is now Texas, they found Caddoan living in scattered villages 

(Smith 1995:3). Historically, the main villages of the Kadohadacho branch of 

the Caddo were located along the Red River (Smith 1995:6).

Neither the Caddo nor the Wichita were a single unified group of people. Rather 

they formed loose confederations of linguistically related groups living in 

scattered bands. There were two main Caddo bands, the Hasinai and the 

Kadohadacho. The center of Kadohadacho settlement was on the Red River in 

southwestern Arkansas and northeastern Texas, while the Hasinai lived near the 

Brazos River, but their hunting range might have included the area of the 

springs (Swanton 1996:7).

Accounts of the cultures of these groups when they lived in their aboriginal 

homelands come from early historic sources. European explorers found settled 

villages whose subsistence base of farming and hunting supported stable and 
207

complex societies. The early Wichita occupied large, grass thatched dwellings 

that resembled bee hives in shape. Their leaders were men who established 

reputations for generosity and bravery in war. When an individual died, the 

grief of the relatives was assuaged by the scalp of an enemy taken in battle. 

Warfare was an essential element of Wichita life. Tribal ceremonies included 

the deer dance, which was performed until 1871. Participants were men who had 

visionary power, and they ingested mescal beans that induced vomiting. The 

Calumet ceremony involved the use of feathered pipes. Rain bundle ceremonies 

assured the growth of crops and the abundance of buffalo. The "Surround Fire" 

ceremony and the "Small Robes" ceremony allowed men to obtain power from stars 

and animals (Dorsey 1995:7-16).

Extensive Caddoan villages were noted by the French explorer Bénard de La Harpe 

in 1719-20 [See map 2]. The explorations of Coronado and Oñate during the midto late-1500s had established Spanish influence in the pueblos of the 

Southwest, while the French, who dominated the Mississippi River drainage were 

eager to establish alliances with Wichita peoples along the Arkansas River and 

Caddoan groups along the Red and Brazos rivers (Schroeder 1962:2-23; Vehik 

1986:13-33; John 1975:337). La Harpe's route and camps brought him into contact 

with Caddoan groups and into the vicinity of the springs but not directly to 

them (Carter 1995:144-45) [See Map 3]. 

During this time period the Wichita and the closely associated Pawnee were 

located primarily along the Arkansas River basin in northeastern Oklahoma and 

into Kansas (Vehik 1992:311-32) [See Map 4]. By the 1720s Wichita villagers to 

the west and Caddoan villagers to the east hunted bison and antelope west of 

the Ouachita Mountains and north and south of the Red River, but their primary 

subsistence base was agriculture (Schroeder 1962; Swanton 1942:50-60).

The oral traditions of the Wichita collected by George A. Dorsey mention 

buffalo prominently, but there are no references to features that would 

indicate special significance of the springs (Dorsey 1965). The Caddoan and 

Wichita tribal groups lived and hunted throughout the southeastern and 

northwestern areas of the Indian Territory throughout the early eighteenth 

century with relatively little interference from Europeans. By the 1740s, 

however, the Wichita began a migration south from the Arkansas River Valley to 

Texas. Disease and wars with the Osage caused a precipitous decline in their 

population, and their settlements along the Brazos River were relatively small 

(Smith 1996:8-16).
208

Chapter Four

HISTORICAL OCCUPANCY OF THE PARK

The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 brought the majority of the Plains under the 

control of the American government. Thomas Jefferson's rationale for the 

Louisiana Purchase included the idea that this vast western area would provide 

a home for Indian groups who wished to keep their traditional hunting way of 

life. Jefferson distinguished between those Indians who were willing to adapt 

to American culture, which he considered civilized, and those who would remain 

hunters (Sheehan 1973).

In the new American territory, Zebulon Pike explored the southwest and central 

plains region in 1806 while Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explored the 

Missouri River region from 1804 to 1806. Pike's explorations laid the path for 

the Santa Fe Trail. He also recorded vast numbers of buffalo on the Plains in 

what is now Kansas. The historical designation of the area around the springs 

as the "Buffalo Suck" suggests that this could have been an important area for 

prehistoric Indian hunters, but archaeological and historical evidence of 

Indian occupation of the area in the immediate vicinity of the springs is very 

sketchy (Pike 1966:342-43).

After 1830 the area became part of the new homeland of the Choctaw and 

Chickasaw Indians. The pressure of an expanding white population in the United 

States led to governmental efforts to clear Indians from lands east of the 

Mississippi River. The Choctaw signed the Treaty of Doak's Stand in 1820, in 

which they agreed to exchange their homeland in central Mississippi for a tract 

of land bounded on the west by the Canadian River from its headwaters to its 

confluence with the Red River and on the east by the Arkansas River. In order 

to clear this land for the use of the Choctaw, the government had negotiated a 

treaty with the Quapaw in 1818 (Kappler 1972:160-61,192) [See Map 5].

Although a vanguard of Choctaw moved west, the vast majority remained in 

central Mississippi. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson brought Jefferson's idea 

of removal to fruition by pushing the Indian Removal Act through Congress. The 

Act provided that the government would allow the Indian tribes east of the 

Mississippi River to exchange their lands for tracts west of the river where 

they would move so they could preserve their tribal identities and ways of 

life. The government continued to press for a final and complete removal, which 

it achieved under the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, signed on September 27, 

1830 (Kappler 1972:310-19).

The pressure on the Chickasaw, i.e., the extension of the laws of the state of 

Mississippi over Chickasaw territory in 1830, led their leaders to sign the 

Treaty of Pontotoc in 1832. The treaty provided that the Chickasaw were willing 

to move when they could find suitable territory. Until that time, the lands of 

the nation would be held as individual homesteads, but upon removal they were 

to be sold for the benefit of the nation (Kappler 1972:356-57). As the Choctaw 

began their removal to the Indian Territory, they invited Chickasaw 

representatives to go with them and to share their land, but the Chickasaw were 

determined to find land that they could own, and the Choctaw were reluctant to 

sell. Finally, in 1837, after an unsuccessful search for other lands, the 

Chickasaw made an agreement with the Choctaw to buy a section of the central 

and western part of the Choctaw domain for $530,000. The Choctaw agreed that 

the Chickasaw Nation would be integrated as a separate district into the 

government of the Choctaw Nation, a situation that provided identity but not 

autonomy to the Chickasaw (Gibson 1971:175-78) [See Map 6].
209

As the Choctaw and Chickasaw moved into the Indian Territory, the Caddo were 

pushed to the west. They signed a treaty on July 1, 1835, ceding all their 

lands within the limits of the United States, and they moved to Texas (Swanton 

1996:93-95). [See area 202 on Map 5].

