Volume 8 , Issue 36

Boise City - Cimarron County, No Mans Land

Have you ever heard the story of how Boise City, Oklahoma came about? Do you have any No Mans Land stories to share? How does this version stack up to what you have been told so far to date?

According to Timothy Egan's book, The Worst Hard Time, Boise City was founded in 1908 on fraud by promoters of the Southwest Immigration & Development Company (J. E. Stanley and A. J. Line). They pronounced it "Boy-City" from the French words "le bois" meaning trees. BUT... there was not a single tree in Boise City -- not even a city.

The developers didn't even own the land, but they sold lots at $45 per lot, anyway. Flyers were sent all over the country showing a town as "ripe as a peach two days into its blush." It was a phantom town in the far west edge of No Mans Land, Cimarron County.

The brochures sketched Boise City as a city of elegant aged trees lining the streets -- a tower of cold, clean water gushing from an artesian well in the center of town (which was only a stock tank and windmill) -- businesses on main streets -- 3 railroads building lines to Boise city with a fourth on the way -- homes a banker would be proud to call home. It was not limited to town developers. According to Timothy Egan's research, "Railroads, banks, politicians and newspaper editors all played a variation of the scheme -- selling a windlblown piece of ground that was supposed to increase in value as more people saw a fledgling town emerging from a larva of forlorn dirt."

The developers (J. E. Stanley and A. J. Kline) were arrested for fraud with a two week trial and found guilty -- sent to Leavenworth Federal Prison. Kline died in his cell.

After that, settlement was a dare to some to see if they could defy common sense and the odds of developing this far reaching town on the farthest edge of "No Mans Land" into a city. By 1920 the population of Boise City was 250 with Cimarron County boasting 3,500 population. The depression and dust bowl went up through No Mans Land from Texas to the South to Kansas, Nebraska and southeast Colorado to the North. And parts of the northeast corner of New Mexico.

Have you ever heard this story before -- especially, some of your ancestors who might have settled in Cimarron County of No Mans Land, in the panhandle of Oklahoma? We would like to hear your stories about Boise City, Oklahoma and how its settlers survived the depression; dust bowl day of the 1930's and how the town of Boise City came about.
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