Volume 9 , Issue 50

Pioneer Henry Turner Miller - Chickasaw Nation

Here is another Oklahoma pioneer, Henry Turner Miller, who settled around the Purcell and Norman area that brought a pioneer printing, newspaper plant from his former home in Kansas. This newspaper, The Territorial Topic, was the third newspaper ever printed in the "Old Chickasaw Nation." Maybe this little bio of Henry T. Miller will jog some memories from present Oklahomans out there.

"Early in 1889, before the original opening of Oklahoma Territory, Henry T. Miller, a well known business man of Oklahoma City, had brought in a pioneer printing and newspaper plant from his former home in Kansas and had established it at Purcell, Indian Territory. There he began the publication of The Territorial Topic, which had the distinction of being the third newspaper ever printed in the old Chickasaw Nation.

The Territorial Topic esposed and was an ardent supporter of the interests of the intermarried disfranchised citizens of the Chickasaw Nation, and for this fact, and also because it was an excellent medium of news, the paper attained a wide and influential circulation. By its championship of the cause of intermarried citizens, it became a power for the development of the old Chickasaw country.

While Miller's first location was at Purcell, he was also a real Oklahoma eighty-niner, having made the run at the opening on April 22 from Purcell and securing a claim adjoining the Townsite of Norman. In 1894 Miller removed his newspaper plant from Purcell to Norman and it was subsequently merged with The Democrat under the name Democrat-Topic. Miller's original claim has since been platted and in 1916 was a part of the Town of Norman.

In 1890, Miller issued the call for the first meeting of newspaper men of the Oklahoma and Indian territories. As a result of this call the First Territorial Joint Press Association was organized April 30, 1890. Miller was chosen president and he was also secretary of the first commercial club ever organized in the old Indian Territory, and effected at Purcell. Since 1906, when he located in Oklahoma City, Miller had given his time and attention to the real estate and insurance business.

Henry Turner Miller was born December 17, 1860, on a farm in Howard County, Missouri, and belonged to a family of fine old pioneer stock in that section of Central Missouri. Miller's parents were John and Mildred Elizabeth (Boulware) Miller. John Miller was born in Virginia in 1813, and the grandparents were natives of the same state.

At the age of eighteen, his father, John Miller, went out to Missouri, a frontier state, and took charge of the plantation of his uncle, John Miller, in Howard County. This uncle gained distinction as governor of Missouri from 1826 to 1832." -- The Standard History of Oklahoma, Vol 4, pg 1372.
  |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---