The Sulphur Springs were encompassed in Choctaw lands in the southeastern part 

of Indian Territory. The Choctaw were farmers and husbandmen, a subsistence 

pattern they brought from the southeast (Cushman 1962) and whatever buffalo 

still remained in the area were probably relatively safe from hunters. Although 

the springs were a distinctive geographical feature, they had no place in the 

origin traditions of the tribe and may have attracted attention only because of 

their unusual properties.

Finally, in 1855, the Choctaw and Chickasaw signed a treaty with the United 

States government that gave the Chickasaw their own territory and government. 

The Choctaw ceded all claims to territory west of the 100th Meridian, thus 

giving up the large western tract defined by the headwaters of the Canadian 

River that they had been granted by the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, and 

they and the Chickasaw agreed to lease to the Wichita and affiliated tribes the 

district between the 98th and 100th meridians. The Chickasaw district was 

defined as a discrete entity, and the Chickasaw were now owners of their own 

territory with rights of self government, although ownership of the land was 

still jointly held with the Choctaw (Kappler 1972:706). 

The springs now fell within the bounds of the territory newly guaranteed to the 

Chickasaw. The treaty was signed as a condition of the Choctaw's initiative 

(primarily inspired by Peter Pitchlynn) to recover the money netted by the sale 

of the Choctaw lands in Mississippi that had been ceded to the government by

the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (Kappler 1972:706-14; Gibson 1971:217). [Map 

6]. The now independent Chickasaw proceeded to establish their own government, 

based on a constitution calling for male suffrage and a tripartite structure of 

an executive branch, an elective bicameral legislature, and a judiciary (Gibson 

1971:255-58). 

CHOCTAW AND CHICKASAW HISTORY AND CULTURE

The historic Chickasaw homeland was in the southeast of what is now northern 

Mississippi and parts of Tennessee, and the Choctaw occupied the central part 

of Mississippi. The presence of both tribes, however, was evident in the area 

west of the Mississippi River in the 1700s. They readily crossed the river to 

make war on western tribes. La Harpe heard reports of "cruel wars" waged by the 

"Chicachas [Chickasaws]," Osage, and other tribes against the Caddoan tribes. 

The Chickasaw had destroyed a village of "Yatasas" on the Red River (Smith 

1959:251,254). A few Choctaw villages west of the Mississippi were reported by 

government agents in 1801 (American State Papers "Sibley to Dearborn"1805:725).

The origin stories of both the Choctaw and the Chickasaw placed them originally 

west of the Mississippi. The account given by Cyrus Harris, governor of the 

Chickasaw Nation in the Indian Territory, in 1881 derived from his grandmother, 

Molly Gunn. 

The Chickasaws started east carrying with them a long pole, and at 

night the pole was stuck in the ground, erect. Next morning the pole 

would be found leaning towards the east, which they considered their 

guide, and would, from day to day, follow, or travel in the 

direction that the pole leant. Each morning this was continued until 

they reached the place that is known as the 'Chickasaw Old 
210

Fields;'.... When they reached that place, at night, as usual, the 

pole was stuck in the ground as erect as they could possibly put it. 

On the following morning the leader of the party rose early as 

usual.... On examining the pole he found it standing in the exact 

position that it was left the night before. He proclaimed to the 

party that they had reached their future home, and the party settled 

down and made that place their home" (Warren 1904:547).

The origin story recounted by H. B. Cushman in the late 1800s told of two

brothers, Chahta and Chikasah, who led a migration, guided by a sacred pole

that leaned. They crossed a mighty river, and finally separated (Cushman 1962:358; 

Swanton 1931:24).

The Choctaw considered the sun a deity, and fire the sun's representative on 

earth. They used several terms for the sacred, those things that were 

unexplainable. Men carried "totems," or medicine bundles that contained the 

protective ingredients and powers that gave them the ability to deal with 

powerful forces in the world around them. They had a strong sense of the 

spirituality of all natural things. Their primary deity was the Sun, and they 

believed that their souls (the shilombish, or shadow, and the shilup, or ghost) 

persisted after death, but there seems to be no strong agreement as to what 

happened to them (Swanton 1931:216). Their main public ceremonies were 

elaborate rituals around death. The body of the deceased was placed on a 

scaffold to decay, and the bones were then cleaned and placed in a charnel 

house. A great feast followed (Swanton 1931:12-20). By the early 1800s the 

custom of exposing the body had been given up for burial, but an elaborate 

period of mourning lasted for a year after the death.

A Chickasaw warrior named Paustoobee told John Wesley some of the basic tenets 

of belief. "We believe there are four beloved things above: The clouds, the 

sun, the clear sky, and He that lives in the clear sky." He made the Chickasaw 

out of earth, and the beloved things protected them in battle. The souls of the 

dead "walk up and down, near the place where they died, or where their bodies 

lie; for we have often heard cries and noises near the place where any 

prisoners had been burned" (Malone 1922:215-18).

Rush Nutt, a traveler in the Chickasaw country in Mississippi, noted that 

This people use no religious ceremonies, but believe there is 

a first cause to nature, & a state of futurity; of which they 

have various ideas difficult to collect from them.--They 

abound in superstitions, rely much in dreams, omens, 

diviners, & in those who pretend to possess a magic art. Few 

believing that a person ever died a natural death, but are 

killed by the magicians.... They have the most implicit faith 

[in] their doctors, who treat all complaints in one way which 

is by singing magical songs over their patients.... They have a 

belief that there is a hereafter & that all those that are 

good who do not kill, steal, lye &c. will go where they will 

be happy & have plenty--but those who are otherwise will go 

to a place of poverty & scarcity. Their mode of worship if it 

may be called so consists in crying over the dead &c 

(Jennings 1947:47-49).

