The Oklahoma land rush begins - Apr 22, 1889 - HISTORY.com The Oklahoma land rush begins Share this: The Oklahoma land rush begins Author The Oklahoma land rush begins URL Publisher A+E Networks At precisely high noon, thousands of would-be settlers make a mad dash into the newly opened Oklahoma Territory to claim cheap land. The nearly two million acres of land opened up to white settlement was located in Indian Territory, a large area that once encompassed much of modern-day Oklahoma. Initially considered unsuitable for white colonization, Indian Territory was thought to be an ideal place to relocate Native Americans who were removed from their traditional lands to make way for white settlement. The relocations began in 1817, and by the 1880s, Indian Territory was a new home to a variety of tribes, including the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, Cheyenne, Commanche, and Apache. By the 1890s, improved agricultural and ranching techniques led some white Americans to realize that the Indian Territory land could be valuable, and they pressured the U.S. government to allow white settlement in the region.

In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison agreed, making the first of a long series of authorizations that eventually removed most of Indian Territory from Indian control. To begin the process of white settlement, Harrison chose to open a 1.9 million-acre section of Indian Territory that the government had never assigned to any specific tribe. However, subsequent openings of sections that were designated to specific tribes were achieved primarily through the Dawes Severalty Act (1887), which allowed whites to settle large swaths of land that had previously been designated to specific Indian tribes. On March 3, 1889, Harrison announced the government would open the 1.9 million-acre tract of Indian Territory for settlement precisely at noon on April 22. Anyone could join the race for the land, but no one was supposed to jump the gun. With only seven weeks to prepare, land-hungry Americans quickly began to gather around the borders of the irregular rectangle of territory. Referred to as “Boomers,” by the appointed day more than 50,000 hopefuls were living in tent cities on all four sides of the territory. The events that day at Fort Reno on the western border were typical.

At 11:50 a.m., soldiers called for everyone to form a line. When the hands of the clock reached noon, the cannon of the fort boomed, and the soldiers signaled the settlers to start. With the crack of hundreds of whips, thousands of Boomers streamed into the territory in wagons, on horseback, and on foot. All told, from 50,000 to 60,000 settlers entered the territory that day. By nightfall, they had staked thousands of claims either on town lots or quarter section farm plots. Towns like Norman, Oklahoma City, Kingfisher, and Guthrie sprang into being almost overnight. An extraordinary display of both the pioneer spirit and the American lust for land, the first Oklahoma land rush was also plagued by greed and fraud. Cases involving “Sooners”–people who had entered the territory before the legal date and time–overloaded courts for years to come. The government attempted to operate subsequent runs with more controls, eventually adopting a lottery system to designate claims. By 1905, white Americans owned most of the land in Indian Territory.

Two years later, the area once known as Indian Territory entered the Union as a part of the new state of Oklahoma. Related Videos History: Homestead Act and Land Rush Homestead Act and Land Rush With much of the east coast of America already developed, the United States government wanted to encourage people to move out west. They decided to help people out by offering them free land through a law called the Homestead Act. A New Law The Homestead Act became law in 1862 when it was signed by President Abraham Lincoln . Under the new law a U.S. Citizen could get 160 acres of unoccupied land west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains. They could keep the land if they lived on the land for five years and made improvements to the land. Homestead Act by Unknown Opportunity Homesteading was a great opportunity for many people, especially immigrants just moving to the United States. Anyone who was over 21 years old could own land. This included former slaves, immigrants, and single women. The Land Rush Different areas of land were opened for homesteading at different times. This often created land rushes where people would race in to claim the best plots of land.

Oklahoma Land Rush by the McClenny Family Picture Album Sooners One of the major land rushes occurred in Oklahoma on April 22, 1889. Around 50,000 people lined up to claim around 2,000,000 acres of prime land. At high noon they were allowed to enter the area and claim the land. Some people snuck onto the land early and hid in order to lay claim to best areas of land first. These people were nicknamed "Sooners". Today the mascot for the University of Oklahoma is the Sooner. Around 10,000 homesteaders settled around the area that is today Oklahoma City. The next day, April 23, 1889, the city was established with a population of over 10,000 people. It would later become the capital of the state of Oklahoma. Interesting Facts about the Homestead Act and The Land Rush Northerners wanted the land to be developed by small farmers rather than the large plantation owners from the South. They were afraid the plantation owners would use slaves to farm the land. There was an $18 fee to file the application to get a plot of land.

