Volume 18 , Issue 34

September 16, 1893, Ready For The Rush

The Wichita Daily Eagle, out of Wichita, Kansas, 16 September 1893, Saturday, on page 1, had these headlines: "Ready For the Rush." The Cherokee Outlet Boomers were waiting the signal. The lands expected to be occupied by one hundred and fifty thousand people that night.

Found on Newspapers.com

The additional force employed at the registration booths enabled all who so desired to secure certificates. An exodus of homesteaders from the towns during the day to secure advantageous starting places on the corder. The Town Lot speculator to was to make the race by rail. The weather was moderated during the day.

Arkansas City, Kan., Sept. 15 (1893) -- Saturday, September 16, 12 o'clock noon, the hour long anticipated by the Cherokee strip boomers, was almost at hand. At noon the Cherokee Strip passed from the government to the homeseeker. At that hour the strip would be without a single white inhabitant. Two minutes afterward it would have at least 75,000, and by nightfall an equal number - the members of families of those who actually made the race for homes - would be within the borders.

Thanks for the relief afforded by the interior department - a little late, it was true, but not too late to be of avail - there was now every project that all the home seekers and town-litters gathered at the various registration booths would be made happy by the possession of certificates, without which they would not be permitted to enter the land, and, if they escaped the vigilance of the guards, would not be allowed to file on a claim at the land offices.

The demand for certificates became so urgent at Arkansas City, Caldwell, Orlando and Hennessy as to convince the officers in charge that thousands of applicants could not be supplied with the facilities then offered. A statement of the facts in the case in urgent telegrams to Secretary Hoke Smith of the interior department brought quick replies, authorizing the officers on guard to meet the demand at whatever cost. When it became known at the various booths that additional facilities were to be provided, the despondency of the home seekers was transformed into hope. New booths were opened at Arkansas City and Orlando, and the forces of clerks were increased at Caldwell and Hennessy. All the booths would be kept open all night if necessary, and up to on tomorrow, when the strip would be opened to settlement.

There has been a steady exodus on that day and night of certificate holding home seekers from the towns and camps to convenient places along the border where an advantageous start could be made in the great race was run the next day. The farmers had about all secured certificates, and had loaded their prairie schooners and sailed away with their families. The speculators, townsiters and gamblers still remained in town and would go to their chosen county seats or townsites on tomorrow's railway trains. The Santa Fe would run six trains for the boomers on the Arkansas City line.

Three would start this side of the line and three from the Oklahoma side. On the Kiowa line one train would be run i each direction. The Rock Island would run six boomer trains south from Caldwell, Kansas, and three north from Hennessy, O. T. These trains would be run under the supervision of the interior department, and would make a speed of not exceeding twelve miles an hour. These trains would be used mostly by those going to the townsites. The farmers and men seeking homestead claims would make the race on horses, while some would even go on foot. A few would go on bicycles.

The crowd that would participate in the great race far outnumbered that which raced into Oklahoma. The entries for the next morning race were now estimated at 78,000. Twenty five thousand would go in from Arkansas City and vicinity; 15,000 from Caldwell, 3,000 from Kiowa, 3,000 from Hunnewell, 11,000 fro Orlando, 9,000 from Stillwater, and 5,000 foremother places. Half of the home seekers, it was estimated, had families, and the total population of the strip that night would doubtless be at least 150,000. Oklahoma territory, according to the census of 1890, had a population of only 61,834. The year before the enumeration made by act of congress showed a population of 133,100.
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