Volume 13 , Issue 49

Cherokee Outlet & Local Ranch History Subject of New Book

by Sandie Olson (Email: sandie.olson@gmail.com) -- Descendants and friends of Cherokee Strip cowpunchers will be interested in a new book, The Vanished Herd, the History of the Cherokee Strip Cowpunchers' Association and the Cattlemen and Drovers of Early-Day Oklahoma, by Jim Fulbright and Albert Stehno.

It is a full-sized, 8 �½ by 11 inch, hardbound book with over 532 pages, index, and thousands of photos, maps and illustrations featuring stories on the cattlemen, trails, towns and events related to early-day Indian Territory and Oklahoma.

Among the many biographies in the book are stories and photographs of individual cowboys who settled in Woods County after the opening of the Cherokee Outlet for settlement. The book is very well indexed. See ordering information below.

On Labor Day weekend ninety-one years ago, a group of former cowboys gathered in a buffalo pasture at the 101 Ranch south of Ponca City. A few years earlier, many of those men had followed the marching armies of longhorn cattle that trailed north from Texas through Indian Territory, and others had been herders on the range of the Cherokee Outlet; cowboys in Oklahoma's unsurpassed cattle country with its sea of grass stretching for over 200 miles along the Indian Territory border with Kansas. In their prime, they were young adventurers, most looking for a livelihood and the freedom of the open range, but their ranks also included far-sighted entrepreneurs who developed ranches and fortunes in the cattle trade, which, beginning in 1867, dominated much of the West for nearly thirty years.

By 1920 most of those old cowboys were family men in their forties and fifties, some even older. They met at the 101 Ranch that year to renew old acquaintances and briefly relive their cowboy days, and as it turned out, the twenty-five to fifty former range riders who attended the reunion enjoyed it so much that they decided to meet annually. They elected a slate of officers who promised to contact even more "old-timers" for the next year's reunion, and before they left the 101 Ranch that weekend, they chose a name for their new group: "The Cherokee Strip Cowpunchers Association."

In 1921 over 160 "cowpunchers" showed up for the second annual meeting, and during the next ten years, the number increased to nearly 600. By 1926 they had moved the reunion location to a little rise on the south bank of the Salt Fork River in the corner of the buffalo pasture. They dubbed it, "Cowboy Hill," and a small building and other improvements were placed there for their Labor Day meetings. Initially, CSCPA membership required having previously worked in the Cherokee Strip, or "Outlet," of Indian Territory, a requisite that was soon expanded to include those engaged in the cattle business in other parts of Oklahoma.

In the 1800s, these early-day range riders had arrived in Indian Territory from many states and countries and from all walks of life. The majority were born in Missouri, Illinois, or Texas, while several came from Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and even Canada. Only nine states or territories in existence at the time were not represented by a CSCPA member.

During the years Oklahoma was opened for settlement, most of these men left the cattle range and claimed homesteads, while others either returned to their home states or looked for new ventures elsewhere. Far and away the largest number of them remained in Oklahoma their entire lives, and many descendants of the old cowpunchers live in the state today.

The last of the original Cherokee Strip cowboys died in the 1960s but today their memory and the days of ranching in the Outlet live on in the recently released book The Vanished Herd by Jim Fulbright & Albert Stehno. Thirty-five years ago, Stehno, a Billings rancher, began collecting materials about the Cherokee Strip Cowpunchers when his great-grandmother gave him a membership ribbon worn by her stepfather Cal Rosecrants. Stehno spent his spare time combing the countryside, locating and interviewing other descendants of the CSCPA. Many of them supplied photos and other memorabilia, which became part of a large collection of CSCPA material, portions of it now on display at the Marland Grand Home in Ponca City.

After three decades of collecting, Stehno began thinking about ways to share the collection, and fours years ago he began collaborating with Jim Fulbright, a native Oklahoman who has authored several books on Oklahoma history. The result is a new full sized, hardbound book entitled The Vanished Herd. It contains over 500 pages and 1,000 plus photographs.

The book's title, according to Stehno, is derived from an incident in the 1930s when Zack Miller of the 101 Ranch donated a buffalo hide to the CSCPA on which the names of the men associated with the organization were burned like brands. The hide also contained colorful paintings by artists Emil Lenders and Roger Glenn Taylor, and Miller entitled his gift, "The Vanishing Herd." The hide was presented to the Oklahoma Historical Society in 1936, and is now at Enid's Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center Museum. "With all the original cowboys now gone," said Stehno, "we decided to tell their story and times on the range, calling our book 'The Vanished Herd.' "

Stehno and Fulbright say that one of the challenges in preparing the work has been deciding what accurately constitutes an official role of CSCPA membership. There have been several lists over the years, from the buffalo hide itself to the names inscribed on the Jesse Chisholm Trail Memorial. To be as accurate as possible, the authors decided that the original ledger book, dutifully kept up-to-date by several CSCPA secretaries down through the years, and now archived in the Gilcrease Museum at Tulsa, Oklahoma, should serve as the official record of membership. To the extent possible, they have used that old fading ledger to reconstruct the cowpunchers' work record, the ranch or cattleman they served, and provide a biographical sketch of each member's life. The Vanished Herd also contains biographies of other area ranchers, and cattlemen, as well as incidents and stories about town building in the Cherokee Outlet following the 1893 land run.

The book is available at the Waynoka Museum Gift Shop at the Harvey House or by mail order. Cost is $60.00 per book, plus 9% tax and $6.50 Priority Mail shipping. To order, please send your name and address, along with a check or money order, to Waynoka Historical Society, PO Box 193, Waynoka OK 73860. Credit card orders are accepted. For further information, call 580-824-1886. The authors visited Waynoka during the research phase of the book.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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