Later Homestead Acts allowed for 320 acres in areas for dryland farming and 640 acres for ranching. By 1934, 270 million acres of land had been given away by the United States government. That's around 10 percent of the entire United States. Homesteading ended in 1976, except in Alaska where it ended in 1986. In the book Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls' dad claims a homestead in Kansas. Activities The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1893 The Great Oklahoma Land Rush of 1893 Printer Friendly Version >>> At precisely twelve noon on September 16, 1893 a cannon's boom unleashed the largest land rush America ever saw. Carried by all kinds of transportation - horses, wagons, trains, bicycles or on foot - an estimated 100,000 raced to claim plots of land in an area of land in northern Oklahoma Territory known as the Cherokee Strip. There had been a number of previous land rushes in the Territory - but this was the big one.

The Great Land Rush Begins In 1828 Congress designated the land that would become Oklahoma as Indian Territory. White settlers were required to leave, and a number of tribes from the East and South were forcibly moved into the area from their ancestral lands. Chief among these were the Five Civilized Tribes - the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole - who allied themselves with the South during the Civil War. Following the war, the US government looked upon these tribes as defeated enemies. This animosity combined with increasing pressure to open up the Indian Territory to white settlement prompted the first land rush in 1885, a second followed in 1889. By the time of the Oklahoma land rush of 1893, America was in the grip of the worst economic depression it had ever experienced. This was one of the factors that swelled the number of expectant land-seekers that day. Many would be disappointed. There were only 42,000 parcels of land available - far too few to satisfy the hopes of all those who raced for land that day.

Additionally, many of the "Boomers" - those who had waited for the cannon's boom before rushing into the land claim - found that a number of the choice plots had already been claimed by "Sooners" who had snuck into the land claim area before the race began. The impact of the land rush was immediate, transforming the land almost overnight. "...the rifles snapped and the line broke with a huge, crackling roar." Choosing to ride their bicycles, Seth Humphrey and his brother joined the mad rush that day - not to race for land, but just for fun. We join his story in the moments just before the starting guns unleash a mad dash for land: "At last the eventful morning broke, a day exactly like all the rest, hot and dry, a south wind rising with the sun dead ahead, and a hard proposition for bicyclists. We had stayed overnight in the little hotel of a town within a mile of the border, several of us in one room; but at least we two of the bicycle corps did not have to mix up with the jam of horses about the place.

And we had another decided advantage in not having horses to look after in a hot prairie wilderness where there was not a well, scarcely a stream not gone to a dry bed, and only an occasional water tank on the one railroad running south to Texas. This water would be of service only to the comparative few who could locate near by. ADVERTISMENT ...A quarter to twelve. The line stiffened and became more quiet with the tension of waiting. Out in front a hundred yards and twice as far apart were soldiers, resting easily on their rifles, contemplating the line. I casually wondered how they would manage to dodge the onrush; perhaps they were wondering that too. The engine, a few hundred feet away, coughed gently at the starting line; its tender and the tops of its ten cattle cars trailing back into the state of Kansas, were alive with men. Inside the cars the boomers were packed standing, their arms sticking out where horns ought to be... Five minutes. Three minutes. The soldiers now stood with rifles pointing upward, waiting for the first sound of firing to come along their line from the east.

A cannon at its eastern end was to give the first signal; this the rifles were to take up and carryon as fast as sound could travel the length of the Cherokee Strip. All set! At one minute before twelve o'clock my brother and I, noticing that the soldier out in front was squinting upward along his rifle barrel and intent on the coming signal, slipped out fifty feet in front of the line, along the railroad embankment. It was the best possible place from which to view the start. It has been estimated that there were somewhere around one hundred thousand men in line on the Kansas border. Within the two-mile range of vision that we had from our point of vantage there were at least five thousand and probably nearly eight. Viewed from out in front the waiting line was a breath-taking sight. We had seen it only from within the crowd or from the rear. The back of the line was ragged, incoherent; the front was even, smooth, solid. It looked like the line-up that it was. I thought I had sensed the immensity of the spectacle, but that one moment out in front gave me the unmatched thrill of an impending race with six thousand starters in sight.

First in the line was a solid bank of horses; some had riders, some were hitched to gigs, buckboards, carts, and wagons, but to the eye there were only the two miles of tossing heads, shiny chests, and restless front legs of horses. With the train in the background, waggoners rush from the start line. While we stood, numb with looking, the rifles snapped and the line broke with a huge, crackling roar. That one thundering moment of horseflesh by the mile quivering in its first leap forward was a gift of the gods, and its like will never come again. The next instant we were in a crash of vehicles whizzing past us like a calamity... The funniest of all the starters was the engine with its ten carloads of men. From our stand fifty feet directly in front of it I was contemplating it as the chief absurdity of the race when the rush began. The engine tooted incessantly and labored hard, but of course she could not get under way with anything like the quickness of the horses... Of course everybody on the train was mad with excitement, particularly since they were packed in without a chance to vent their emotions in any but some noise-making way.

