1893 Boomers & Cherokee Strip
For a year the boomers had been gathering on the borders of the Cherokee Strip waiting for the opening of the land to settlement. Many were persons who failed to secure lands in Oklahoma.
Others had been attracted by alluring circulars from professional boomer societies, who hoped thus to arouse the government to a sense of the necessity of opening the lands to settlement; while others, having lost their homes in the states through misfortune or calamity, moved to the Strip, knowing that it must soon be opened to settlement.
The great crowd did not begin to assemble until after the issuance of the President's message actually setting the opening hour. But when they did come they came in greater numbers than was ever seen inane new land about to be given to the people. The crowds increased beyond the expectation of all concerned. They thronged all the hotels and temporary lodging places and overflowed into the boomers' camps which had been established along the rivers and creeks near the borders.
It was September 11th, 1893 Hoke's infamous registration booths opened for business, and from then on the boomers found plenty to keep them busy in seeking the opportunity to secure the certificates issued from them. These certificates were the tickets of admission into the Strip, and without a certificate no one could cross the border. If a person without a ticket escaped the vigilance of the guard he would not be permitted to file preliminary papers on any claim. This plan was adopted by the general land office as a means of checkmating the "Sooner," the most troublesome of all classes of boomers, the individual who took advantage of his fellows by entering the land before the appointed time. The plan was at first hailed with delight by the honest boomers, but when the registration booths opened for business it soon became apparent that with the facilities provide all could not be furnished with certificates, and then the "boomers" to fear that the efforts to checkmate the "sooners" might deprive the prospective settlers of the opportunity to enter the land.
It appears 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 how wave swept over the country, and how 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.
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