Nutt also described a dance in which the men wore bells on their legs and the 

women wore five turtle shell rattles fastened to each leg (Jennings 1947:48). 

The description is obviously of the stomp dance, which is still practiced in 

Cherokee and Creek communities.
211

Chapter Five

HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THE 

AREA

The Chickasaw established their reputation as intrepid warriors during a series 

of wars against the Choctaw in the southeast. After Robert de la Salle explored 

the lower Mississippi in 1682, the French established colonies at New Orleans 

and Biloxi and established trade relations with the Choctaw in central 

Mississippi. English traders operating out of Charles Town began trading with 

the Chickasaw, and the two Indian nations were drawn into the colonial struggle 

between the French and the English for dominance in the southeast. During the 

1730s French and English troops with their Chickasaw and Choctaw allies fought 

a series of battles, culminating in the pivotal Battle of Akia (1736), in which 

the French forces were routed (Gibson 1971:52).

As a result of the French and Indian War, the French were forced to cede their 

colonial holdings to the English, and after the Revolutionary War the new 

American government established relationships with Indian nations through 

formal treaties. The Chickasaw signed a treaty at Hopewell in 1786, 

acknowledging American "protection," defining their boundaries "within the 

limits of the United States of America," excluding American citizens from 

Chickasaw territory, and providing that any Indian committing crimes against 

American citizens would be given up to the United States for punishment 

(Kappler 1972:14-15). In 1801, in "a treaty, of reciprocal advantages and 

mutual convenience," the Chickasaw agreed to allow the United States to lay out 

a wagon road through their territory (Kappler 1972:55).

This and similar treaties with other tribes acknowledged the status of tribes 

as sovereign nations within the boundaries of the United States, but they also 

began to define limits of that sovereignty. Particularly in the matter of 

rights of the United States government to access routes through Indian lands, 

the treaties presaged events of the 1860s that would erode Indian tribal 

sovereignty.

Even as treaties were guaranteeing the integrity of Indian lands and the 

protection of the Unites States government afforded to Indian nations, 

historical exploration of the southern plains in the early 19th century was 

primarily aimed at promoting white settlement of the region. Thomas Nuttall, an 

Englishman with an intense interest in botany and biology, explored the 

Arkansas territory in 1819 and described a territory "mild as the south of 

Europe, and a soil equal to that of Kentucky" where wheat would grow "as 

luxuriant as possible" and there was an "unequivocal appearance of health and 

plenty" (Nuttall 1980:21,36-39,84-85,89,103). Such rhetoric helped to fuel the 

growing desire of American citizens for lands even west of the Mississippi.

The Civil War was a crucial event for all the five southeastern tribes who had 

been relocated to the Indian Territory. They had learned and adopted the 

practice of slavery from their white neighbors. They had no particular 

allegiance toward the United States, although they had signed treaties putting 

themselves under U.S. protection. Primarily because of their geographical 

position on the middle border and the status of many of their leaders as slave 

owners, they signed treaties with the Confederacy, and groups of their warriors 

fought against the Union (Perdue 1979; Abel 1992[1915]; DeRosier, Jr. 1959:174-

89). 
212

As a result of the Confederate defeat, however, the tribes were treated as 

defeated enemies and forced to sign treaties with the United States ceding 

parts of their territory to the United States government. In 1866 the Choctaw 

and Chickasaw were forced to cede significant amounts of territory. They gave 

up all their claims to the leased district between the 98th and 100th meridians 

[See Map 7]. They also agreed to grant rights of way to railroads through their 

territory, (an interesting resonance with the 1801 treaty allowing a roadway 

through Chickasaw territory). They abolished slavery, and were compelled to 

devise laws and regulations to admit freed slaves as citizens of their nations 

(Kappler 1972:918-31). 

The western territory that the Choctaw and Chickasaw ceded in 1855 became known 

as the Leased District. The government paid $300,000 for the land, the sum to 

be divided between the Choctaw and Chickasaw, and used it as a new home for a 

number of western tribes who were coming into conflict with white settlers. In 

Texas, economic necessity and general hostility caused the Wichita to start 

raiding the farms of their Texas neighbors. The Treaty of Council Springs in 

1846 was supposed to alleviate these raids by putting the Wichita and their 

neighbors, the Caddo and Delaware, under the protection of the United States. 

However, the state of Texas did not authorize land for a Wichita reservation 

until 1853, settling the groups on the Brazos Reserve. Afterwards, the Texan 

government did not prevent Texas settlers and other Indian groups from 

intruding on Wichita land. Texans and Comanche harried the groups and prevented 

a peaceful coexistence. Texan and Comanche hostility forced the United States 

to move the Wichita, Caddo and Delaware from the Brazos Reserve to the Leased 

District of the Indian Territory in 1859 (Smith 1996:19-69). Declaring that the 

Indians of Texas must be moved "where they can be protected from lawless 

violence, and effective measures adopted for their domestication and 

improvement" the commissioner of Indian affairs ordered their removal to the 

Leased District (Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1859:263-

64). In 1859 the Caddo signed a treaty with the United States government and 

were moved from Texas into the district (Carter 1995:342-49).

In 1872 the government persuaded the Pawnee to move from Kansas to a 

reservation in the northern part of Indian Territory, adjacent to the Cherokee 

Nation (“Pawnee Indians,” 44 Cong., Sess. 1, H.R.241:28-29).

Railroads and cattle drives brought increasing numbers of white men into 

Chickasaw country, and with them came a new economic system for the Nation. 

Railroads had a particularly severe effect on the sovereignty of the Indian 

nations in Indian Territory. Federal policy also brought pressures for change 

as the government attempted to assimilate American Indians into white society. 

Individual land ownership was its model to change Indians from hunters into 

farmers, and the General Allotment Act of 1887, also known as the Dawes Act, 

was signed by President Grover Cleveland on February 8, 1887 (Priest 1942:186). 

