The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1910-01-28

The following article from the pen
OF prominent Illinois man with prop.
erty interests here. is indeed an in
tercsting sidelight on Oklahoma by
the nonresident:
Oklahoma From an illinois Standpoint
! What follows represents an effort
on the part of the writer to comply
with a red hot request. (received July
4th 1902 from the Honorable Editor
of the Chieftain Now that said re.
quest has had time to cool off, here
goes
There is practice in regard to mar
rage among a certain religious sect
requiring young people who fall in
love to reside in separate villas with.
OUT seeing each other for the space OF
one year Then If they are still lovers
they are permitted to marry 1t Is
now little more than one year since
your state began to flirt with me. The
conquest was of short duration. l
fell a victim of her captivating witch
cry about December 20, 1909. That
is, she landed" me about that time
For some months previous TO Decem-
ber, 1909. had made a pretty thor
ough study Of conditions in northeast
ern Oklahoma and also had com
pared northeastern Oklahoma with
central and central-west Oklahoma, as
knew IT, We finally selected and
purchased a farm three miles east
OF Vinita. The class of people repre-
senting the business interests Of Vim
ita impressed me as very similar to
the people as ] know them in other To-
calities The apparently advantageous
location of your city was a strong fac
tor IN deciding when we should pur-
chase The year has brought splen-
did and striking proof that this fac
tor was deserving of much weight
There is abundant reason for rejoic-
ing over the growth of Vinita the past
year, and as abundant reasons for
expecting an equal expansion within
the next twelve months Vinita Is ON
the map" in much larger sense than
1t was one year ago. Nearly all the
older states each have ten, twelve, or
a score perhaps, of good towns or
cities. Then each also has hundreds
of villages which always will remaill
villages. Vinita will always be one
of the large cities of oklahoma It
just depends upon how large its citi.
zens want it to be. and how much
each one will do to push IL along
While the legislature Of Oklahoma is
devising away to remove dead timber
from It's streams it might properly
take under advisement plan by
which to remove the dead timber"
from the streams of progress flow
ing through such cities as Vinita. Let
every one either push or get out of
the way (Yes, have an all around
fair next fall) This article is by the
sixth son of a farmer who came to
Illinois In 1854 and have lived pretty
close to the soil all my life, and want
10 make some observations it is easily
within my memory when northern
Illinois was not so we'll settled as Is
northeastern Oklahoma 1876 was my
first year to follow team" Our inn
plements were not so we'll suited to
the work to be done as are those of
today. We had plenty of wild hay
but no tame hay (timothy and cloyer)
It was hard to get a catch" Our
corn, oats, wheat and barley of those
years did not yield as much per acre
as was harvested In Craig county I'm
1909 Land was selling for SIS 20
$40 and very little at $50 per acre,
and a common expression was that
so and so was land poor Today
those lands are more productive than
at that time. II Is not SO difficult TO
get a catch" Those lands now sell
readily for 1926 to 1926 per acre (ac-
tual sales within the past year. and
nowadays no one Is called land poor
Continued cultivation has increased
the productiveness. and It will do SO
with Oklahoma land. and northeast
ern Oklahoma will develop very much
faster than Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska,
Kansas. stock combined and grain on