With the first toots of the engine came revolver shots from the crowds all along the tops of the cars, and at least a few from those penned up inside. The fusillade, which kept up all the while the train was pulling out past us, had a most exhilarating effect; my old gun, I suddenly noticed, was barking with the rest of them... A little before midnight, we woke to a distant clatter of hoofs, shouting, and shooting. 'Number - section - township - range -. Keep off and get off!' Then crack! crack! went the rifles, after each call, from the pretty country we had been admiring at sundown... After a hearty breakfast we pumped up our sorry tires and packed up to start south for the town sites. Ever since daybreak boomers had been straggling northward, bound for Kansas and all points east. One young fellow who stopped for a moment while we were eating breakfast was a fair sample of this crowd... He had staked a claim in our nice little valley, along with a half dozen others on the same tract; and of course, as in such cases all over the Strip, nobody under heaven could know who had arrived first.

But for him the delicate question had been settled by the gay horsemen in the pitch darkness of the night before. By the time they were through with him he felt assured that he must have arrived about a week late. 'I wouldn't live here next to such neighbors, anyway,' he told us with considerable heat. At this safe distance and in the daylight his feelings had turned to indignation, but he was still trembling a little." References: This eyewitness account appears in Humphrey, Seth King, Following the Prairie Frontier (1931); Davis, William C., The American Frontier (1992). How To Cite This Article: "The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1893," EyeWitness to History, (2006). Remembering the Oklahoma Land Rush - History in the Headlines Remembering the Oklahoma Land Rush April 22, 2014 By Christopher Klein Share this: Remembering the Oklahoma Land Rush Author Remembering the Oklahoma Land Rush URL Google At high noon on April 22, 1889, settlers furiously dashed across the Oklahoma plains to stake their claims to nearly two million acres put up for grabs by the U.S. government.

On the anniversary of the Oklahoma Land Rush, look back at the estimated 50,000 “boomers” and “sooners” who engaged in what some have called the greatest horse race in American history. As the sun approached its zenith on April 22, 1889, an anxious army of 50,000 land-hungry settlers awaited their signal. Then, as the minute hand slipped over the hour hand at noontime, cannons boomed, pistols fired and bugles blared across the dusty plains. Horseback riders kicked their mounts with their spurs and wagon drivers cracked their whips as they thundered across the prairie in a frenzied sprint. Exhilaration coursed through their veins and wind whipped through their hair as they charged ahead to stake their claims to what they hoped would be their new homesteads. The “boomers” participating in the Oklahoma Land Rush all thirsted for a piece of the cheap land that had been opened up for white settlement by the U.S. government.

Unlike other portions of the Indian Territory, which was sandwiched between Kansas and Texas, that had been assigned to the nearly 40 Native American tribes forcibly relocated by the federal government in previous decades, these vast “Unassigned Lands” had not been designated to any particular tribe. Due to improved agricultural and ranching techniques, even this arid, treeless landscape once thought worthless had become coveted by white farmers and ranchers seeking virgin territory. Responding to their wishes, President Benjamin Harrison declared on March 23, 1889, that the Unassigned Lands would be open for settlement beginning precisely at noon on April 22. First come, first served. Under the Homestead Act of 1862, settlers could claim 160 acres of public land and receive title to the property after five years if they lived on and improved the plot. Women, although legally prohibited from voting, were eligible to participate in the Land Rush, and there was no citizenship requirement either. Immigrants from Ireland, England, France and Scotland were among the tens of thousands of boomers who began to amass like an invading force along the region’s northern border with Kansas and the southern border along the Canadian River.

Federal troops patrolled the region’s borders to prevent illegal incursions by settlers who violated the “sooner clause” of the Indian Appropriation Act by entering and occupying land prior to the time proclaimed by the president. However, the cavalry simply could not stop all of the “sooners” who crossed the border and hid out in the brush and in ravines to get a jump on the competition. On the morning of April 22, tens of thousands of law-abiding boomers gathered at the border, and long lines of covered wagons snaked away from river crossings. All the settlers knew it was survival of the fastest. Horseback riders hoped they had the fleetest steeds beneath their saddles so that they could reach their desired plots before anyone else and await the arrival of the rest of their families and supplies on the cumbersome wagons that rattled over the rutted prairie. As many as a third of the settlers boarded “boomer trains” operated by the Santa Fe Railway through the heart of the Unassigned Lands, although the iron horses were prohibited from traveling faster than their equine counterparts, lest they gain an advantage. Once the cavalry troops signaled the arrival of noontime, the race was on.

