|
Posted on 02/23/2005 9:41:17 PM PST by SAMWolf
|
|
 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
|
| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
|
|
Stampede for Oklahoma's Unassigned Lands Wild as a gold rush, the stampede for Oklahoma's Unassigned Lands was a dream come true for some, a heartbreaking nightmare for others. They were the good and the bad, the tough and the weak, who raced for their 160-acre parcels on a spring day in 1889.  Map of the Oklahoma Territory, 1866-1889, showing Caddo and Wichita lands. WITH A SIX-GUN ON HIS hip and a Winchester pump-gun in his hands, the young cowpuncher faced another claim-jumper. They had reached the ground together, blustered the second man. He demanded an even split of the lush grassy quarter-section on which they stood, he to get the larger parcel, the youngster, of course, to have the smaller. The boy stood his ground. "A hundred and sixty acres or six feet," he said, "and I don't give a damn which it is..." The boy--and his Winchester--made his point, and the kid held his own piece of the new Eden in the wildest, the biggest, rush for new land in U.S. history. It began April 22, 1889, a perfect spring day--bright, balmy and cloudless. The Oklahoma prairie was green with the new year, a little glimpse of paradise to the thousands of land-starved pioneers.  Along the borders of the Indian Territory's so-called Unassigned Lands seethed a hive of excited people, waiting impatiently, praying, quarreling, jostling for position. They had eyes only for the great prize before them: 160 acres of government land, free to whomever first staked a claim...and could hold it. They waited in wagons and buggies of every kind, on horseback, even on foot. The able-bodied waited next to the blind, the old and the sick. The rushers were black and white, native and immigrant. For some it was purely a chance at profit, a chance to seize prime land and sell it later. For others, it was the chance of a lifetime, perhaps the last chance to find a home. For many, especially the young men, it was a chance for adventure. For more than a few it was a chance to rob and steal, to bully weaker people. Against these vultures the rushers relied mostly on their Colts and Winchesters, for the law was spread very thin in the Unassigned Lands. Even God-fearing, honest people oiled and checked their weapons. The Ten Commandments had little force between the North and South Forks of the Canadian; a bullet was surer by far.  Troop 'C,' 5th Cavalry, which arrested boomers and squatters prior to opening of Oklahoma, ca. 1888. The explosive opening of the Unassigned Lands had been a long time coming. This broad, fertile country had been promised to the Indian by treaty, "...as long as the grass grows or the water runs..." But as America drove West after the Civil War, the pioneers coveted these same green, empty lands, and a bill appeared in Congress annually from 1884 on, designed to permit opening of the wide-open Indian Territory to public settlement. For a time, the Cherokees and other tribes successfully held off all attempts to open their land, but in the end the pressure was too strong. Ironically, a Cherokee lawyer and Confederate veteran, Colonel E.C. Boudinot, was one of the first to urge opening of the two million acres of prime land left unassigned by the 1866 treaties. The agitation increased, in and out of Congress. In addition to continuing attempts to legislate free settlement of the Unassigned Lands, a settlement movement grew up in Kansas, Missouri, Texas and Arkansas. The Boomers, as members of this movement were called, bombarded Congress with repeated appeals to open Oklahoma, especially after the Santa Fe built its railroad line straight across the coveted ground, from Arkansas City, Kans., to Gainsville, Texas.  The starting line for the first Oklahoma Land Rush, April 22, 1889. When Congress did not act, parties of Boomers tried again and again to move into the Unassigned Lands--dugouts and shanties began to appear across the lush prairie. They did not stay. The long-suffering U.S. Cavalry evicted them as often as they settled, burning their fragile buildings, and on occasion the confrontations came perilously close to shooting. The Boomers were persistent, returning as often as the tiny units of blue-shined soldiers threw them out. By March of 1889 a substantial group had settled on the railroad around Oklahoma Station, the site of present-day Oklahoma City. Repeated evictions here led to scuffles and violence, settled by the soldiers with carbine and pistol butt. In spite of all the soldiers could do, many Boomers simply scattered and hid until the Army left. Oklahoma station, and a dozen other scruffy little settlements, were founded to stay. And by now the tide of westward movement and settlement was too strong for anyone to buck; finally the Congress would feel it, too, and on March 2, 1889, passed the annual Indian Appropriations Bill. It contained language placing the Unassigned Lands in the public domain, the first step toward opening them for public settlement. That opening would be left to a proclamation by President-elect Benjamin Harrison, due to take office two days later.  