The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-09-01

growth and more trade from year to year,
SO that the general store of a country town
Of one yearis liable to be a wholesale job
bling house in a city OF electric lights and
tram cars and water works the next year,
not because the dealer wanted or intended
to become merchant, but because he had
to, or get lost and left behind,
The hamlet of two or three years ago has
become city of today, and other hamlets
that have come into being near and far buy
from 1t to supply their own thriving neigh
borhoods.
This goes onto such an extent that no one
can safely say he knows the country unless
he lives and travels here, or comes to look It |
over at pretty frequent intervals.
DR.. Dyer and His Prophecy.
In Chicago they used to tell about DR..
Dyer, who was in perihelion there during
the sos. DIR. Dyer justly prided himself
upon his expert handling of the long bow,
and he used to emit highly fctlonal
prophecy concerning growth and real estate
values every evening, to find next morning
that his weirdest pigments had been over
passed by facts.
This happened so regularly for so long
that he stopped and declared himself:
I'm done. I.quit. A we'll intentioned
liar stands no show In such place as this.
There are many places on the Frisco and
Rock Island lines that would have served
him so. Tulsa, for instance, in the Indian
territory, about a hundred miles east from
Oklahoma City. Less than five years ago
Tulsa was a brief scattering of wooden
shacks, that happened because the people
! around there needed handy place where
| they could buy some things quick. Now 1T
| Is a city in the genuine sense, and no mean
| city at that. It has electric lights, substan-
| tial buildings, several stories high, banks,
schools, churches, and pretty much every
| convenience that could be rushed up above
| ground; but it has grown so fast and mas
| been so busy that it hasn't had time or
| chance yet to put in a water or a drainage
system, nor lay foot of pavement. These
will come in time-about any time now-be-
cause the Tulsa people can't get on without
| them very much longer.
But it is a fact that they have not come
yet, because the town grew SO fast and was
so occupied with building and trafficking 1T
hadn't chance to attend to some of its own
personal needs. It IS an instance only IN
that respect.
Rapid Growth the Rule.
The same story is true Of many other
places. The history of Oklahoma City and
Lawton and Guthrie and Chickasha and
South McAlester and Muskogee and several
other places was very much the same. Gus
ter City in Oklahoma is e thriving town to-
day--it will be a big city, an industrial cen
| ter, tomorrow.
A quarter of century Is very short
time in the life of state or a nation. But
only that little while ago wild grasses
waved free in the breezes, and the soli-
tudes were undisturbed, where now these
| beautiful and bustlng cities stand. Cow
men rode the ranges here and there, and
1.-The Strip and mo Mans land were
grounds Of contention among the herders
but the rest was trodden by few other thar
Indians. The nations in the Indian terri
tory had arrived at well developed civil
, ization, and were prosperous In their way
, virgin, and waiting.
Then came 1.-The opening" the rush, {
boom, that for little while looked over
done and dangerous; then came the rail
roads, and swift settling down to perma
nent and solid conditions followed, from
as no other region of the country ha
known or knows, not even in rich Iowa o.
the great central plain Of Kansas.
, The Indian, the cowman, and the boomei
.. have lived their day and passed out. Tn,
trails are overgrown and forgotten. Hun
, dreds and hundreds of miles of rail, man
more hundreds of miles Of we'll made Wagon
; road, and thousands of miles of fenc
cover the country, and serve q great popu
lation, where in the sos the winds bley
free across an emptiness. It is a wonderful
| story
: The purpose now have in view is to tel
that story in detail in this and other issue
to follow-to carry 1t over the borders O
= Oklahoma and Indian territory into Texas
y | and to let the farmers and the merchant
Of the rest Of the country know what super
:, opportunities lie here, awaiting thei
u hands.
e Some government lands still remain ope
y to settlement in Oklahoma, but not in an
:. great acreage. On the other hand, far1
! lands can be bought at acre prices tina
compared with those asked in Illinois O
Iowa or Wisconsin, are very low consider
: Ing relative productivity, profits per acre
and absolute certainty Of crops and wealth
er year In and year out.
u Rainfall here is ample, though no part {
!, the year is what could be called wet. Th
= subsoils or substrata hold the moisture an
n yield 1t to the roots of growing things.
" does not run off nor evaporate,to drynes
= No Consumption in Southwest.
10 CATTLE hogs, sheep, and goats thrive /
- perfection and need little or no shelter
~ the winter. The land grows anything thu
% grows anywhere else between the BIRTHS
= Northwest and the subtropics, and the a
o. Is so pure that not a single case of tube1
- =. culosis trouble Is known to have originate
" in it. " '-% e
~ Life here is worth living Nothing
- =. wanting, either to rural or urban perfet
-, 30 ton. This Oklahoma City, for example,
~ quite as complete in equipment as any eli
,. 10 In the Union, and for place of it's size al
- in its degree, better built, better pave
~ better watered, and better lighted tbs
d: Chicago. -,
" Changes in Indian Territory.
~ Until quite recently no lands could
~ owned by white men in the Indian terri
,l1 tory, but since the tribal holdings we
"a allotted to individual Indians and the
= freedmen that condition has somewh
n. changed: A freedman can sell part Of b
% land upon giving proper notice, and an L
~ dian can lease cut some of his holdings u
~ der regulations prescribed by the COVER
ment.
90 AS a rule, both sales price and renta
~ are reasonable; if not low, and the leas
a can be made. practically perpetual. Tn
,so a homeseeker may settle himself in NJ
,as country without having to face any Of t
~ priyations and dangers that the prail
pioneers could not escape.
Such one would simply change his c
49,, surroundings for new ones at least as go
IN to- begin with, and certain to be better lat
Use on, and without losing touch with compile
Gu civilization. Pioneer life doesn't look
lat romantic, perhaps, but 1t is alot more COZ
OF Portable when you go to 1t on a railway, a
%. live 1t to the accompaniment of the te
Ia phone, the telegraph and bank accoun
ed ID WHAT LAWT0N, OKLA,