Throughout the region riders planted stakes into the ground to signal their new patches of land, while the sooners who had sneaked in ahead of time suddenly emerged from their hiding spots and took advantage of their head start. Some of the “eighty-niners” immediately started to make improvements to the land—stringing barbed wire, digging wells and arranging the first logs of their cabins—before hurrying to land offices to register their claims. In the course of a single afternoon, new locales such as Oklahoma City suddenly emerged from the prairie. Guthrie had been transformed from a small railroad station to a tent city of 10,000 people in just hours. By nightfall, more than 11,000 agricultural homesteads had been claimed during the Oklahoma Land Rush. Not surprisingly, numerous disputes arose with multiple parties claiming the same plot of land. The Oklahoma Land Office recorded that by 1892, approximately 5,000 claims were being contested. Court battles between boomers and sooners took years to resolve, and some cases even ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Oklahoma Land Rush hastened the demise of the Indian Territory.

Subsequent land rushes in the 1890s eventually removed most of the land from Native American control. In 1890, the Unassigned Lands became the Oklahoma Territory, which united with the Indian Territory in 1907 to form the 46th state of the Union—Oklahoma, which has paid homage to its Land Rush heritage by adopting the nickname of the “Sooner State.” Tags OKLAHOMA LAND RUSH OF 1889 The Arrival of the First Train at Guthrie "We're done for," said a town-site speculator, in dismay. "Some one has gone in ahead of us and laid out the town." "Never mind that," shouted another town-site speculator, "but make a rush and get what you can." Hardly had the train slackened its speed when the impatient boomers began to leap from the cars and run up the slope. Men jumped from the roofs of the moving cars at the risk of their lives. Some were so stunned by the fall that they could not get up for some minutes. The coaches were so crowded that many men were compelled to squeeze through the windows in order to get a fair start at the head of the crowd.

Almost before the train had come to a standstill the cars were emptied. In their haste and eagerness, men fell over each other in heaps, others stumbled and fell headlong, while many ran forward so blindly and impetuously that it was not until they had passed the best of the town lots that they came to a realization of their actions. I ran with the first of the crowd to get a good point of view from which to see the rush. When I had time to look about me I found that I was standing beside a tent, near which a man was leisurely chopping holes in the sod with a new axe. "Where did you come from, that you have already pitched your tent?" I asked. "Oh, I was here," said he. "How was that?" "Why, I was a deputy United States marshal." "Did you resign?" "No; I'm a deputy still." "But it is not legal for a deputy United States marshal, or any one in the employ of the government, to take up a town lot in this manner." "That may all be, stranger; but I've got two lots here, just the same; and about fifty other deputies have got lots in the same way.

In fact, the deputy-marshals laid out the town." The Head of the Line Outside of the Guthrie Land-Office on the Opening Day at intervals of fifteen minutes, other trains came from the north loaded down with home-seekers and town-site speculators. As each succeeding crowd rushed up the slope and found that government officers had taken possession of the best part of the town, indignation became hot and outspoken; yet the marshals held to their lots and refused to move. Bloodshed was prevented only by the belief of the home-seekers that the government would set the matter right. This course of the deputy United States marshals was one of the most outrageous pieces of imposition upon honest home-seekers ever practiced in the settlement of a new country. That fifty men could, through influence, get themselves appointed as deputy United States marshals for the sole purpose of taking advantage of their positions in this way is creditable neither to them nor to the man who made their appointment possible. This illegal seizure thus became the first matter of public discussion in the city of Guthrie.

When the passengers from the first train reached the spot where the deputy-marshals had ceased laying out lots, they seized the line of the embryo street and ran it eastward as far as their numbers would permit. The second train load of people took it where the first left off, and ran it entirely out of sight behind a swell of ground at least two miles from the station. The following car of home-seekers went north and south, so that by the time that all were in for the day a city large enough in area to hold 100,000 inhabitants had been staked off, with more or less geometrical accuracy. A few women and children were in the rush, but they had to take their chances with the rest. Disputes over the ownership of lots grew incessant, for the reason that when a man went to the river for a drink of water, or tried to get his baggage at the railway station, another man would take possession of his lot, notwithstanding the obvious presence of the first man's stakes and sometimes part of his wearing apparel.