It imposed a system of individual land ownership upon Indians through the 

allotment of reservation lands so that Indians would become self-sufficient 

farmers. The act did not, however, apply to the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, 

Creek, and Seminole in Indian Territory because of the treaty provisions in 

1866 that provided for railroad rights of way (Otis 1973:22-30; Priest 

1942:237).

The general idea of the allotment act ignored the fact that many tribes had 

long practiced agriculture, and that some, including the Choctaw and Chickasaw, 

had taken up cattle raising in the late 1700s when intermarried citizens 

brought livestock into their territory. The Choctaw and Chickasaw had brought 

their aboriginal farming practices and their livestock with them into their new 
213

country west of the Mississippi, and in many ways their lifestyles were similar 

to those of their non-Indian neighbors.

The influx of white settlers into the Chickasaw Nation was significant. The 

1890 census showed about 300,000 whites in Indian Territory, 150,000 of whom 

were in the Chickasaw Nation (Annual Report 1900:223-26,245). The nation's 

government regulated admission of whites to land and membership through a 

series of laws (Laws of the Chickasaw Nation 1975:5,25-28). The Chickasaw 

regulated white settlers by charging for a permit to reside in the nation and 

by levying a tax on all goods offered for sale by whites. 

Economic development in the nation probably led to much of the influx of nonIndian settlers. Oil was discovered and exploited by the Chickasaw Oil Company, 

established in 1872, and rich coal deposits were discovered near McAlester in 

the Choctaw Nation. Cattle men from Texas drove their herds across the 

Chickasaw Nation on the Chisholm Trail and other major routes. Many Chickasaw 

took up cattle ranching and became wealthy. The nation developed an elaborate 

code to regulate the ranching industry (Laws of the Chickasaw Nation 1975).

The incursion of railroads into Indian Territory was a major factor in 

undermining the status of tribal governments. The treaties of 1855 and 1866 

compelled the tribes to provide rights of way through Indian Territory for one 

north-south route and one east-west route along the 35th parallel (Kappler 

1972:918-31). Railroads applied for land grants, and in 1870 the Choctaw 

council, in an attempt to thwart outside railway corporations, passed an act 

granting alternate sections of land for the 35th parallel route. The Chickasaw 

refused to assent, thus nullifying the act, but they and the Choctaw finally 

agreed to grant a right-of-way to the MK&T (Missouri, Kansas and Texas, 

previously the Union Pacific Southern Branch), the first rail line to cross 

Indian Territory. The strip of land was, however, only 100 feet wide, far less 

than the railroad expected (Gibson 1971:286,290-91).

Although the treaty provided for only one north-south and one east-west line, 

other railroads saw the economic potential in offering service from Texas to 

Kansas, and the Congress of the United States responded with bills that allowed 

the San Francisco and St. Louis Railroad the right of way for another east-west 

route across the Indian Territory. In the rhetoric of the law, Indians were 

seen as an obstruction to the progress of the United States, and their rights 

to land must be abrogated in order to allow the development of rail lines [See 

Map 8]. 

As Miner concludes:

The year 1882 represented a climax in the struggle for Indian 

sovereignty against railroad intrusion. The congressional 

decision of that year to grant the Frisco railroad a right of 

way through the Choctaw Nation on a route not specifically 

stipulated in a treaty was one of the most significant 

watersheds in the post-Civil War history of Indian policy. 

The precedent was thereby set that Congress might authorize 

corporations to exercise privileges upon Indian lands without 

consulting the tribes. A thing more damaging to the national 

hopes of the Indians could hardly be imagined (Miner 

1976:101).

The tribes had no recourse in their own courts to action against outside 

corporations (Miner 1976:103). The erosion of tribal sovereignty in the face of 

federal legislation authorizing railroad expansion led to increasing demands 
214

for the opening of Indian Territory, the allotment of land to individual 

Indians, and the dissolution of the tribes.

The Chickasaw favored allotment of their land because they were reluctant to be 

forced to make tribal grants to railroads and black freedmen. If they took 

individual allotments they would have individual control over land that was 

jeopardized by federal pressures to make freedmen tribal citizens and to grant 

alternate sections for railroad rights of way. In 1871-72, government surveyors 

marked land for allotment, but the refusal of the Choctaw to agree doomed the 

Chickasaw effort to failure (Gibson 1971:297).

The influx of non-Indians and the presence of freed black slaves in Indian 

Territory created a crisis for the administration of justice. Federal 

legislative acts in 1889 and 1890 dissolved tribal courts, and extended the 

jurisdiction of U.S. courts over all citizens of the Indian Territory. Federal 

courts in Fort Smith, Arkansas and Paris, Texas had exercised jurisdiction over 

U.S. citizens in the Territory. After 1890 tribal court jurisdiction was very 

limited (Burton 1995:109,127)[See Map 9]. 

The allotment of Indian lands in the Leased District was carried out under the 

auspices of the Jerome Commission, which negotiated agreements with the Kiowa, 

Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Wichita, Caddo, and Delaware in 1891 (Smith 

1996:146-47). The opening of these lands to white settlement put pressure on 

the Five Civilized Tribes to submit to allotment. In 1893 Congress passed 

legislation authorizing The Dawes Commission to negotiate with the Five 

Civilized Tribes, who had been exempted from the Dawes Act, to accept allotment 

of their lands. The commission was led by Henry Dawes, senator from 

Massachusetts who had sponsored the General Allotment Act in Congress. 

In 1895 a second act authorized the settlement of outstanding land claims as a 

step toward allotment. This act allowed the Choctaw and Chickasaw to file suit 

in the U.S. Court of Claims for the sale of lands in the Leased District. The 

Wichita argued that the United States had not had the right to give the land in 

Indian Territory to the Choctaw and Chickasaw in the first place because the 

Quapaw did not have the right to cede the land to the government in 1818. They 

were signatory to the treaty only because their villages were near the mouth of 

the Arkansas River. They did not occupy the extent of the territory to its 

junction with the Canadian River, and indeed much of the territory was not 

explored at the time of the treaty. The Wichita declared original title to the 

land and claimed all the proceeds of the sale of surplus land after allotment 

(In the Court of Claims...[1895]:1-9). Although the Court of Claims affirmed the 

Choctaw and Chickasaw claims to the Leased District, the Supreme Court 

overturned its decision in 1900 (Debo 1934:202). This action opened the way for 

on-going Wichita claims to original title to their lands.

