Volume 12 , Issue 41

Chronicles of Oklahoma & Naming of Alva

Did you receive your latest Volume of The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Volume LXXXVIII, Number two, Summer 2010?

There are some interesting bits of history in there concerning the naming of Alva, Oklahoma; Transcontinental Crossroads: Oklahoma's lighted Airways in 1930s; Chitto Harjo and the Snake Rebellion; Fred Harris's New Populism and the Demise of Heartland Liberalism.

The Notes and Documents of Alva, Oklahoma: What's in a Name? is on page 230, written by Donovan Reichenberger. It gives another insight of how Alva got its name. Was Alva named after a cow-town? Colorado Governor? Railroad agent?

The first public record offering a namesake for Alva was an opinion piece by W. F. Hatfield, editor and publisher of the Alva Pioneer. it was thought to be a tongue-in-cheek item stating, "Thomas A. Edison's middle name is Alva. We are not particularly superstitious, but we always believed that the steady, reliable and yet, unexplained progress of Alva was due to some kind of Mascot, and that must be the stuff."

This was published when Alva was less than 6 months old, March 9, 1894. Reichenberger wrote, "It is doubtful that Hatfield was offering a serious suggestion that the town was named for Edison. Hatfield was probably resorting to the frontier town-boosting hyperbole from a local newspaper editor."

Reichenberger goes on to state, "The second public record with a suggestion offering a namesake for Alva was an opinion item by Albert H. Andrus, editor and publisher of the Alva Chronicle."

In Andrus' partisan political party zealotry, he wrote, "Alva was named after Alva Adams, ex-governor of Colorado. he was the best governor the state ever had and Alva is the best town in the Territory -- both are democratic."

Andrus was an attorney who arrived in Alva from Colorado and claimed a town lot on September 16, 1893. He was also a frontier newspaper editor making a town-boosting statement. Can we give any credibility?

Reichenberger states, "This one-inch column piece in a partisan Democratic Party newspaper may be the source for later writers to credit Governor Alva Adams as the individual for whom Alva was named."

Reichenberger also states what Fred McCarrell wrote, 17 years later, "There are two versions . . . concerning the origin of the name Alva. One is that there was a cow camp . . . called 'Alba,' and the Indians pronounced it Alva, and the corrupted form was later applied to the town . . . . The other story is that the town was called Alva after one of the Governors of Colorado."

It was ten years later, when Alva Adams died, an Alva newspaper reporter wrote he was "a banker, prominent Free Mason, a democrat . . . ." The same reporter also wrote the railroad had this station (Alva) named in his honor. There was never any organized authority to name or to approve the naming of the station in 1887.

It was in the early 1930s that George R. Crissman, professor of history at Northwestern State Teachers College in Alva, prepared A History of Woods County for the 5th and 6th grade students of the county.

Reichenberger quoted Crissman writings, "When the Panhandle line of the Santa Fe railroad was built through the Strip in 1885085, Alva was located as the first town south of the Kansas line. When the company sought a name for the new town, the suggestion was made that it be named Alva in recognition of the services of Alva Adams who was at the time an attorney for the Santa Fe. Later Mr. Adams moved to Colorado and became governor of that state."

Reichenberger stated, "George Crissman tried to provide true stories in his book for the school children of Woods County, However, there are three factual errors in his account concerning the naming of Alva. The railroad was not built through the Cherokee Outlet until 1886-1887. The railroad located a stop, future station, and not a town in 1887. The town was not established until August 1893. In 1886 Alva Adams, a Pueblo merchant, had been living in Colorado for fifteen years and was making his second run for governor of Colorado."

To read the rest of the story, checkout Chronicles of Oklahoma, Volume LXXXVIII, Number two, Summer 2010, page 230.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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