Huntsville gazette., 1889-04-13
WANTED: A HOUSE.
The Peculiar State of Affairs
at Oklahoma.
TROUBLE EXPECTED FROM THE
GREAT RUSH.

Sixty Million Acres will not be Enough
| to Go Round-The Entire Army Can
not Drive the Boomers off - Filing
Entry of Claims Des cription of the
| Territory.
WASHINGTON, d. c., April 12-Noon-
April % I!
The general land office is making every
effort to get the land offices King Fisher
Station and Gustino ready for business
on that day when Oklahoma will be
opened, but it is going to be pretty diff
cult No postoffice is open at either
place At Gustino a postofice has been
ordered, but the postmaster has not yet
filed his bond and there may be some de-
lay III getting the Office opened. The
general land office has sent quantity of
documents to the Oklahoma offices by
mail and they are stuck somewhere in
Kansas. Unless they get through pretty
soon duplicate shipment will have to be
made by express The office here is not
Informed whether King Fisher Stage Sta
ton possesses a single building of any
kind. 1t is twenty-five or thirty miles
from a railroad and the facilities for
building houses are not the best, but if it
is learned in a day or two that there is
not an edifice in the future metropolis of
Western Oklahoma the general land Of
fee will buy portable house in Caldwell
and ship it i'll sections and set it up some
time next week.
No end of trouble is anticipated from
the enormous rush into this very limited
tract. There are only about 0,000 quar-
ter sections, and about 100,0 900 people
have made all their arrangements for
invading the promised land the mo-
ment the president of the United
States drops the hat 1t is true that
many of these will be prospectors and
spectators. and money lenders of all
kinds; but the most reasonable estimate
that can be made puts about five claim
ants on every quarter section. For every
well watered and well situated quarter
section there will be a dozen claimants,
and they will all initiate their claims SO
nearly simultaneously that, as the only
witnesses will be rival claimants, it will
be simply impossible to determine who
located first and hundreds of disputes
will have to be settled by a primitive ap-
peal to force.
The homesteaders who first make their
settlement, and take their time about
making their filing, will find themselves
in contests with other men whose entries
were filed earlier. The homesteaders
who 90 first to the land office will find,
when they get back to their coveted 100
acres, that two or three other men are in
possession and quarreling over it. 1t
viii be the wiser course for every man
who wants slice of Oklahoma to get ON
to it at the earliest possible moment on
April %, and devote himself to making
a burrow or hut, and making up little
ground for a crop. He has three months
after making his settlement in which to
file his entry, and the most essential
thing for him to do is to make his settle
ment.
Besides register and a receiver at
each land office there will be for the pres
ent an Inspector, and there may be
special agent Every effort will be made
to transact the business at the land Off
ces rapidly and accurately, but some
where between four-fifthS and nine
tenths of the people, who are going into
Oklahoma a week from next Monday
will get no land, because there will not
be enough land to go around. They will
have to do something, and they will be
certain to camp down upon all the unoc-
cupied land of the civilized Indian tribes.
1t is very doubtful if the government
would attempt to drive them off these
lands with the bayonet, and nothing less
than the entire army could accomplish
it. The boomers will get the land and
the government will probably settle with
the Indians.
The Cherokee outlet, containing some
5000, 900 acres, may be thrown open by
the presidents proclamation as soon as
the commissioners and the Indians can
agree on the terms of cessiOn; and as this
tract is three times as large as the portion
of Oklahoma that will be opened on the
23d, it would, if opened, promptly afford
relief to the throngs that will be inside
Oklahomain two weeks.