Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-09-23
VOL. XIV. NO. BIB

securing piece of land. Tomorrow the
various elements will arrange themselves in
| their classes again. To-day they were all
/ OF one class, land-seekerS.
: A half hours dilicent work would have
sufficed TO prepare the most deliberately
| equipped boomer for the race into the new
country, but preparations were begun
long before the hour of noon. Horses
We're hitched, wheels were creased, saddle
glrths cinched and everything made snug
rs early as 10 O'Clock so anxious was every
one To be in readiness 10 move AT the ap-
pointed hour, WAGONS were shifted
TO new positions, whence thelr
owners thought they could make
more advantageous move, for upon
each slight advantage depended possibly
the securing of prizes upon each disad-
vantage depended the failure to secure.
Time passes slowly in face of expectancy,
and the mornings hours dragged .heir
dreary lengths ont 10 an interninahic degree.
III seemed as If noon would never come.
In face of thc SiuwncSS Of the passage OF
time the calm demeanor Of the United States
soldiers stationed around, inside the border,
for the purpose of eXcludin" hOme-seckers
until the noon hour, was eNaSperatiug.
They paced backward and forward Is in
different, seemingly, rs If the opening Of :,
million acres OF land was an everyday oc-
curreucc. But when the noon hour did
arrive all the Pcut-up excitement found
vent III the firiu" of rcvolycrS and rifles,
shooting, singing and cracking Of whips aud
furious driving. Running hursrmeu, OF
course, hadt ne advantage over every other
uIdn in the race, and most of the racers were
horSemen who had gone To the border III
Il prairie schooner with his family, left hi.
schooner family and one horse on the
border and mounting the other became =
hOrseman. After lOca-inG his claim he will
return ana direct his possessions 10 hi, new
home Men who came 10 the new place with
nothing but money purchased saddle horses,
ponies, mules or any kind of an animal that
would carry man, while others rented
them. Some of the more desperate cowboys
mounted steers, and The latter, juiuin. in
the stampede, carried their riders 10 the
interior. while others We're unceremOniously
uuhorScd or unStcercd not far from the bor-
der.
Boomers had gathered for the race most
~ at Tahoe, on the Iowa border directly
east of Guthrie, and al LangS;ou on the mid.
die of the northern Iowa border. inside the
boundary of the Kickapoo reservation tnur
included in the opened landl and II
point on the I'ottawattUmle border dI-
rectly east of Purcell. the most desirable
of the land Is situated in the Iowa and Sao
and Fox reservations, and the greater NUM-
Der OF boomers naturally cOnEregated
around them
The boomers We're distributed among tina
various starting points about as follows:
AT rahOe 1900; LaugStou. 1900 negroes
and 800 whites; on the Kickapoo border,
5000, and on the Pottawatome border, 2OOJ.
The aliotments to the PoltawatOmic Indians
nearly exhausted the lana in their reSerya
ton, so that hOmescckcrs had little chance
of locating Il claim there.
At langStOn the ncgrnS had been gath
cred by negro colonization society there 10
the number of 1900, and they were to move
en- masse into the Cimarion valley, most
fertile region. and locate in a bunch. Five
hundred whites, mostly cowboys. also had
their eyes on that section. and each party
had made all sorts of threats of taking the
land by force.
y force of deputy marshalS and deputy
sherifTS under the sheriff of this county had
been dispatched there To preserve order ana
it IS believed that they will be able TO main
tain the peace.
One of the unique sights 4, Tahoe was 4
company of young ladies' from Guthrie who
had formed Il colonization company TO pro
coed to the new Lands and settle on adioiu-
ing claims. They We're mounted on
TEXAS PON1E>,
and were attired as much Is could he in
cowboy style. with revolver and equipped
for camping out They made the race in 4
bOdN
SO far as has been aScertained up TO the
present time, no serious conflict mas taken
place between rival claimants, and the
country has been peacefully occupied.