Title: Indian Territory – The Oklahoma Boomers – United States Scouts Turning Back Invaders. The news raced to the Boomer camps along the Kansas border, where it was greeted with bonfires and gleeful shots. It remained only for the President to make his proclamation, and on the 23rd of March it came: some 10,000 quarter-sections of the promised land would be open to settlement at noon on April 22. With the great news came a quiet warning. Nobody who jumped the gun before the "hour herein before fixed, will ever be permitted to enter any of the said lands, or to acquire any rights thereto..." The government reserved two one-acre plots to itself. The first was on the Chisholm Trail, near an old stage relay station called Kingfisher. The other was near Guthrie station on the railroad. Here there would be land offices, for the registration of claims. There also were two sections per township reserved for public schools. And now the hopeful came from every corner of America, lured by the stories that appeared in newspapers all across the country. There were Mormons from Utah, miners from Pennsylvania, blacks from Arkansas and North Carolina, three separate groups from Chicago. All of these rubbed elbows with men and women from Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, an Italian immigrant contingent from New York, and a party of 30 men from Terre Haute, all decked out in yellow slickers and carrying white valises. And still they came, organized groups of old soldiers, immigrants from Scotland and Sweden and other places, whole groups organized to found towns and corner the market on town lots. There were tenderfeet in new city clothing, wives in calico and bonnets, and one skinny Missourian in overalls stamped with little American flags and trousers of red, white and blue. It is not recorded that anybody laughed at his original costume, perhaps because he also wore two monstrous Colt Navies, and a knife to boot.  Laying Out Town Lots in Guthrie Twenty Minutes after the Arrival of the First Train Many of these people were well-equipped. Others, down on their luck, brought little but hope with them. Almost everybody, however, was armed--the waiting throng bristled with sixguns, rifles, shotguns and a variety of knives. Those hardy enough to try their whole future in an unsettled and unknown land were not shrinking violets; what they took they intended to hold, law or no law. And the newspapers loved it. Correspondents descended on the Unassigned Lands from all directions, from papers in San Francisco and New York and Chicago and dozens of towns between. They wrote hundreds of thousands of words, filling their papers with stories of the rush to come, of all the things that happened, and of some that didn't. They wrote reams about the wonderful country to be opened and about the people who waited to take it. There were stories serious and funny. There was even a story, probably made up by the correspondent on a slow news day, of four Indiana men who waited, camped in the Antelope Hills, ready to descend on choice claims ahead of the competition--by balloon. And the news stories further fueled the fires of excitement about the opening. More and more people turned away from their old lives and headed for the Oklahoma Country. The rushers waited impatiently in all the little towns just outside the new lands: Darlington, Buffalo Springs, Silver City and Purcell. Purcell was jammed with hopeful people from everywhere, 2,000 to 10,000 of them.
|
Good morning feather.
Boomer! Sooner!
Neat story, thanks for telling us about it.
I hate snow.
Sunny hugs sent to you from Oregon!
i want to go HOME. Corpus is SOOOOOOOOOO GRAND this time of year!
free dixie,sw
Hi msdrby!
Hi P.E.
There's some good Rock and Roll that can bring me to tears, so does Rap, but for a different reason.
Morning alfa6.
Clearing the way for Hillary in 2008. ;-)
Hi Feather.
Hey Sam and Snippy!!
How's biz???
The Fairy Tales we grew up with are dead
Hansel and Gretel
Hansel and Gretel were lost in the woods when they came upon a house made of candy and cake. An old witch invited them in and then captured both of them intending to eat them. Gretel had a chance save both of them by pushing the old woman in an oven but she decided that it would be wrong not to respect the witch's cultural traditions. So Gretel and her brother allowed themselves to be cooked and eaten. The witch was so happy with the children's actions that she invited all of her witch friends to the area. Soon thereafter, they ate every child in a hundred mile radius. Soon the whole area was filled with nothing but child eating witches and all the witches were very happy!
