When the Bugle Sounded: Stampede for Oklahoma’s Unassigned Lands

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Others instantly turned to commerce, including those enterprising souls who sold thirsty rushers muddy creek water at a nickel a glass. For a dime the parched pilgrim could buy the same dirty water enriched by a little sugar and whiskey. Down at Guthrie, a gambler-turned-entrepreneur took over the Santa Fe water tank, the only source of ready water in town, clutching a tin cup and a Colt and prepared to charge all comers for a drink. He changed his mind only when the Cavalry appeared and invited him to depart.

Makeshift stores sprang up everywhere, and restaurants appeared magically, at least one of them run from the bed of a wagon. By the afternoon of the 22nd, banks opened in both Guthrie and Oklahoma City. Many more would follow, and many of those would fail.

By the morning of the 23rd the empty lands were peopled. At Guthrie a speck on the prairie had become, overnight, a city of some 10,000 persons, living in 500 or so shanties and a forest of tents. Some enterprising rushers had brought in entire buildings by wagon, all pre-cut and ready for assembly. All over the territory new towns appeared like toadstools after a rain: Norman, El Reno, Edmond, Oklahoma City.

By mid-June, Oklahoma City would have some 6,000 inhabitants, including ‘53 physicians, 97 lawyers, 47 barbers, 28 surveyors, 29 real estate agents, 11 dentists, [and] 2 lightning rod men…’

The U.S. land offices were mobbed, both in Kingfisher and in Guthrie. Monstrous lines appeared instantly outside both, as men stood, usually for days, to register their land. Some enterprising people stood in line just to sell their places.

The baggage office wrestled manfully with a gigantic pile of thousands of trunks and other luggage, and in his tent office the lone U.S. postmaster at Guthrie struggled desperately with an ocean of 4,000 to 5,000 pieces of mail.

The telegraph office was equally overwhelmed and had to establish priorities: first place went to government messages; then came the press; ordinary private wires got last place. Only telegrams telling of a death received preferential treatment. Even the press could not get its messages out with speed. Some reporters got Santa Fe trainmen to take their stories to Arkansas City, to be sent from there. Two reporters hired Cheyenne Indian scouts to carry their stories out.

Some rushers found their dreams through some unusual practical arrangements. One young woman from Kentucky found herself stranded in Arkansas City, alone and on foot. There she met a widower with three children and the two struck a bargain. She would care for the children, and he would try to stake a claim. If he succeeded, he would return and they would be married. He did, and they did, and their married life began in a covered wagon in the new land.

There would be years of controversy over many of the new claims. There would be much litigation and a great deal of false swearing and bitterness. Bad men would often prevail through perjury and good men lose what they had rightfully claimed. There would be drought and grasshoppers and illness, too. One carper commented that people who came to Oklahoma were like ‘children who put beans in their noses– they seem determined on getting the beans put in…but when they had accomplished their purpose, they wished they hadn’t done it.’

But such Jeremiahs were a tiny minority. Most of the rushers would hold their land, and stay, and build for the future. Private schools sprang up everywhere, and the first public school opened in Guthrie in mid-October. Church and women’s organizations quickly brought a veneer of civilization, and commercial and lodge associations were not far behind.

The foundation had been laid for a state, and today ‘Sooner’ is the state’s nickname, and the official title of the University of Oklahoma’s athletic teams. Thus the name’s bad connotation has been buried in the past, along with a time when anyone with a fast horse and a quick gun could grab a piece of Oklahoma.

This article was written by Robert Barr Smith and originally published in February 1999 issue of Wild West Magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Wild West magazine today!

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Tags: Adventurers & Trail Blazers, Westward Expansion, Wild West

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