Volume 15 , Issue 23

Island Is Indian Land - November 1910

In the same newspaper,The Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Okla.), Vol. 17, No. 25, Ed. 1, Monday, November 1910, page two, dated 14 November 1910, Washington reported that island found in Arkansas River was Indian Property.

Guthrie, Okla., Nov. 12, 1910 -- According to records of the Interior department in WAshington the island in the Arkansas river upon which the state of Okalhoma proposed to as being school land, was property of the Osage Indian tribe. Notice that the state would take possession brought a reply from the nation's legal department at Washington that the island was a part of the territory deeded to the Osages by the Cherokee tribe on June 14, 1883, consequently is at disposal of neither the state or federal government.

The island was situated near the junction of Osage and Pawnee counties, over one mile in length and a quarter wide, and since claiming it as part of the school roman, the state had been unsuccessful in holding actual possession.

Settlers residing on the Pawnee county side of the river claimed to have owned the strip. Several years before this 1910 date, the state began erection of a house, which settlers knocked down and threw the lumber into the river. At last reports settlers were still there back then. Inspectors of the school land department classed the island as being valuable in oil and gas and worth approximately $500,000. The state insisted the Interior department had another island in mind, that this one was unsurveyed land and that no one had a claim on it.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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