Towns on the Plains: An Introduction, part 2

You'd think that folks had enough room to spread out and live, what with the Central Plains that included present-day Kansas and Nebraska with North and South Dakota up north along with Wyoming and a portion of Colorado, but no, that wasn't the case. Eventually they started clamoring for more and more land to settle on, to homestead and build towns.

So now the pressure was on to open the Indian Territory for white pioneers to settle on. Finally Congress gave in and purchased a tract of 2 million acres in the central part of what is now Oklahoma, the state that is now sandwiched between Missouri to the north and Texas to the south. And now the fun began.

On April 22, 1889, at straight up noon, Oklahoma was opened for settlement. Long before that date folks started arriving, wanting to be the first to rush out and stake their claim. For what was called the Oklahoma Land Rush, homesteaders and a lot of other kinds of folks, including Indians, gathered by the thousands. They came on foot, on horseback, by wagons, train, or buggy. There were even a few bicycles in the mix. When the time came to begin it turned out to be the durndest hoof-pounding, mule-kicking, blood-flowing, wagon-tipping race that ever was. A lot of folks wound up staking their claim from within a pine box some six feet under the Oklahoma sod. That day, a lot of tent cities suddenly sprouted. It wasn't long before Oklahoma had a good crop of permanent towns growing.

Then in 1897 someone drilling for oil in Oklahoma struck it rich and it was the California Gold Rush all over again. The only difference was it was 40 years later and the wealth came in the form of a thick black substance. And, of course, more towns were built.

Towns came about on the plains in other ways, too. Sometimes, a man back east would get suckered into buying a town lot from some spiffy-dressed fellow promoting his town on the plains. Mr. Fancy-dress would tell this eastern city dweller or country farmer about this wonderful and complete city that was already constructed and just waiting for folks to come and inhabit its, supposedly, already built homes, and shop it its stores that were also, supposedly, built and ready for business. Of course all this spiel sounded fine to the easterner whose business wasn't doing to well or the farmer who was sick of plowing and harvesting rocks. So he'd buy himself a lot in this new prairie town, sell off his business or farm, load his wife and kids into a wagon, and off they'd go to their new home. Well, when they'd finally get to this grand city on the plains, there wouldn't be any thing there at all except more flat prairie that they'd been crossing for the past few weeks-no houses, no stores, just a big old lot of nothing except more prairie.

Go To Page: 1 2 3