Owing to the uncertainty concerning the lines of the streets, two and sometimes more lots were staked out on the same ground, each claimant hoping that the official survey would give him the preference. Contrary to all expectations, there was no bloodshed over the disputed lots. This may be accounted for by the fact that no intoxicating liquors of any kind were allowed to be sold in Oklahoma. It is a matter of common comment among the people that the peaceful way in which Oklahoma was settled was due entirely to its compulsory prohibition. Had whiskey been plentiful in Guthrie the disputed lots might have been watered in blood, for every man went armed with some sort of deadly weapon. If there could be a more striking temperance lesson than this, I certainly should like to see it. When Congress gives Oklahoma some sort of government the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquor should be the first and foremost of her laws. It is estimated that between six and seven thousand persons reached Guthrie by train from the north that first afternoon, and that fully three thousand came in by wagon from the north and east, and by train from Purcell on the south, thus making a total population for the first day of about ten thousand.

By taking thought in the matter, three-fourths of these people had provided themselves with tents and blankets, so that even on the first night they had ample shelter from the weather. The rest of them slept the first night as best they could, with only the red earth for a pillow and the starry arch of heaven for a blanket. At dawn of Tuesday the unrefreshed home-seekers and town-site speculators arose, and began anew the location of disputed claims. The tents multiplied like mushrooms in a rain that day, and by night the building of frame houses had been begun in earnest in the new streets. The buildings were by no means elaborate, yet they were as good as the average frontier structure, and they served their purpose, which was all that was required. On that day the trains going north were filled with returning boomers, disgusted beyond expression with the dismal outlook of the new country. Their places were taken by others who came in to see the fun, and perhaps to pick up a bargain in the way of town lots of commercial speculation. By Wednesday the retreat from Guthrie was at its height. Two persons went home to each one that came in, yet the town seemed to be as lively and as populous as ever.

The north-bound boomers asserted that there was nothing in or about Guthrie to support a city; that only a limited number of quarter sections of land on the river bottom were worth settling upon, and that the upland country was nothing but worthless red sand coated over with a film of green grass. To bear out their assertions, these disgusted men pointed to the city of Guthrie, where the red dust was ankle-deep in the main street. The red dust was an argument that could not be contradicted. It rose in clouds and hovered above the feverish city until the air was like fog at sunrise; it sifted through the provision boxes in the tents, it crept into blankets and clothing, and it stuck like wax to the faces and beards of the unhappy citizens. The heat and the dust and the phenomenal lack of food during the first three days created a burning thirst, which seemingly could not be quenched. This thirst was intensified tenfold by the knowledge that water was scarce, hard to get, and sometimes unfit to drink. The yellow Cimarron and the lukewarm Cottonwood were the only streams where water could be obtained, and on the third day he was very thirsty indeed who would drink from either.

Boomers who were not engaged in holding down town lots peddled water in pails to their thirsty neighbors at five and ten cents a cupful. Once, when compelled to moisten my parched throat from one of these pails, I noticed that the water was unusually yellow and thick. "See here," said I to the Frenchman who held the pail; "you have washed your face in this water." "No, monsieur," he said, with grotesque earnestness; "I do not wash my face for four days!" I did not doubt it. His face had become so thickly encrusted with red dust and perspiration that he would not have recognized himself had he chanced to look in a mirror. In this respect he was not worse off than his neighbors, most of whom had not thought of washing their faces since entering Oklahoma. This was not due to any personal negligence, but entirely to the scarcity of water. When men spent their whole time, night and day, in the work of keeping possession of town lots, they could not be expected to go half a mile or a mile for such a trifling diversion as washing their faces. During the first three days food was nearly as hard to get as water.

Dusty ham sandwiches sold on the streets as high as twenty-five cents each, while in the restaurants a plate of pork and beans was valued at seventy-five cents. Few men were well enough provided with funds to buy themselves a hearty meal. One disgusted home-seeker estimated that if he ate as much as he was accustomed to eat back in Missouri his board would cost him $7.75 per day. Not being able to spend that amount of money every day, he contented himself with such stray sandwiches as were within his means. In this manner he contrived to subsist until Wednesday afternoon, when he was forced to return to civilization in southern Kansas in order to keep from starving to death. A newspaper correspondent from Wichita, Kansas, who had never before known the feeling of hunger, was so far gone in the first stages of starvation that upon his return home on Friday he was hardly able to assimilate food. In appearance he was a walking spectre of famine. The only men in Guthrie who made money during the first week were the restaurant-keepers and the water-peddlers.