The pressure for allotment led to the erosion of the sovereignty of the Choctaw 

and Chickasaw. A major issue for sovereignty was that of citizenship. The Five 

Civilized Tribes all had passed laws governing who could be citizens of their 

nations. The Dawes Commission, however, in 1896 was given the judicial power to 

determine citizenship and compile rolls of tribal members (Burton 1995:180-

224). Another major issue was the power of tribal courts. In 1897 the Congress 

of the United States effectively replaced tribal courts with federal 

jurisdiction under the terms of the Atoka Agreement (Burton 1995:202).

The Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations finally negotiated and approved the Atoka 

Agreement with the Dawes Commission on April 23, 1897. It provided the 

effective plan for allotment of lands, reserved coal and asphalt resources as 

communal, tribal resources, set up procedures for establishing town sites, and 

agreed to termination of the tribal governments on March 4, 1906. The Chickasaw 
215

reserved the right to submit the agreement to a national referendum, where 

tribal members rejected it. Congress then proceeded to pass the Curtis Act 

(June 28, 1898), which subsumed the Atoka Agreement and required that it be 

resubmitted to voters in both the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations (Gibson 

1971:304; Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes 1906:16). The Agreement was 

approved, and the dissolution of the tribal territories of the Choctaw and 

Chickasaw opened the area around the springs to settlement. 

THE PRESERVATION OF THE SPRINGS

The settlement of the area around the springs began with the development of a 

freight and mail line that ran from Boggy Depot to Caddo to Ft. Sill during 

1871-72. Sulphur Springs was one of the stops on the line. Although it lay 

between the Texas and Chisholm Trails, the main routes for cattle drives across 

the Southern Plains, the town attracted men from the drives (Brown and Garrity 

n.d.:7). Noah Lael, a mail carrier on the route between Gainesville, Texas and 

Fort Arbuckle, got a contract from the El Paso Overland Stage Company to shoe 

horses. Lael stopped riding and settled at the Stage Company office at Mill 

Creek, where the company kept an office at the home of Cyrus Harris, governor 

of the Chickasaw Nation. In 1878 he married Lucy Harris, the governor's 

daughter. His home place was adjacent to the springs. In 1882 Lael and his wife 

sold their land for $350 to Perry Froman, a white rancher who married the widow 

Lovinia Colbert Pitchlynn, a member of the politically prominent Colbert 

family. Froman claimed about 4 sections, including almost all the area later 

reserved as the park. He ran about 15,000 head of cattle on the range around 

his home (Conlan 1926:11-13).

The passage of the Curtis Act implied that the process of enrolling the 

citizens of the nations and allotting land to them would proceed rapidly. The 

work of the citizenship courts established under the Curtis Act proceeded very 

slowly, however, as large numbers of claimants came forward. On March 21, 1902, 

representatives of the Choctaw and Chickasaw met with the commission to the 

Five Civilized Tribes to sign what was known as the Supplementary Agreement, 

which modified certain provisions of the Atoka Agreement, primarily those 

controlling the final date and decisions concerning enrollment on the tribal 

rolls. As part of the agreement, the last major section, in fact, the tribes 

also conveyed to the United States "a tract or tracts of land at and in the 

vicinity of the village of Sulphur... not exceeding six hundred and forty acres... 

to embrace all the natural springs in and about said village, and so much of 

Sulphur Creek, Rock Creek, Buckhorn Creek, and the lands adjacent to said 

natural springs and creeks as may be deemed necessary by the Secretary of the 

Interior for the proper utilization and control of said springs and the waters 

of said creeks...." The tribes would be paid $20 an acre for the land (34 Stat. 

641, 57th Congress, Session I, July 1, 1902:655)[See map 10]. 

Why did the Chickasaw agree to this cession? The springs had become a major 

tourist attraction in the area, and the town of Sulphur Springs had grown up 

around them beginning probably in 1885 or 1886. The inhabitants were primarily 

white. In 1895 or 1896, a wooden pavilion had been built over the Seven 

Springs. It became a gathering place for residents of the growing town. 

Sometime around 1891 or 1892, Colonel R. A. Sneed, a Confederate war veteran, 

chartered the Sulphur Springs Indian Territory Resort under the laws of Texas,

1891-1892, with the intent of promoting a grand health resort at the springs. 

Sneed and his investors in the company bought about 550 acres of land from 

Perry Froman for $2,500, land which encompassed virtually the entire existing 

town (Boeger 1987:39-40; Brown and Garrity n.d.:9; Daily Oklahoman 1919; Daily 

Oklahoman 1921; Daily Oklahoman 1926). The development of a railway spur from 

the Oklahoma and Southern Railroad was intended to bring tourists to the area.
216

From the Chickasaw perspective, allotment was perceived as a way of heading off 

assignment of Indian land to freedmen and railroads, but it also opened land to 

white settlements. Initially, the tribe could control settlement because its 

government had to charter business ventures. In 1895 Governor Palmer Mosely 

refused a charter to Sneed's Sulphur Springs Improvement Company on the grounds 

that the company wanted to fence the springs and restrict access (Boeger 

1987:45).

The Atoka Agreement laid out the procedures for developing townsites. A town 

site commission for each tribe was formed, with one member appointed by the 

chief of the tribe, one appointed by the Secretary of the Interior, and one by 

the residents of the town. In 1900, however, the law was changed to allow the 

Secretary of the Interior greater latitude in deciding the locations and limits 

of townsites. The chiefs of the Choctaw and Chickasaw protested this 

diminishment of tribal power and withdrew the Indian members of town site 

commissions (Boeger 1987:45-46) [See Map 11].

