Morning journal and courier., 1889-04-23
THE STAMPEDE FoH oKLAHomA.

THE STAMPEDE FOR OKLAHOMA The Gates of the Promised Land Art ! opened to the Eager ThronE-Tht | Trains Crowded and Hncomparabls l i'm Lengsh-Acres of White-ToPped For Homesteads.
 1 ST. LOUIS, April 22.-The Republics sps. I cial from Arkansas City says:
 l The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe rail- road began running it's sectional trains out of Kansas City last night and picking up cars at almost every station along the road. Hun dreds of people were waiting at every depos and if the cars, all of which were filled before the border line was reached, should have been coupled, they would make a train miles in length. The crowd was composed of specu-
 lators, adventurers, sight-seers, thieves, gam
 blers and sprinkling of the demi- monde.
 The farming element was largely represented
 as all the homesteaders have gone before
 There were men in the cars from every great and important city in the country and there was not State or territory in the country which did not have it's representatives. At Arkansas City there were over seventy-fve coaches tracked in the yards awaiting the rush. The crowd began gathering on the platform two hours before daylight and long before the first faint streak of the dawn of the fateful day the city was awake and stir ring. The streets presented live and pie crowds were rushing toward the center of action from all parts of the city.
 Every car was greeted with tremendous
 ,ioI, <o 1a
 tached to the newspaper special car pulled out and there was a simultaneous rush of two or three thousand men towards them. They were filled to overaowing in less than half minute and 8 countless throng was struggling for place. It was in vain for the officials to say that trains would run in sections fifteen minutes apart. Every man there wanted to be fifteen minutes ahead of everybody and not fifteen minutes behind anybody. The first section made up con- sisted of nine coaches, the next the news paper coach and one caboose. It pulled out at s:45. The train ran slowly as there was great danger of misplaced rails and switches or instructions of various kinds the track. It was $40 when the sign which marks the State line and the dividing line from the Cherokee strip was reached. It was greeted with loud cheer. There were no Indians to be seen until Willow Springs was passed, when 8 wagon load of bucks of the Poncha tribe passed up the trails who re- sponded to the shouts and cheers of those on board the train with sullen looks and gesticu- lations of defiance, as not evidently pleased at the coming of the pale face.
 Along the Pawnee trail the train also pass- ed caravans of in-comers' wagons many going south, some returning towards Kansas. At the last station outside of the Oklahoma ter ritory there was 8 great crowd of boomers who had forsaken their teams and hoped to get in quicker by rail. There being no room o1;, bad <<>k k6af f<r, ,pftI, and the entire train was lined with them. In this way the line was reached about five minutes after 12 o'clock.
 Before the State dead line was reached and passed, however, the great transformation scene had begun and was plainly visible to the watchers from the train. First came in view the white topped wagons gathered to- gether in groups in the level prairie or in the little valleys. It was at once noticeable that the teams were not to be seen in any of these camps and it was plain they had been taken out of the harness to be ridden across the bor- der by the hard riders who were te locate claims. A little further on and this conclusion was proved to be correct, for the entire face of the country far the best field glass could carry the sight was overrun with horsemen gallopins to the southward. Their Aeetest horses had been picked for the
 work, and they were carrying their riders rapidly to the longed-for goal Rides of 15 or 20 miles were made in an incre dibly short
 time by old boomers familiar with the coun-
 try and who knew where desirable lands
 were located. The day was cloudless, and far away on the horizon, both to the east and
 west, clouds of dust could be seen ascending
 from the hoofs of hundreds of horses rushing toward differnt destinationsin most cases, but some of them toward the same. One race for goal could be distinguished. The rid-
 CTS were apparently evenly mounted. They were neck and neck for mile or two along the trail as far as could be seen.
 The train stopped at a military post, where
 the white tents of the troops and the officers
 tents surrounded by the national colors were gratifying evidence of @ power sufficient to maintain order. Troop "D", 9th Cavalry, was quartered there and the officers said that at
 the sound of the bugle at high noon there had been a movement among the boomers camped
 along the border which had extended across the entire frontier line and that the din had
 been fast and furious ever since some other prospectors running to Guthrie to file their entries.
 The scene was one of the most stirring and picturesque ever witnessed. The smoke of 8 myriad of camp fires lighted to cook the first meal in Oklohoma began to ascend in all directions, and before the first train of land speculators rushed to the future great city of Guthrie, the farmer had already become the
 possessor of great deal of the land and more than one farrow of virgin soil out of the land which had never before been tickled by the blow was turned over to the sun which has made the day glorious as well as memorable.
 It was 1920 o'clock when the first section of the great Atchinson train reached the line and it's progress from that point on to Guthrie was not rapid enough for the rapid men who wanted to get there in hurry be- fore all the cream was ekimmed off the milk. Nevertheless it lacked but few minutes of one o'clock when the train stopped in front of the Guthrie depot.
 Before the train came to 8 standstill it
 was seen that somebody was already there, in fact the town was already we'll populated. Tents were numerous on the eastern slope and stakes were sticking up out of the ground like poles in a bean patch. Men
 could be seen riding in all directions and the
 scene was busy and animated. The profan-
 ity among the Arkansas City, Wichita and other spectators was both loud and deep.
 If there has been prospect to shooting at
 anytime to-day it was when these men found
 themselves baffied at the game of freeze-out,
 but they swallowed their wrath.