NW Okie's Corner
At 11:55am, 16 September 1893, Saturday, the Cherokee Strip was without inhabitants; at 12:05pm, 75 thousand people were pushing forward with utmost speed. Friends became separated, everyone was left to look out for themselves. Men cursed, shouted; women, children screamed.
After the first rush the strippers gradually spread out over the prairie. Those fortunate enough to possess fast horses quickly took the lead and the patient home seeker who had been waiting for months for the opening stood no chance at all.
Many young women were mounted on thoroughbreds, holding their own in the rush for land. The trains were a dismal failure, for running at the rate of 12 miles an hour they were easily passed by horsemen.
1893 Land Runners:
* Noble & Case had a good business house erected in Alva, and putting in a stock of hardware. H. E. Noble returned from Alva to Kansas. He said the town was booming. Good water was found at a depth of 27 feet.
* There was mention the city attorney of Kiowa, Kansas was arrested by the soldiers the Thursday before the 1893 Run as a "sooner." No particulars were listed, though.
* Arthur Furgerson, who started to make the run from Hardtner, KS to Alva, met with an accident before he had run very far. His horse stepped in a prairie dog hole, breaking its leg.
* W. A. McWilliams returned from his trip to Alva where he got a nice claim on the Case flats, north and west of Alva nine miles. In lifting a barrel of water from a wagon he hurt his back and had to return for physical repairs.
* Miss Helen Cameron returned Wednesday from Alva. She boasted of a fine claim near the town.
* W. D. Mackey, of Kiowa, started on a race horse for a choice claim five miles distant. He was thrown from his horse and injured in the side, but he drove his stake where he fell, capturing a fine claim adjoining Kansas.
* D. R. Streeter had his team harnessed to a plow on the line at the foot of Seventh Street, and at the signal stuck the plow in the rich soil, proving his claim to a fine farm. He did not stop till he had encircled the land with a furrow, the first sod turned up in the new country.
* Milt Hull, editor of the Kiowa Journal, started to Alva on the Santa Fe train, but fell off when seven miles out. His misfortune resulted in the location of a fine claim on the spot.
* An interesting story of the Cherokee Strip Run of 1893, was a lady run for a claim south of Caldwell on that Saturday, 16th September 1893. In climbing over a barb wire fence her dress caught, and in the hurry and excitement her clothing was pulled off. A modest newspaper correspondent said it was easy enough to see that she was no gentleman.
Hoke's Smith Registration Booths (Hell's Half Acre)
Probably the hardest worked man in Kiowa during the Strip rush was Postmaster Charles. The line before the delivery window of the post office resembled one of Hoke Smith's registering booths. There would be no counties or towns in the Strip which would be named in honor of Hoke Smith. The part of the town usually disignated as "Hell's half acre" may bear his name in memory of his registering booths.
The facilities for registration were totally inadequate, and the "boomers" soon learned that the scheme was an outrage and a fraud. Great lines of people and stood in front of the booths for four days in the blazing sun, during which time an unprecedented hot wave swept over the country, and hot winds blew as a blast from a furnace mouth, adding to the miseries of the waiting men and women.
Food was scarce, and so little water was to be obtained that it was valued at from 5 cents to 15 cents a glass. These hardships, heaped upon men already wearied and exhausted by waiting in line day and night, proved to be more than human nature could endure. Many were prostrated and some died. The prostrations, so far as reported, numbered over 100 and the deaths ten. In the midst of these deplorable conditions there was some bright spots. The men, true to the American respect for women, gave up their places in the line to the suffering members of the weaker sex. At Arkansas City women were permitted to enter the booths in squads of hundreds without ever joining the line. Good humor as a rule prevailed during the tiresome wait, and nothing of a disgraceful nature marred the occasion.
While the long wait for the opening was not altogether a continued round of uninterrupted pleasure, it would become one of the most memorable features in the boomers' pioneer experience.
The booth system may have been well intended but it was a foolish regulation in its inception, a bungling farce in its execution. It harassed and hindered every honest man and woman who was really entitled to a claim or town lot in the promised land.
Instead of being a protection against "soonerism" it served to furnish certificates of character to dishonest invaders. It entailed untold hardships on the poor, the weak and guileless, while it afforded abundant opportunities for blackmail to unprincipled officials and their scoundrelly abettors.
The reporter stated during a two days he watched the booths of Orlando, he never in the same length of time seen so much petty fraud and gouging of the unwary.
We know there are more 1893 Strip Run stories out there that have never been told. If you have a story you heard from your grandparents carried down through their parents, we would like to hear from you.
Good Night and Good Luck in you research.
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