Volume 13 , Issue 31

County Seat Fight In Alfalfa County

Cherokee was designated as the county seat of Alfalfa county on 16 January 1907 by the constitutional convention in session at Guthrie. BUT . . . On September 29, 1908 Ingersoll filed a petition at Guthrie, asking for a county seat election. This petition had 806 names on it, but it was held invalid on 24 October 1908, on the ground that some had signed a duplicate and that others were not legal voters. Altogether about fifty were disqualified.

Another petition was filed with Governor Haskell on October 20, 1908 containing over twenty-five per cent of the qualified voters of the county, asking for an election to vote on the county seat. Governor Haskell set the election date for January 27, 1909. At this time, the towns in the race were Cherokee, Carmen, and Ingersoll. A great campaign was waged by these three towns on the ballot contained the following number of names: Cherokee, 1450; CArmen, 600; Ingersoll, 400; Jet, 350. The chief fight was between Cherokee and Carmen, although the contest between Ingersoll and Cherokee grew very bitter. One of Cherokee's chief arguments was that the county seat should be near the geographical center of the county.

Cherokee gave the following information about railroad mileage in the county to show that Cherokee had better railroad facilities than any town in the county: "Alfalfa county has 160.76 miles of railroad distributed as follows: Rock Island, 52.31 miles; Orient, 41.82; Santa Fe, 4.51; Denver, Enid and Gulf (later purchased by the SAnta Fe), 35.01; Frisco, 27.11. 129.14 of the total mileage of the county ran through Cherokee, while only 68.93 miles went through CArmen, and 52.31 miles through Ingersoll."

The Carmen Headlight retorted by saying that their town had an elevation of 1358 feet, which was 157 feet higher than Cherokee. This made Carmen a healthier place than Cherokee. Was not Cherokee located in a frog pond?

Governor Haskell appointed Hon. Seward Mutterbaugh of Goltry to be chairman of the special election board, which was to have charge of the election on January 27, 1909. The other four members were: Cherokee, Frank Millspaugh; CArmen, W. T. Barrett; Jet, F. P. Carey; Ingersoll, Thomas Shaffer.

The results of the election was as follows: Cherokee, 1924; Carmen, 946; Ingersoll, 486; Jet, 217. Cherokee secured fifty-four per cent of the votes while it was necessary to get only forty per cent to retain the county seat. The election cost $1450. Governor Haskell issued a proclamation of February 8, 1909, declaring Cherokee the winner in the county seat contest.

It didn't stop there, though. Carmen instituted contest proceedings in the Supreme court contending that the only legal votes cast were in Eagle Chief, which gave CArmen 394 and Cherokee 7. Carmen contention was that voters were not properly sworn in, except in Eagle Chief. The Cherokee Republican claimed that the voters in the three Lincoln percents held up their hands when making affidavits that they were qualified voters.

The Supreme court was very busy in those days with county seat contests. In the Westville-Stillwell case, which involved the same issues as the CArmen-Cherokee case, the court ordered another election. This seemed to indicate another election in Alfalfa county. The Carmen followers became jubilant. The Supreme Court took a different course of action from that which they had pursued in the Westville-Stillwell case. The Cherokee Republican for May 13, 1910 says that the Supreme Court has decided to appoint a referee to look into the case, with a view to its final disposition. The Supreme court appointed a man who was agreeable to the attorneys representing both towns. Judge James W. Steen, former Judge of the District Court, was the man selected.

The Supreme court ordered Judge STeen to complete the taking of testimony in Cherokee and CArmen by June 1, 1911. Judge STeen arrived in Cherokee May 15 to begin his work. The Court ordered Carmen to put up $200 to meet the cost of the contest. Carmen readily complied.

On March 26, 1912, the Supreme Court handed down a decision which made Cherokee the county seat. The long bitter struggle lasted five years.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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