The crack of Army rifles all along the borders of the Cherokee Outlet at noon September 16 signaled the start of the land run. Thousands of homesteaders rushed south from Kansas and north from the Guthrie area, swarming over the 7 million available acres. They took claims on every available quarter-section and at every possible townsite, including the original Pond Creek Station site, north of the Salt Fork River, and the recently relocated Round Pond site, barely three miles south. Homesteaders repeated the pattern around Enid, staking property in so-called “railroad Enid,” or “tank town” (later North Enid), and the government-designated town of Enid, three miles farther south. By nightfall all four towns had become crowded tent villages. Round Pond and Enid boasted several thousand tent inhabitants, while Pond Creek Station and North Enid each contained several hundred people.

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Within days, crude framed buildings were erected and stores opened, transforming names on a map into viable little towns brimming with commercial activity; yet the two county seat towns were missing an important element: train service. The Rock Island’s trains stopped only in the “north” towns of Pond Creek Station and North Enid where it already had depots. The railroad refused to stop in the two “south” towns just because some Washington bureaucrats had suddenly changed county seat locations.

For the remainder of 1893, residents of the nondepot south towns pleaded for train service, to no avail. They were forced to board trains and retrieve freight and mail in the north towns. The two south town mayors finally sought help from Washington, only to be turned down again. The Department of Interior yielded to arguments by Rock Island Railway attorneys who cited their company’s charter, requiring the placement of depots at specific intervals and suitable townsite locations. The railroad insisted it had already complied, thus “it was no fault of the company that Congress had blundered in allowing Indians to choose allotments near said depots,” causing the secretary of interior to move the townsites.

Complicating the impasse over train service was a bitter dispute over town names in both counties. When Pond Creek Station’s newspaper repeatedly ridiculed Round Pond for its lack of train service, the county seat town retaliated by petitioning postal authorities to change its post office name to “Pond Creek.” Round Pond also incorporated under the name “Pond Creek,” making for two towns with the same name, barely three miles apart.

A similar squabble erupted in “O” County, where north town residents called the county seat “South Enid.” This drew a testy editorial from the Enid Wave:

There is but one ENID. The Post
Office address of the city is
simply ENID. The Post Office in
the addition is called North
Enid, but there positively is no
South Enid. You uneducated
scapegoats, can’t you under
stand that?

Congress finally joined the train service fight with legislation ordering the construction of depots at the two “nonrailroad” towns, but House Bill 3606 languished in conference committee. The Senate, largely populated by railroad lawyers, sabotaged it with an amendment requiring that “L” and “O” counties hold special elections to permanently determine a county seat location. It had the desired effect. Pond Creek and Enid withdrew support of the depot bill in fear of losing a county seat election.

In the meantime, the south towns did secure a government directive requiring the Rock Island to erect mail cranes to serve their post offices, but the cranes caused even more trouble. Trains were supposed to slow enough to transfer the mail pouches, but railroad crews were purposely careless, ripping canvas bags apart and scattering the residents’ precious mail along the right of way.

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