By the fall of 1901 the matter of the springs had been taken up by citizens of 

the town, and a proposal was being made to reserve lands to protect them from 

development. Eugene E. White and T. R. Cook, President of the Dennis Flynn 

Republican Club, residents of Sulphur, had informed J. G. Wright, U. S. Indian 

Inspector for Indian Territory, that such a proposal had been presented to the 

Chickasaw National Legislature, and Cook had also written that D. J. Kendall, 

mayor of Sulphur, and Joseph F. Swords, an appraiser, had been appointed to 

confer with tribal authorities (Letters Received, Secretary of the Interior, 

Wright to Secretary of Interior 1901).

Thomas Ryan, acting Secretary of the Interior, concurred with Wright's opinion 

that White and Cook should deal with tribal officials and get a provision in 

the supplementary agreement that would be negotiated (Ryan to United States 

Indian Inspector 1901). Part of the impetus for the reserve may have been 

certain actions by Colonel Sneed (or Snead) that Joseph Swords reported to 

Wright, the Indian inspector. When a reservation of the Sulphur Springs was 

proposed, Snead came forward to represent that the Sulphur Springs Improvement 

Company had rights to the land, and he demanded payment from the occupants. 

Swords reported that some had actually paid Snead "simply for the purpose of 

buying peace," and others could not afford litigation and were "exercised" over 

Snead's demands. Ryan instructed the Inspector to give public notice that 

Snead's claims were not valid (Letters Received, Secretary of the Interior, 

Ryan to United States Indian Inspector 1902).

Given the major issues facing the Chickasaw Nation, particularly the issue of 

enrollment of citizens in the nation, it is understandable that the cession of 

640 acres of land around the springs did not draw more attention from the 

Chickasaw government. The records of its meetings make no mention of the 

reserve. Eugene White informed Inspector Wright that he had taken the matter up 

with the Chickasaw commissioners appointed to negotiate the Supplementary 

Agreement with the Dawes Commission, and that they felt the initiative should 

come from the Dawes Commission. They were interested in matters of national 

importance, primarily citizenship, and considered the reserve only as a 

possible point of compromise in order to secure their desires on the larger 

issues (Letters Received, Secretary of the Interior, White to Wright N1901). 

According to the Atoka Citizen newspaper on November 28, 1901, the ChoctawChickasaw Conference put a 'quietus' to the proposal to cede 640 acres around 

the spring to the government (Brown and Garrity n.d.:11).

Although White submitted a proposal to the Dawes Commission, it was misplaced, 

and he had to recreate it from memory (Letters Received, Secretary of the 
217

Interior, White to Wright D1901). The final proposal for the reserve thus 

originated with citizens of Sulphur, probably to protect public access to the 

springs, was put to the Chickasaw by the Dawes Commission at Eugene White's 

instance, and was accepted by the Chickasaw as part of their negotiating 

strategy around the citizenship issue. 

The Chickasaw land grant caused consternation among the settlers in the 

incipient town of Sulphur because the spring ran through the town, and the 

surveying of the new federal reserve meant that the inhabitants of the town 

would have to be displaced. The structures around the springs had to be 

abandoned. The town of Sulphur Springs was moved to its present location 

(Boeger 1987:53-59).

The dissolution of the tribal governments of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, 

Cherokee, and Seminole nations on March 4, 1906, left the tribes with no 

political power. The continuance of tribal governments beyond that date was 

simply to expedite the continuing process of allotment and disposition of 

tribal resources. 

The Chickasaw people, like the members of the other nations in Indian 

Territory, made the transition to statehood when Indian Territory and Oklahoma 

Territory became a state on November 16, 1907. Developments in the new town of 

Sulphur continued to capitalize on the medicinal properties of the springs, and 

the town sustained its reputation as a health spa. The Chickasaw still shared 

the springs with their non-Indian neighbors. The development of health spas in 

the town of Sulphur continued, and the hotels in the new town continued to draw 

tourists to take the healthful waters of the springs (Boeger 1987:62-66).
218

Chapter Six

CONTEMPORARY ETHNOGRAPHIC IMPORTANCE

OF THE SPRINGS

The Kiowa had a ceremony called Zodaltone which was held at a Sulphur Spring in 

the southern part of the state. Some Kiowa visitors to the park's springs noted 

their similarly to the spring of Zodaltone, but they did consider it a sacred 

site. The more obvious association was with the curing properties of the 

springs. The waters were perceived to cure a variety of ailments - arthritis, 

fevers and rashes. Kiowa also bottled the water and applied it to sores and, 

according to Helen Blackbear, to feet to cure "toe jam" (Doris Duke Oral 

History Collections).

The springs in the Chickasaw National Recreation Area still have importance for 

members of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations. The cultural connection of the 

contemporary Chickasaw tribal members to the Chickasaw National Recreation Area 

is in a general feeling that Indian people have a special connection to the 

environment. 

During the summer of 1998, a series of interviews were conducted with members 

of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations living in the towns of Sulphur and Ada. 

They were identified in consultation with Mr. Jefferson Keel, cultural affairs 

officer for the Chickasaw Nation. Mr. Charley Jones, a member of the Choctaw 

Tribal Council and a spokesperson on cultural issues, was also consulted but 

did not suggest any names or provide any specific cultural information about 

traditional Choctaw affiliation with the area.

Interviewees shared family memories and information about the uses of the park 

area. "So Chickasaw people still come there, they go there for water, they go 

there for the recreation, for the springs, they go for the sandy beach on one 

side and medicinal water on the other side, but we still have as many Chickasaw 

families going today as well, before it was ever thought of as being a park.

Some Chickasaw took advantage of the interest in the therapeutic value of the 

springs by putting up little buildings where people could take treatment. Now, 

the Chickasaw Nation has a motor lodge in the town of Sulphur which allows 

people to have access to the springs. "Chickasaws enjoy staying at the lodge so 

they can visit the park" (Galvan Interview 1998).

The park has family significance for some contemporary Chickasaw. The 

grandparents of one woman moved from Texas to the Sulphur area so the 

grandmother could take advantage of the springs. The family visited the area 

regularly, spending days during which they cooked meals, swam, and enjoyed the 

area (J. Lunsford Interview 1998).

