1893 - Cherokee Strip Decidedly Lacked Registration Booths
Back in 1893, it was no wonder that the mutterings against the whole scheme of registration which began the Monday before September 16th, 1893, were growing louder and uglier.
Anyone who visited those booths on the day the Land Run of 1893 and saw congregated there at least 12,000 people, more than three-fourths of whom were lined up for a place, it was at once apparent that it would be a physical impossibility to register all who make application. The clerical forces should have been doubled in number. Many settlers would be unregistered by Saturday noon.
So complete was the failure of Hoke's registration scheme that every possible influence was being brought to bear on the powers at Washington to annul the order and permit every one to make the race next Saturday that desires to do so. Lieutenant Caldwell, in command of troop B, Third cavalry, stationed at Booth No. 9, sent a telegram to Washington by way of Camp Supply, through his superior officer, Colonel Parker, informing the secretary of the interior of the deplorable conditions which exists and recommending that for the sake of humanity and to prevent further suffering and death, that the registration be discontinued.
The number that had succumbed to the heat, dust and thirst at the booths south of Arkansas City was appalling. All along the line the men had fallen in their tracks and been carried away, some to recover and others to die. It was impossible to obtain anything like an accurate list, but reports placed the number all the way from is to twenty.
The water supply of Arkansas City was well nigh exhausted. The waterworks pumps were worked to their full d=capacity, but there was not enough water in the standpipe to fore a stream to the second stories of buildings.
In Wichita, Kansas, Chief Clerk M. A. Jacobs in charge of the registration of Cherokee Strip home seekers, and of the officials of the land office, instructed the chiefs of the booths to hire without further orders all the men necessary to register every person in line by the night before the run. There were now seventy-six clerks in the booths and he expected to have 100 by the next day.
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