Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1889-04-25
@9QsS55 500
ASSOCIATED PRESS DISPATCHES.
TerribIe Sfate of FAIRS,

ARKANSAS CITY, Kan, April 25.-Chaos
reigns not only In Oklahoma but 10 the
entire tributary country. The railroad is
FRUSTRATED; communications are entirely cut
off, The Western Union with it's crush of
train dspatching would not touch mess
age of any other character in the territory,
though the earth swallowed town site.
Guthrie's back seems broken and there is
furious stampede to get out. People there
are wild from the deprivations that lack of
shelter, water and food impose upon them.
To these distres9es are added the misfor
tunes of tempest, heat and the absence OF
means of fight. A train of twenty cattle
cars from the south has reached Willow
Springs. The cars were locked, but upon
the roofs, the buffers, amid the coal on the
tender, on the pilot and gangway of the 10
connective, and packed in and upon the ca
boose, was dense and miserable tbrong Of
men. The train from Guthrie had started
with its strange lead at 6 o'clock in the
evening The people were fleeing practi.
cally for their lives. They bad added 10
long periods of priya:ion the suffering of II
hou:s without food CT protection from the
cold. No trains had passed them, and none
was in sight behind. They had left howl
ing mob in Guthrie be tilsd in its efforts to
join in the fight. Trains are piled with
fugtives, thirsty and famine stricken, and
Arkansas City s crowded az it was before
the descent. Some experiences are pitiful.
A terrible storm last hight raised the miser
| les OF Guthrie to almost horror. A violent
| wind arose as the sun sunk and filled the
air with the sitting red alkali dust that
strews the plain. deluge OF rain sue
ceeded, and through the night it beat upon
the thousands of shelterless. The railroad
is utterly incompetent in the emergency,
and is delivering baggage and express too
slowly to be of use to the unprotected. The
fugitves cheer with joy as they aight here,
and rush to The hydranis and eating houses
Curses are heaped upon the region and the
government marshals, Needles and Jones.
are execrate6 without stint for the theft of
the land, Rnd the railroad is denounced for
| its feeble service. Guthrie is without form.
The original streets have disappeared and
new sections are being plowed every hour.
| Values have fallen to practically nothing.
and confidence is at low ebb. Those who
are not going home announce their inten
, ton Of moving upon the Cherokee strip and
report that hundreds OF boomers in wagons
have already done so. Scores of men sur
rendered their claims to lots in Guthrie
without an effort to preserve or dispose of
them The south bound train arrived after
time crowded with pilgrims for Guthrie,
and few could be dissuaded by the
lamentations of the fugilives. 1t ia
at present impossible to predict what
the next few days will deyelope in Guthrie.
A number of claims have been deserted 10
various parts of the territory and wagons
can be seen frequently on the back trail.
Many of.the disgrr Atled threaten to squat"
on the Indian lands surrounding Oklahoma.
some will fall back on the Cherokee strip,
others will go down into the Chickasaw
couutry and lease farms from the Indians.
That country Ia being rapidly settled by
farmers who pay an annual head right or
lease for the privilege of filling the soil
there. The country ia 40 much superior to
Oklahoma as is the Cherokee outlet, and
there Is great deal of complaint among
boomers that the poorest land in the Indian
Territory should have been the only land
opened to settlement. Twenty claims have
been deserted in one neghborhood, and last
night in the depot at Oklahoma City a
broken homesteader offered to sell his claim
for S25. The contest and excitement over
town sites continue and much trouble is
promised for the future.