The Moral of the Story: You must respect the culture of others, even at your own expense!
Fisherman and the Fish
An old man finds a fish. The fish says "Let me go, old man. I will reward you for my freedom by giving you anything you desire". The old man at the behest of his wife makes wish after wish. Finally, the fish decides the old man and his wife are being too greedy and takes everything he gave them away. Then the man and his wife hire Johnny Cochran and sue the federal government for not having federal regulations in place to prevent wishing fish from unfairly taking away previously given magical spoils. The judge ruled in their favor and they were both given 500 million dollars worth of taxpayer funds with which they lived happily ever after.
The Moral of the Story: It's the federal government's responsibility to fix every bad thing that happens in the world.
The Three Billy-Goats Gruff
The first and second billy goat gruffs were stopped from going across a bridge to get food by a troll. Then the biggest and baddest billy goat gruff showed up. He told the troll he was going to kick his @ss. That greatly upset the first and second of the billy goats gruff who accused the third billy goat gruff of "hegemony " and "imperialism" and said that negotiation was the way to go. So the third billy goat gruff went away. Unfortunately, the troll refused to negotiate and first two billy goats gruff starved to death.
The Moral of the Story:It's better to starve to death than to fight!
The Three Little Pigs
There were once three little pigs. The first little pig built his house out of straw. But the big bad wolf easily knocked it down. Then he ran to the 2nd pig's house which was made out of sticks. But the wolf came there and knocked it down too. Then both pigs ran to the American pig's house which was made out brick. When the wolf came there, the American pig pulled out a gun and blew his stinking head off. Afterwards, both little pigs who lost their houses started building their houses out of straw again. When the American pig asked them why they accused the American of being an "arrogant jerk" and of "acting unilaterally". But they secretly knew the American would always save them, just like he did in WW1 and WW2 so they could afford not to be prepared.
The Moral of the Story: Even though Americans are helpful, they're real creeps!
The Ants and the Grasshopper
All summer long the ants worked and prepared for the winter while the grasshopper went to Rage Against the Machine concerts and played Everquest. The grasshopper laughed and laughed at the ants for working so hard. Then winter came. The ants had plenty of food and shelter while the grasshopper had none. So the government took the ants tax money and built the grasshopper a house, gave him welfare cheese to eat, and paid for courses at the local university that the grasshopper didn't bother to go to. When the ants complained everyone agreed that they were greedy rich jerks for having more than the grasshopper.
The Moral of the Story: Taking money from people who work hard and giving it to the lazy is compassionate!
You didn't know that? You mean that you or your children were lulled to sleep by classic bedtime stories that are discriminatory, prejudiced and demeaning to witches, animals, giants, dwarfs, goblins and fairies everywhere? Now, at last, you can remedy this cultural defect by reading 'Politically Correct Bedtime Stories' by James Finn Garner, and find out what really happened when Jack climbed the beanstalk, when Cinderella went to the ball and when the wolf tried to blow down the houses of the Three Little Pigs.
After all, if you were brought up on all that racist, sizeist, ethnocentrist reading matter, then you most certainly need to be made aware of the dangers, in these sensitive modern times, of expressing any kind of opinion at all.
You're welcome Jovial Cad.
Yep...I noticed in a recent partisan speech, Slick Willie failed to mention Hanoi John--who was in attendance--when talking about party leaders. You'll never convince me that THAT wasn't a purposeful slight...the DemonRAT Party is in the process of imploding!!
FReegards...MUD
LOL. Boy am I glad those days are over!
We can tell more and more people find out about us everyday.
If this good weather continues to cooperate along with our ad campaign that starts next Wednesday we hope we can start to bring in shoppers!
The first year is never easy and it takes at least that long to turn a profit so we are just hanging on tight!
Hopefully in a couple weeks we can report that the Grand Opening was a huge success!
On a serious note before I became a maker of soap and boiler of water I ran a plastic recycling plant. I had several of our suppliers tell me that if we could make it past the first year we would find that things would get easier. I wish they had been right :-(
Hoping for good results from the big sale next week.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Thanks for the history lesson on Norman, Oklahoma.
People seem to forget that there was someone already living on the land the government so generously "gave away".
ping
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
