The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-02-18
THE OKLAHOMA RUN,
HOIF THE RUSH APPEARED FROM THE INSIDE.

to settlement of a Great Reservation.
 On April p, 1889. fifteen years ago, rifle fire was heard at different points around the border of "the strip says B. w. Atkinson, captain in the United States army, in the Kansas City Star. It was peaceful firing and came from United States troops stationed for sev- eral months to keep back the boom ers' desirous of claiming the best farm lands and the best town lots at those points in Oklahoma where large towns and cities would probably rap idly grow.
 The presidents proclamation went into effect at noon on April p, and the signal that the land was open was the firing of the rifles of troops that had held back the restless mass flor many i months.
 Then the mad rush began, and those who saw this rush from the inside will never forget it. One of the ''boys in ] blue'' who was stationed at Guthrie l took notes at the time of many of the occurrences and has recalled a few for ! the Star. For months the troops had been keeping out the boomers. This was tiresome work, indeed. and when the command ordered to take station at Guthrie settled down to await the day of the opening there was little to 1 do save to be present on the arrival of each train. All who attempted to alight were ordered to move on" ex- cept such as had special passes to leave the train. The colony at Guth- rie was composed of army men, news paper men and representatives of the 1 land department. Time hung heavy after the active work around the bor- 1 der.
 On the morning of the 22d there was | one building in the city of Guthrie. That was the land office, small shack erected few daps before. There were the newspaper headquarters, a good sized tent, and one or two others, all clustered around the land office. The troops were in camp a few hundred yards to the west of the railroad sta | ton.
 Captain Arthur Macarthur, now General Macarthur, of Philippine fame. was the commanding officer of the troops at Guthrie, and to his good l judgment the quiet that characterized the settling of Guthrie is greatly due. At six o'clock on the opening day in every direction at a distance of few miles could be seen the smoke of camp fires, which showed during the night many a 'boomer' had come in as near as possible to ''get an early'' of his less venturesome companions in the rush at \ noon. @
 l When the rifle did crack men seemed to spring up out of the very ground
 They came up from the creek bottoms. they came out of the tall grass in the yerp midst of the camp. One man seemed to get out of the ground with in a few feet of the tent of the writer
 and ran as fast as a good pair of legs I would carry him toward the top of the hill, where the land office stood. In ev- cry direction could be seen a cloud of dust. This circle of dust grew thicker as it neared it's center, Guthrie, with l great rapidity. Soon forms could be discerned in the clouds. Here a couple of racing horses, there a wagon drawn by two or four horses, there other horses, their riders bent low, and each not sparing whip or spur in the mad rush for Guthrie, ''the coming city of i the territory" To the soldier it was as if he were seeing the finishing point in a race, with hundreds of entries coming from ali sides. Soon the shouts of the coming throng could be heard on the wind that carried the voice, as well as the dust, before it., and in short space of time the prai- ries and the town were alive with a
 yelling, running mass of excited men. Some put in their stakes as they l reached what they thought desirable l lots, others never slackened the speed
 of their foam-covered ponies till the
 land office was reached and the claim filed for the farm taken up miles away. 1 So it kept up until quarter past one
 o'clock, when the whistle of the first
 train was heard. It had cofe from Purcell, having pulled out on the crack
 of the rife there. The train was cov- cred rof end to end with a mass of hu-
 manity. The tops of the coaches were covered with ''boomers,' literally hanging on, and before the train could reach the station or more than slacken it's speed the unloading began by the
 jumping, rolling, falling off of the hu-
 man freight.
 Each man scrambled to push into the ground stakes marking his lot and place himself in the middle of his claim and hold it against all comers." One
 man of a business turn of mind had provided himself with bundle of shin
 gles, and his thoughtless companions
 who had failed to provide themselves
 with the means of marking out their lots paid him tWent-five cents each for them. Where two or three had come together to take a lot a tent was prob- ably carried on the back. As the wag- one began to arrive and unload their freight the tents sprang up, so that by nightfall Guthrie was in fact a city.
 It was said that twelve thousand per
 sons were on the town site, and not all these were men, for there were in the
 mad rush children of all ages, some
 carried in their mothers arms.
 Many a boomer brought only a blan-
 ket and bundle of food. A few min
 utes sufficed to dig a hole in the ground, place two sticks upright and stretch his tent and he was "at homes