Family memories from the grandparents included the pavilion originally built 

over the springs by white settlers (J. Lunsford Interview 1998). Families today 

still remember family outings and the curative powers of the springs for insect 

bites (Imotachy Interview 1998). People also remember fright at the sight of 

mud covered people at the springs (Woods Interview 1998; J. Lunsford Interview 

1998). Family outings in the park were a regular part of life for some 

families. Breakfasts cooked over an open fire were particularly memorable 

experiences (J. Lunsford Interview 1998). 
219

One man remembered being very familiar with all the trails in the park: 

"... when I was growing up I ran through all the trails. I mean we knew every 

trail in the park and we used every trail in the park." This man and his wife 

still walk park trails regularly, and their concern is that the trails be 

maintained. Some, he said, have been washed out or are dangerous because they 

are not maintained. He also suggested that an informational map at the south 

entrance to the park, where people enter when coming from Ardmore, would orient 

people. He said that people entering the park have to drive all the way to the 

nature center or park headquarters to get information and some simply leave 

because they can't find information (Wallace Interview 1998).

Although the Chickasaw's original homeland was in the southeastern part of the 

United States, in northern Mississippi, some tribal members adapted their 

knowledge of herbal medicines to the Indian Territory vegetation and continued 

to use them to cure ailments. The park area has certain plants identified by 

one Chickasaw woman as having medicinal value. Although these plants are still 

used by some tribal people, they do not grow near the trails in park, and 

access is officially restricted by park regulations that people stay on marked 

trails (Galvan Interview 1998). One woman ended her interview by telling a 

story. "One time I was down there at the park and I found these beautiful 

plums. I make plum jelly, and I sure did want to take some of those plums home 

and make some jelly out of them. Well, I asked this man, he must have been a 

lawyer or ranger for them, if I could take some of these plums home so I could 

make my jelly. He said no. He told me I could eat as many as I liked inside the 

park, but I couldn't take any out. I sure did want to take those home" 

(Imotachy Interview 1998).

The springs also were important for Christian baptisms, a sign of the impact of 

missionary activity on Chickasaw adaptation to non-Indian influence. A woman 

described her experience of being baptized in the "Black Sulphur" stream in the 

park, and the willingness of the swimmers around the stream to leave so that 

the baptism could take place (J. Lunsford Interview 1998).

The main concern expressed by interviewees was that the park reflect the 

special history of the Chickasaw. One person spoke of the feeling of pride she 

felt when the name of the park was changed to Chickasaw National Recreation 

Area (K. Lunsford Interview 1998). Governor Overton James lobbied Congress for 

the name change, and Congress acted in 1976 to expand the park and change the 

name. 

The interviewees expressed a strong interest in having the park inform people 

about the history of the tribe. Exhibits at the nature center were thought to 

be an important way of telling this history. The sense of pride in being 

Chickasaw included the knowledge that the nation had reestablished a 

government, schools, and churches in the Indian Territory after they moved from 

Mississippi (J. Lunsford Interview 1998).

The responses of Chickasaw elders who chose not to give formal interviews 

indicated primarily a concern with the functioning and accessibility of park 

facilities. Several wanted to see the springs restored to their former flows 

and the facilities such as toilets upgraded. All wanted to see the park remain 

free to the public. The park is unique among National Park Service facilities

in not charging a fee for entrance, although boat docking fees on the lake are 

charged to defray maintenance costs. People also thought that tribal members’ 

serving as interpreters or general employees of the park would be good for 

educating the public about Chickasaw culture. 
220

The revival of a ceremony at Kulahoma in the fall of 1998, after a hiatus of 

some 60 years, indicates the vitality of Chickasaw culture. The Choctaw Nation 

has also begun a celebration of traditional culture at Fort Towson. 

PREHISTORIC INDIAN AFFILIATIONS WITH THE AREA

The prehistoric inhabitants of the southern plains encompassed historically in 

the area that became Indian Territory were probably antecedent to the Wichita 

and Caddo confederacies identified by early Spanish and French explorers. The 

passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (P.L.101-

601)in 1990 has provided a legal framework for the determination of affiliation 

of contemporary tribes with prehistoric ancestors and archaeological sites that 

contain human remains and certain classes of material. The inventory for the 

Chickasaw National Recreation Area includes two human skull fragments, one 

recovered from the Brady site in Pontotoc County, 9 miles west of Ada, by H. R. 

Antle, and one from the bed of Buckhorn Creek by O. K. Lowrance. The first was 

donated in 1949, and the second in 1958. Park officials consulted with 

representatives of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, who agreed that the 

remains were not affiliated with either tribe because they predated the 

presence of the tribes in the state. The Caddo, Wichita, and Pawnee tribes can 

claim affiliation based on the location of the remains, but the evidence will 

not support any single tribe's primary claim. 

There is no evidence from ethnographic studies of the Caddo and Wichita that 

would associate the springs with aboriginal use. We can infer that the springs 

as a watering hole that would attract buffalo would create an important hunting 

site for the early residents of the area, but there are no oral traditions in 

the written literature that associate the springs with contemporary tribes 

(Dorsey 1995; Swanton 1931).

The contemporary Caddo Tribe, like the Wichita, has its headquarters in the 

western part of the state, and consultation with members of the tribe has not 

shown any current sense of cultural affiliation with the springs (Scholes 

Interview 1997; Hunter Interview 1998). The contemporary Wichita Tribe has 

established its claims to human remains from the archaeologically determined 

Wheeler Phase sites under the Native American Graves Protection and 

Repatriation Act. Consultation with representatives of the Wichita Tribe 

indicates that after the Chickasaw and Choctaw were moved into the area, the 

Wichita were pushed into the western part of the present state of Oklahoma and 

did not visit the springs on a regular basis (Swift Interview 1998; Baugh 

Interview 1998).
221

Chapter Seven

CONCLUSIONS

The mineral springs that are the heart of the Chickasaw National Recreation 

Area have cultural and historical significance to contemporary members of the 

Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations because they have grown up near them. Current 

tribal members assert a sense of connectedness to the springs as a result of 

very general statements about the relationship of Indian people to nature, and 

because of specific association of family usage of the springs for events like 

marriages and baptisms. The cultural significance derives for some from a sense 

that Indian people have a special spiritual sense of relationship with the 

natural world. Some members of the tribe who still practice the use of herbal 

medicines rely on the types of plants found in the park.

