Mexico weekly ledger., 1894-02-15
A LETTER FROM OKLAHOMA.
A. j. Nelson Tells Some Things About
The Country and His Enterprise.
Correspondence Of the LEpGKR.

correspondents OF Tue LkDSHk.
PoSD CREEK, o. T., Feb. s.
Dear LEDGER and other friends at
Mexico: According to promise we
viii now try to drop you a few lines.
We hardly know how to apologize
for our long silence, but the facts
are, | have been running a brick
yard on my claim, Az miles south
of Pond Creek (our county seat.)
| have moulded brick every day,
with four or five exceptions. since
the oath day of last October. /
have fred a kiln or furnace nearly
every night since. You probably
think that | am doing a big bust
ness, but l wish to explain to you,
that my kilns are very small ones.
They only hold a few thousand. l
have them in the shed and keep one
burning all the time, so the heat
will dry my fresh made brick. The
capacity of my works is only
about $4,000 per month in favora-
BILE weather. We are within reach
of four towns and l get satisfac-
tory prices for my brick. We ex-
pect to increase the business as soon
as the demands will justify us. L
boast of being the only man hat has
made a success Of the business any,
where in the country. But 1 pre-.
sumo what would interest your read
ers most would be to know what
sort of a country We have, who the
Inhabitants are, and what they are
doing. In the first place nobody
has had more experience in this
country than we have ourselves and,
of course, we have learned much
about farming out here since the 18th
oflast September. The surface gen.
orally is smooth, country sloping to
the south and east; the soil mostly
is black and sandy, although we have
some red-sandy soil. We belive the
soil TO be very rich here. 1t produces
very fine grass. The grass vas very
short here last year, but we put up
some good hay on our claim. The
most that the people have to COM
plain of generally is the bad water,
an account of the water being salty,
but we believe we have enough good
stock water in our creek to water all
the stock in Audrain County, and
at a depth Of 20 feet we could furnish
enough good, cold, fresh water to
supply all the inhabitants of your
city. This country is being settled
up by people from all owe the coun-
try. We have neighbors from Mis-
souri,, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kan
sas and all other parts and with no
exceptions they are intelligent, in
dustrious and good natured, and
willing to loan with a promise but
not a prospect of getting anything
back again. All the claims have
been taken and most Of them filed
upon, but not all settled on. Most
every claim in our neighborhood is
claimed by two or three, but most
all contest cases have been compro-
missed and in such cases the land
lawyer considers himself loser, and
the lawyer has more la grippe than
any other sort of a grip. Times
have not been so hard and there has
not been SO much suffering among
the settlers as anticipated sometime
ago. There has been a chance for
most everybody to earn a support.
There was not so much stock brought
in here last fall but what was brought
in are living well ON the grass. Pond
Creek has a postofice established
there, but no railroad depot and we
are anxiously awaiting to see what
the Congressional Mill will grind
out for us. We have not had much rea-
son to complain of bad weather,
but we are having a l~ong-tailed storm
to- day which seems to. have strayed
down here from Kansas. 1t has
been blowing and showing here all
day ''iust like sixty" We haven't
time to write any more this time
and We expect we have written as
much you al afford us space for and
if you want any more news from US
let SOLVER Twist speak up. We
acknowledge favors of our esteem
ed editor and postmaster Burkhart.
My family joins me in extending
kindest regards to you all.
Yours as ever,
A. J. NELSON.
Van Roberts has purchased from