The Vinita daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1902-1913, 1910-01-29


of prominent Illinois man with prop
erty interests here, is indeed an in
teresting 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 red hot request, treceiyed July
4th, lsOs) from the Honorable Editor
Of the Chieftain. Now that said re-
quest has had time to cool off. here
goes:
There is a practice in regard to mar
riage 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 II they are still lovers
they are permitted to marry. 1t Is
now little more than one year since
your state began to firt with me. The
conquest was Of short duration. !
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 Decen-
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
I knew 1t. We finally selected and
purchased farm three miles east
Of Vinita The class Of people repre-
senting the business interests of Vim
tia impressed me as very similar to
the people as know them in other lo-
calities. The apparently advantageous
location of your city was 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 Ia 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
score perhaps, of good towns or
cities. Then each also has hundreds
of villages which always will remain
villages vinita will always be one
of the large cities of Oklahoma. It
Just depends upon how large Its citi-
zens want 1t to be, and how much
each one will do to push 1t along.
While the Legislature of Oklahoma is
devising away to remove dead timber
from its streams 1t 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. fYes, have an all around
fair next fall.) This article Is by the
sixth son of farmer who came to
Illinois in 1854, and have lived pretty
close to the soil all my life, and want
to make some observations, 1t 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 well suited to
the work to be done as are those OF
today. We had plenty OF wild hay
but no tame hay ttimothy and cloyer)
1t 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 In
1909. Land was selling for SIS to
$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. 1t is not SO difficult to
get catch" Those lands now sell
readily for SIPS to $225 per acre (ae-