The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1894-03-03
Grand Rush Toward the Strip Dur
ing the Month of March.
TOWNS BUILT IN A DAY
An Active, Well Built, Thriving City of
Ten Thousand Inhabitants Erected
in Three Months.


other month rolls around the roads
leading from Kansas, Nebraska and
Missouri on the north and from Texas
and Arkansas on the south into the far
famed Cherokee strip will again be
lined with white-topped wagons, each
carrying a family and household goods,
a chicken crate strapped on behind,
perhaps an extra horse or few cattle
following in the rear; by day hurrying
forward by night camping by the road
side, all eager 10 take up their abode
in the promised land.
OF the hundred thousand or more peo-
pie who rushed into the strip on that
memorable 10th of September large
portion were men who had left their
families behind. They picked a claim,
filed on it, made a few improvements
and then went back to spend the cold
months of early winter at the old home.
Now they are coming with family and
goods TO begin permanent residence
upon the newly acquired farms for the
six months allowed by law, for this will
expire March 16.
The great majority who came in on
opening day, prepared to stay, went to
the towns, for the only sure way to
hold town lot is to remain on it from
first to last. Thus it was that towns
sprung up into prominence on every
side-cities born in a day, municipal
government organized and put in force
in an hour.
OF the score or more of towns that
have attained the growth of a dozen
years in half as many months Perry is
the largest and most wonderful. At
morn an unbroken and uninhabited
prairie; at eventide sea of tents and
a struggling, iostling mass of $4,000
people; in week a conglomerate mix
ture of tents and sheds as far as the
eye could reach; in a month a busy,
busting, active, we'll built, we'll con-
Quoted city of 10000 population.
Such is the history CT Perry, a NUM-
cipal career beyond all belief, seven
days wonder TO those who have seen,
an incredibilitv to those who have but
heard. There are residences that
would do credit TO any city; business
buildings, substantial and commodious
filled with stocks of goods, doctors ant
lawyers galore, half dozen churches. ar
opera house, board of trade, a variety
theater, the Salvation army, and every
other feature of big town, all brought
here in less than half year, yet al
having an appearance of solidity ant
stability that is really startling.
And what is true of Perry is true, IL
greater or less degree, of every on,
of the strip towns. There are Newkirk
Round Pond, Alva, Woodward, Pawne,
and Enid, whose people have alread,
undertaken TO fight to the finish
might railroad corporation, all count,
seats.
With churches from the first Sunda,
of their existence, with graded school
in every town, before sixty days o. thei
existence had passed into history; will
municipal governments, good society
preparation for the putting in of water
WORKS and electric light, and even agi
tation for streetcars, these towns ar
certainly all that could be desired in S
short period of existence.
Hundreds who went in with the rusl
left in disgust within few days; othe
unlucky ones, who spent their all Il
securing nothing, tramped their wear,
way back to friends in the states as III,
chilly winds of winter began BLOWN,
through their frowsy whiskers, but III,
thousands who remained have farce
comparatively well.
As one drives about over the land tina
has for century been only the hunting
ground of the red man or the pastur,
land of the cattle baron, he sees every
where the mark of improvement, the
signs of agriculture. The farmer ha,
come into possession of the land.
Every travelled road is lined will
wagons, loaded down with freight fol-
inland towns, with farming implements
with lumber or perchance with a family
and household goods, passing outward
from railroad and town; while steady
ingoing empty wagons turn in and our
among the loaded ones like the sinuou,
curving of a serpent.