After the first rush had subsided, however, there was no lack of food, and by the sinking of a number of wells there was a plentiful supply of water, so that the city of Guthrie in the matter of food and drink was no worse off than the ordinary frontier town. When the first well was dug, the home-seekers had an excellent opportunity of learning the exact character of the soil. The well-digger went through several feet of red sand after the sod had been cut through, and then found layers of gray and white sand so loose that the spade would sink into it upon very slight downward pressure. Believing that all of the Oklahoma country consisted of this red, gray, and white sand, thousands of home-seekers took the earliest trains back into Kansas, more than ever contented with the fertile soil of the homes that they had left in the first rush to Oklahoma. By the end of the week the crowd of returning home-seekers had lessened, so that Guthrie had what might be called a permanent population with which to being the serious business of life.

Just how long this population will remain, or what size Guthrie will be in another year, is a matter of some uncertainty, for the reason that nothing definite can be decided upon until a thorough test has been made of the farming country round about. Aside from its temporary importance as a land-office centre, the size of Guthrie will be determined, not by the speculative value of town lots, but by the agricultural capacity of the surrounding country. The city has already begun business upon a larger scale than the extent and fertility of the tributary country seems to justify. It has allowed itself the luxury of two mayors and two sets of municipal officers, one set being accredited to Guthrie proper and the other to the outlying district known as East Guthrie. I fancy that when business cools down to a substantial basis it will be found that one set of municipal officers will be enough for both towns. The first Sunday in Guthrie showed that the new citizens had determined to begin life in the right way. Instead of spending the Sabbath in gambling, drinking, and other riotous ways of living, they held religious services in different parts of the town.

If the present spirit of law and order and respectable conduct is continued, as it doubtless will be, the people of Guthrie need never be ashamed of the reputation of their town. The Guthrie Post-Office The rush of home-seekers into Oklahoma from the southern border was more picturesque than that from the north, although in numbers it was by no means as great. The intending settlers had been gathered at Purcell, in the Chickasaw Nation, for several months, waiting for the signal to cross the Canadian River and take possession of the coveted land. As the opening day drew near, many of the boomers provided themselves with fleet saddle-horses, and made careful observations of the half-dozen fords leading across the river, their intention being to dash into the river at noon on April 22d, and ride rapidly to their chosen claims. For this purpose the very best of horses were brought into use. Just before noon on the appointed day, hundreds of the horsemen gathered at the entrance to the fords waiting for the signal. Lieutenant Adair, of Troop "L," fifth Cavalry, was stationed on the sands on the opposite side of the river.

He had arranged that at noon he should order his bugler to blow the recall, while riding a white horse around in a circle. By this means those who were too far away to hear the bugle could get the signal from the circling of the white horse. The lieutenant had caused all the boomers' watches to be set by his own, in order that there might be no false start. Just as the second hand of his watch touched the hour of twelve he gave the signal, and before the stirring notes of the bugle had found an echo against the walls of Purcell, the foremost horsemen had dashed into the fords. Spurred on by yelling and wildly excited riders, the horses made a furious dash through the water, throwing sand and spray on all sides like a sudden gust of rain and hail. Laying Out Town Lots in Guthrie Twenty Minutes after the Arrival of the First Train The First Bank of Guthrie Oklahoma City After the horsemen came the wagons, as thick as they could crowd together. The Canadian River is so treacherous, even at the fords, that horses and wagons must keep moving or run a great risk of being lost in the quicksands.

The fear of the quicksands, added to the desire to reach the chosen lands, made the crossing on that quiet noonday particularly lively and stirring. The leaders ran a gallant race, but one by one they fell into deep holes in the river-bed, and for a time floundered about at imminent risk of drowning. A young woman, who pluckily held her place in the lead half-way across the river, went into a pool with a mighty splash. Even in the midst of his excitement the nearest boomer, who was racing with her, checked his horse and assisted her out to dry land, thus losing his place among the leaders. A big bay horse held the lead three-quarters of the way across the river, each furious jump giving him more and more of a lead over the others. In an unlucky moment he went into a deep pool head-first, and threw his rider half stunned upon the yellow sand. While the rider was gathering himself together in a half-dazed condition, the bit horse stood and looked at him a moment, and then started on again. He soon took his place at the lead of the race, and kept it there until the whole cavalcade had passed out of sight.

