Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-04-29
A RUSH FOR HOMES.
Opening of the Cheyenne and Ara
pahoe Reservations.

Opening of the Cheyenne and Ara
pahoe Reservations.
A dispatch from Guthrie, Oklahoma, says !:
"Ihis morning found the Cheyenne and
Arapahoe country wide stretch of land,
appropriated and lonely. Tonight this great
expanse of prairie is settled at every stones
throw"
At noon Governor Seay, in the watch
tower at Ell Reno, dropped the signal flag,
the battery belched forth the signal to the
waiting thousands and the wild race began.
How they yaD did hill ths npd so tRe
dale dale through the little rivuiets that
threatened to be torrents before night. No
trouble of any sort, no disturbances, oc-
Cured on the line Of the opening. About six
thousand people made the race from west OF
1000 from the line of the Wichita reservation
west of Minco. Three thousand from Rover,
as many from Hennessy, and about as many
as all these went in small squads all along the
line from the Cherokee strip on the north,
the Panhandle Of Texas on the west. and the
Kiowa Indian reservation on the south.
A riot occurred in front Of the Oklahoma
City Land Office at the hour Of the opening,
and a number Of people were badly in
jured. At ~ o'clock the register, Leach, an
nounced that no lines would be recognized.
and the first person to get in the door
would have the first fling, and Others in
successor as they arrived. This pre-
cipitated wild rush, and i'll a few moments
hundreds of men and women were engaged Id
a disgraceful scramble, fighting, pulling,
trampling on each other, and for a time 1t
seemed as though many would be killed.
One man was struck on the head with a re
vOlver and badly injured, but he remained
in the ring and got the eleventh filing. He
had been third in the line, but sold his place
Tor $3.50 in the morning.
ha6 clothes
pieces. and several men were trampled on
and injured. Windows OF the Land Office
were smashed and other damage done.
The Cheyenne and Arapahoe Reservation,
where 30, 600 citizens of the United States
have just found new homes, is situated in
the Indian Territory, between the Cherokee
Outlet on the north and the Kiowa, Com
manche and Apache Reservation on the
south. Its eastern border adjoins Oklaho-
ma and its western the Panhandle Of Texas.
Its area is much greater than is generally
understood to be. It would make two Okla
homas or five Rhode Islands, while the
whole States of Connecticut and Rhode
Island could be set in it and there would
still remain room for four Districts of
Columbia.
The tract contains $500 square miles or
1000. 900 acres Out Of this the resident In
dams have been allotted by the Government
$50, $50 acres, giving to each OF the Indians
$50 acres. There was thus left for general
settlement about three and a half million
acres, which, allowing-a quarter section or
$50 acres to each home seeker, would accom-
date about % 600 settlers outside of the town
sites.
Very few of the thousands who had been
waiting for weeks on the border and in the
frontier towns for the final rush had any
thing but the vaguest idea as to the real
character Of the land they were so anxious
to possess.
When they had reached their claims and
had staked them off, and had taken the op-
portunity to survey their broad acres, they
found that instead OF Garden of Eden,
promised land flowing with milk and honey
as they had fondly believed, they had really
possessed themselves of a section of very or
binary Western prairie land, flowing with
nothing but high grass ami very brackish
streams bitter with alkah.