The historical importance of the park lies in the fact that it was created out 

of the circumstances surrounding the dissolution of the tribal government of 

the Chickasaw Nation, a time of turmoil in which the overriding concerns of the 

nation were political rather than cultural. The park is viewed, however, as a 

vehicle for telling the story of the Chickasaw Nation that will reinforce a 

sense of pride in the history and achievements of Chickasaw people in the past 

and the role they have played in the history of the state of Oklahoma.

Contemporary concerns about the management of the park revolve around the 

maintenance of the facilities, the possible job opportunities for tribal 

members to be involved in interpretive programs and other kinds of positions, 

and the importance of keeping access to the springs free for all Americans. The 

general tenor of the comments is that the present National Park Service 

management of the spring's area is very good, and that the personnel have been 

very willing to reach out to Indian people and listen to their concerns. People 

appreciate the fact that signage in the park is in English and Chickasaw. They 

hope that steps can be taken to restore the flow of springs to previous levels, 

i.e., to make the park more as they remember it in the past. Several also feel 

that because the park area was originally created out of land given by the 

Chickasaw Nation, the boat docking fees at the lake should be waived for Indian 

people.

The Chickasaw National Recreation Area has significant potential to affirm the 

cultural and historical legacy of Indian tribes in the state of Oklahoma. The 

National Park Service should continue to seek active consultation with tribal 

members in developing future displays and interpretive programs. 
222

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Galvan Interview

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226

APPENDIX I

HISTORICAL EVENTS

1540 Hernando de Soto’s expedition into present-day Oklahoma.

1601 Onate expedition.

1719 Bernard de la Harpe’s expedition into present-day Oklahoma and Texas.

1818 Quapaw ceded land in present-day Oklahoma to the United States for the 

settlements of the Five Civilized Tribes.

1819 Thomas Nutall explored the Arkansas Territory.

1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek.

1832 Chickasaw agree to removal in the Treat of Pontotoc.

1837 Chickasaw removal to Indian Territory.

1855 Chickasaw become a separate nation from the Choctaw.

1861 American Civil War. Chickasaw side with the Confederate States of 

America

1866 Chickasaw and Choctaw give up territory and allow railroads to enter 

their Nations in the Choctaw-Chickasaw Treaty of 1866.

1884 Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe railroad passes through the Chickasaw 

Nation.

1887 Congress passed the General Allotment or the Dawes Severalty Act.

1891 Jerome Commission surveys Kiowa and Comanche land and prepares to groups 

for allotment.

1893 Dawes Commission charged with negotiating with the Five Civilized Tribes.

1897 Atoka Agreement between Dawes Commission and the Chickasaw and Choctaw.

1898 Curtis Act.

1902 Supplement to the Curtis Act. Sulphur Springs Reservation 

established.

1906 Sulphur Springs reservation is renamed Platt National Park.

1907 Oklahoma statehood and dissolution of the Chickasaw government.

1971 Chickasaw Nation is allowed to have its own autonomous tribal government.

1976 Platt National Park is renamed Chickasaw National Recreation Area.
227

APPENDIX II

MAPS

1. Selected protohistoric and early historic sites on the Southern Plains. 

Richard R. Drass and Timothy G. Baugh, "The Wheeler Phase and Cultural 

Continuity in the Southern Plains," Plains Anthropologist, 42, No. 160 (May 

1997):185.

2. Indian groups of Texas. WW. Newcomb, Jr., The Indians of Texas: From 

Prehistoric to Modern Times (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961), 281.

3. Benard de la Harpe’s Route.

R.A. Smith, "Account of the Journey of Benard de la Harpe: Discovery Made by 

Him of Several Nations Situated in the West." The Southwestern Historical 

Quarterly 62(4) (April 1959), 533.

4. Indian, Spanish and French settlements in Texas, in 1774.

Elizabeth A.H. Johns, Storms Brewed in Other Men’s Worlds: The Confrontation of 

Indians, Spanish and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795, (Lincoln: University 

of Nebraska Press, 1990) 70.

5. Arkansas (Map 5a), Louisiana (Map 5b) and Indian Territory and Oklahoma

(Map 5c) Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the 

Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1896-97, (Washington: Government 

Printing Office, 1899), pl.cxii, cxxviii, cxxxv.

6. Indian Territory, Removal to 1855 (Map 6a) and Indian Territory 1855 to 

1866 (Map 6b). Francis Paul Prucha, Atlas of American Indian Affairs, (Lincoln: 

University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 70-71.

7. Territory ceded by Quapaw in 1818, encompassing area of the springs.

Charles Royce, Indian Land Cessions, Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of 

American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Secretary of the Smithsonian 

Institution 1896-97. Part 2, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1899).

8. Sulphur Area, Range No.3 East of the Indian Meridian, courtesy of Tom 

Williams, Choctaw Nation.

9. Chickasaw Nation circa 1898. Daniel Littlefield. The Chickasaw Freedmen: A 

People Without a Country, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), 78.












240

APPENDIX III

CHICKASAW AND OTHER TRIBAL TREATIES

Treaty with the Quapaw, 1818, Kappler, Indian Treaties, 160-161.

Treaty with the Chickasaw, 1830, Kappler, Indian Treaties, 1035-1040

Treaty with the Chickasaw, 1832, Kappler, Indian Treaties, 356-62.

Treaty with the Chickasaw, 1832, Kappler, Indian Treaties, 362-64.

Treaty with the Chickasaw, 1834, Kappler, Indian Treaties, 418-25.

Treaty with the Choctaw and Chickasaw, 1837, Kappler, Indian Treaties, 486-88.

Treaty with the Choctaw and Chickasaw, 1854, Kappler, Indian Treaties, 652-53.

Treaty with the Choctaw and Chickasaw, 1855, Kappler, Indian Treaties, 706-14.

Treaty with the Comanche and Kiowa, 1865, Kappler, Indian Treaties, 892-95.

Treaty with the Choctaw and Chickasaw, 1866, Kappler, Indian Treaties, 918-31.







































280

APPENDIX IV

INDIAN LAND ALLOTMENTS