Lieutenant Adair, who had watched this episode with quickening pulse, galloped up to the wet and discomfited rider. "See here," said he, "I haven't much money about me, but if you'll take $250 for that horse, here's your money." "No, lieutenant," said the man, with a weary smile; "you needn't make me an offer, because you haven't got money enough to buy him." Most of the boomers who crossed the river at Purcell took up quarter sections of land that they had selected many weeks before; a few tried to organize a town on the flats opposite Purcell, while the others went on to Oklahoma City and Guthrie. Hundreds of boomers came into the southern part of Oklahoma from the Pottawotamie Indian country on the east and from the lands of the wild tribes on the west. As these portions of the border are not protected by soldiers, most of the boomers crossed the line long before the appointed time, and hid in the woods until Monday forenoon, when they emerged from their hiding-places and boldly took up their claims.

The best lots in Oklahoma City, like the valuable locations in Guthrie, were seized by the deputy United States marshals. The actual home-seekers were compelled to take what was left. In their haste to secure desirable lots, the town-site settlers failed to pay as much attention to the geometrical lines of the streets as they should have done, with the result that two, and in some cases three, different streets and blocks were laid out on the same ground. During the first week the discomforts of hunger and thirst were well-nigh forgotten in the anxiety of the people to get their town site properly laid out. The excitement was not at any time as great as that at Guthrie, for the reason that the population was not more than two thousand even at its highest point on Monday afternoon. Nearly the same state of affairs existed at Oklahoma City as at Guthrie, with the exception that the red dust was not so deep and water not as scarce. The new citizens, however, seem to have as much faith in the future of their town as their neighbors at Guthrie.

This is probably due to the fact that Oklahoma City has the most desirable town site in Oklahoma, and also to the fact that the land round about is considered to be better than the land in the northern part of the district. The comparative wealth of the two parts will not be definitely known until a practical test of the soil is made next year. Good judges of bad land declare that the country tributary to Oklahoma City will raise no better crops than the soil surrounding Guthrie. If this be true, the outlook for Oklahoma City is certainly not brilliant. A man who hid out in the brush all day Sunday and Sunday night, in order that he might be first on his claim Monday morning despite the disfranchising conditions in the opening proclamation, declared to me that after a search of three days he found no land in the southern part of Oklahoma that he would care to file a claim upon. The upland he found to be worthless red sand, and the river-bottoms to be composed of buffalo wallows and a short wiry grass, which indicated to him the presence of land similar to some of the worthless lands of Kansas. He returned to his farm in Kansas without attempting to make a new settlement.

In this part of the country the poverty and wretched condition of some of the older boomers who have been waiting for years for the opening of Oklahoma were painfully apparent. Men with large families settled upon land with less than a dollar in money to keep them from starvation. How they expected to live until they could get a crop from their lands was a mystery which even they could not pretend to explain. Like unreasoning children, they thought that could they but once reach the beautiful green slopes of the promised land, their poverty and trouble would be at an end. They are now awakening to the bitter realization that their real hardships have just begun. The original boomers who caused Oklahoma to be opened for settlement have much to be responsible for, not the last of which are the tears and cries of hungry children, who look about for bread and see only the red sand shimmering in the heated air. Could the disgusted home-seekers have laid hands upon the late Captain David L. Payne, the original Oklahoma boomer, the blood-thirsty despatches from Oklahoma in some of the daily newspapers would have had foundation in one instance at least.

If the projected monument to Captain Payne is ever built, the expense of it will not be borne by the men who went into Oklahoma on the twenty-second day of April. The settlement of Kingfisher, in the western part of Oklahoma, differed little from the rush to Guthrie and Oklahoma City, except that the town was laid out about fifty-seven miles from the most available railroad. At the time of the opening of Oklahoma the Rock Island Railroad had reached Pond Creek, in the Cherokee outlet, on its way through the Indian Territory and Texas. The Kingfisher people reached their new home from Pond Creek in wagons and stages. they were held at the Oklahoma line until noon on Monday, when they were allowed to go into the promised land as they pleased. When they arrived at Kingfisher they found that the town had already been laid out by a number of men who had ridden in on horseback from the west border of Oklahoma, only a mile and a half distant. As at guthrie, two town sites were located. the actual town of Kingfisher will not have a permanent location until the Rock Island road has designated the place for its station.

