The Minneapolis journal., 1905-09-25
Phenomenal Story Of the Set
tlenent Of Oklahoma and It's
Amazing Development From
State of Chaos.
GROWS BY LEAPS AND
BOUNDS EVERY YEAR
Is Yet in It's Infancy, but Is
Destined to Be One of the
Most Prosperous States in the
American Union.
BY THE HON. f. w. MOTT.
SDecial Correspondence

81. LOO1O, MO.. oepI. GU.--huSnluS III
to Oklahoma at forty miles an hour by
Frisco train is fast travelling, but it is
only in the same scale that everything
else Is done in that wonderful land.
Oklahoma lies, as it were, upon the
eastern slope Of the Rockies" spread
ing out into plains to the east for three
hundred and sixty-five miles. From the |
Texas line north it is two hundred and |
ten miles. s.
The story of the settlement of Okla
homa has been printed hundred times,
but at this moment it will only emphasize |
the fact that David l.. Payne, the Indiana |
farmer boy and Oklahoma Sooner" was
another American who did the right |
thing at the right time. For more than |
ten years the stalwart fellow agitated !
and in every way declared for the open |
ing of Oklahoma for settlement. For |
doing this he was often imprisoned, suf- !
fered a thousand privations, and-died.
But the government had yielded, and on |
the night of the 21st and the morning of |
April %, 1889, tens Of thousands of people |
were in line on Oklahoma's border for
race for home. At noon of April % the
firing Of a pistol gave leave for and then
began the most wonderful race ever re-
corded. By sunset there was hardly
lot in any of the plated town sites or a
quarter section of land in all Oklahoma
but that had from one to ten claimants.
Order Out of Chaos. -
Only intelligent Americans could bring
out of this miracle, this chaos, order, a
great community, great people, that
must in few short months be sister
great state, or commonwealth, whose
star in this great union of states'will be
among the most brilliant of all, because
fvnjc91
lean people, people Intelligent, school
and church makers, true citizens, home
owners and possessors well-to-do, carry
ing in their hearts the doctrine Of Abra-
ham Lincoln, and performing their daily
duties with Rooseveltian strenuousness./
part of Oklahoma's record shows
that her farm land in 1900 was not quite
$37 ,000, 900. The town property was about
50 1000, 900 in 1900, but in 1905 almost
| $1,000, 900. The railroads had values of
| 81 900, 900 in 1900, and in 1905 nearly $16,-
| 900, 900. No other thermometer shows
| Oklahoma's growth and condolences bet
| ter than the railroad building of the past
| five years, for nearly all of the more than
5000 miles of steel rails Of Oklahoma
have been laid in that time.
! Conservative estimates place the pop
! u!ation of Oklahoma at nearly 5000
|
years. Seventy-two per cent is en-
| gagged in agriculture. . .l.t.a.- ..-
| The wide range of products of the Okla
| homa farms is phenomenal Corn, wheat,
| and cotton grow side by side, and the
wheat crop of this young territory is
approaching hundred million bushels
annually, while the cotton crop is COM
paratively as abundant and of such quail
! ity that even the far away Osakans Of
| how re a1l1oc
year are buyers thereof.
Corn Harvest, 7O,OOO,OOO Bushels.
An annual harvest of nearly or quite
seventy million bushels of corn is a
record that no other sixteen-year- old
community of large or small numbers
| can produce, yet this is what Oklahoma
is doing. True, the farmer harvests
| sixty bushels of corn from an acre, and
while this accounts for the large total
yield, it is a record that no other state
Or locality that is a cotton and corn
state, territory of so large diversity OF
| crops, can produce. Few Of the real corn
states and localities can duplicate this
record.
! The potato industry Of Oklahoma gave
to the markets of the world in 1904 about
three and half million bushels. These
yielded the farmer at the cars about 20
cents per bushel net profits, after allow
ing the farmer 20 cents per bushel for
raising and marketing the same.
l. Oklahoma Is in the great fruit. belt
of northern Arkansas and southern
Missouri. One of the first things a set.
tier does is to make a selection of the
Arkansas Black, the Shannon, Willow
Twig, Ben Davis, Jonathan, Wine Sap
Missouri Pippin, in apples; the Elberta
Indian, and other varieties of peaches
, with pears, plums, berries, ETC., ant
plant them. Thus the sixteen years have
dotted the territory with orchards. AL
ready large surplus Of fruits is beins
shipped to market at good profit eacl
year. .# -..
Oklahoma people quoted to me as ;
fact that it is no uncommon thing to sci
:. three strawberries for a pint; you TAX,
your choice of the three strawberrie
or measured pint; to grow peache
| that weigh a pound, and that the chill
d1en use the shells of the squashes TO
;, playhouses-all of which I sat down l.
: doubt until immigration Agent Hughe
: showed me in his office In St. Louis
: | watermelon raised and presented to hir
! by an Oklahoma friend The melo
r weighs rs pounds. The same farme
g furnishes the President 86-pound water
melons. 1 shall never question or doub
: ! any statement made by an Oklahoma
T again, or that Of a Frisco railroad mar
: even if he tells me q fairy tale.
e What the Hen Is Doing.
:, But there is the Oklahoma hen. Sh
: supplied the home market and the
S shipped s2,50O, 900 worth of chickens an
e eggs to other peoples markets last yea
d Oklahoma has nearly 100000 horses, so
e 900 mules, 100000 cattle, $4,000 shee
y and .20O, 600 hogs, all fed from the grasse
i and grains of it's own fields, OF alfalf
It timothy, and clover, and fattened upo
IS its kafflr corn, corn and oats.
IS OF its nearly 100000 population lie!
l. than 40 900 cannot read and write, vel
l. substantial proof of an educated peopl
About 4 per cent are foreign Dor
le hence the Intense Americanism of Okl,
n homa's citizenship.
n. Manufactures, of course, are In their Il
al fancy, but the infant industry is plantt
/ in Oklahoma, and her great cotton crt
SIS of 100000 bales this year demands got
g. cotton factories that this product m;
ce be manufactured on the ground dire
from the field. The great dairy indust
- springing Up will bring its own butt
and cheese factories. The great cott'
seed oil mill at Hobart, the largest
the South, is model for many other ia
tories
Industries That Are Needed.
I think that Industrial people engag
in agricultural implement plants, banl
: beet sugar factories, box factories, bre-
. cries, brick, tile and pipe plants, broc
factories, canning factories, carria
! and wagon factories, cellulose plan
"a I cereal mills, cotton mills, knitting mil
/. cotton congresses, cotton seed oil mil
nnfton pins "ereameries and cheese fE