Meanwhile the people are living in tents and in wagons, waiting for the time when they shall build what they expect to be the capital of the new Territory of Oklahoma. they may not get the new territory this year or next year,; yet it is safe to say that they will get in some time, for now that the heart of the Indian country has been opened to settlement, the rest of it must follow as a matter of necessity. Already the Cherokee outlet has been invaded by boomers who failed to find desirable claims in Oklahoma, and although the soldiers in the Indian Territory have been instructed to drive them out, yet it is quite likely that they will remain on their new claims unmolested. With these people as a nucleus, the white population of the Cherokee outlet will grow steadily, and in time it will compel the Indians to sell out their interest in the lands and go elsewhere. Various small towns have been laid out in different parts of Oklahoma. In these places the speculative idea is of course uppermost, despite the fact that town-site speculation has already been over done in Guthrie, Oklahoma City, and Kingfisher. It is said that lots in these three towns have been sold for large sums,; yet I think that the reports lack confirmation.

From personal observation I know that lots in guthrie have been offered for sale as low as fifty cents each. In one case a disheartened Wisconsin boomer sold two guthrie lots, a twelve-dollar tent, six dollars' worth of blankets, and a week's provisions for four dollars. In Oklahoma City lots have probably not yet fallen that low in value, for the reason that fewer of them have been staked off, and also because the reaction there was not as great as at Guthrie. If Oklahoma is to be made a land of farms, it will need plenty of money and earnest determination. Many of the boomers who have not found a lodgement there will be compelled to relinquish their claims and go to older settled parts of the country, where money is more plentiful and where their labor is in demand. It is folly to expect that a man with a wife, six children, and forty cents in money will be able to do anything toward the development of the new region; and yet men of such circumstances came under my observation during a ride near Oklahoma City.

In a few months, and perhaps in a few weeks, the relinquishments to very many claims in Oklahoma can be purchased for a purely nominal sum, and in some cases for nothing at all. A crop cannot be raised on the new land this year. The ultimate success of Oklahoma as an agricultural region depends as much upon the rainfall as upon the fertility of the soil; and those who plough the land in hope will have to wait in faith for the rains to come. The development of Oklahoma will in this respect resemble the settlement of Kansas, where it was found that the real settlers were in many instances men with some means, who came to take up the claims of those whom drought and mortgages and hard times had driven to the wall. Hundreds of people who were starved out of Kansas were among the first to enter Oklahoma with the intention of retrieving their scattered fortunes; yet as they went into Oklahoma with no more resources they had carried into central and western Kansas, it is not unlikely that the ultimate result will be the same.

Men who have gone into Oklahoma and obtained quarter sections of land on the fertile parts of the river-bottoms, with the intention of pasturing stock on the sandy uplands, which are adapted for nothing better than grazing, stand a fair chance of keeping the mortgage company from the door, as, from present indications, it is not probable that the uplands will be disturbed for many years to come. Selected, scanned, edited, provided with headnotes, and formatted as a web document by John W. Reps, Professor Emeritus, Department of City and Regional Planning, West Sibley Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA. Tel: (607) 255-5391, Fax: (607) 255-6681, E-mail: jwr2@cornell.edu Land Runs | OHSkids! Store The Oklahoma Land Run A gunshot fired. A cannon roared. Horses startled and wagons sprang to life. On April 22, 1889, settlers flooded into the region of central Oklahoma known as the Unassigned Lands.

President Benjamin Harrison signed a proclamation on March 23, 1889, opening the land and people came from across the country to claim it. According to the Homestead Act of 1862, if a settler could stay on the land he claimed for five years and improve it, it would be his free and clear. Some people were very excited about the 1889 Land Run and were ready to try to make a new life in Oklahoma Territory. There were people, however, who did not want new settlers to come into the territory. This exhibit will show the 1889 Land Run from the perspectives of five different players: David Payne, leader of the Boomer movement; Lew Carroll, a settler who came to stake a claim but was unsuccessful until a later Land Run; American Indians who were placed on agencies and whose land was allotted and taken from traditional communal control to create the Unassigned Lands; Elias Boudinot, a Cherokee man who welcomed white settlers for his own economic gain; and the women who had to set up households on the prairies using little but what they had in their wagons or strapped to their horses. 1893 survey crew.

(719, OHS Research Division) Photo of the Land Run in progress. The 1889 Land Run began promptly at noon on April 22, 1889. Barney Hillerman Collection (21412.M562.15, OHS Research Division). Map of Indian and Oklahoma Territories (ITMAP.0023, OHS Research Division). Map of Oklahoma Land Openings.

Question: What U.S. state was opened up to a land rush?
Answer: Oklahoma