The OkieLegacy

Ranger Album - 1917

NSN - Northwestern State Normal

Notable Incidents in the History of N. S. N.

The State of Oklahoma has a unique history. Most of the states of the Union were slowly built up and settled by a gradual influx of settlers into their territory. Oklahoma was composed of Indian reservations which were thrown open to settlement. Its primitive prairies and valleys were changed almost in the night to a land teeming with people and already beginning to progress. In spite of her youth this state equals in development to many of her sister states and bids fair to outstrip them all.

On the morning of September 16th, 1893, there was gathered along the southern Kansas line a strange and motley crowd. There were people of every age and description, drawn there irresistably by the prospect of secruing a home in this promised land. Boomers in covered wagons, townsmen in buggies and carts, cowboys with their accustomed ponies, people on foot and on bicycles; these were samples of the thousands of homeseekers who had gathered at this shrine to pay homage to the god of fortune. At twelve o'clock the signal was fired by soldiers who were posted at intervals along the line.

They began the most remarkable race in the annals of history. There was a strong wind blowing from the south, and the dry earth was soon beaten to powder by the myriads of hoofs and wheels. The whole scene resembled the route of a retreating army; the strong taking the lead leaving the stragglers enveloped in a cloud of choking dust. There was one man among the leaders who rode a big dun horse in the long easy lope of the typical plainsman. This man was James Fryre, who was later to play an important part in the history of the Northwestern State Normal School.

The town of Alva, platted and staked by the government, lay on the south side of the Salt Fork. There was a lone frame building on the square which served as the government land office. At evening the face of the valley had changed and where there had been a slope of sun-browned buffalo grass there now stood a tented city with hundreds of little camp fires sending up their smoke as the pioneers prepared their first meal in their new home.

The town grew rapidly and many places of business were built up. All through the new territory land was cultivated and little towns sprung up; everywhere the land gave evidence that the pioneers had come to stay. One of the first problems that presented itself to these state builders was that of the education of the rising generation.

The people of this part of the state in 1895 introduced into the territorial legislature a bill which would establish a territorial normal at Alva. At this time a committee of citizens was appointed to secure a plot upon which the normal should be built. It was then that Mr. James T. Fryre, through the bigness of his heart, presented the state with the land where the normal now stands.

The first bill lost, but the tenacity of her citizens is the thing that has made Alva the queen city of Northwest Oklahoma, and the bill was again presented two years later. Although the opposition was strong, the bill was passed and on March 10th, 1897, the news was flashed over the wire that the Northwestern Normal was at last a reality.

Since then the town and country has grown and students of N. S. N. are everywhere filling places of importance and honor. Many of us do not know what heroic sacrifices, what unceasing effort have been made to give to the present generation a college of Northwestern's standing.

On behalf of the student body and faculty of today and of the years gone by, as well as those to come, we take this opportunity to express our thanks and to show our appreciation to all the friends of N.S.N. Especially do we wish to pay tribute to Mr. Fryre, that big generous man of the west, who has done so much for the people of Northwestern Oklahoma and their posterity.

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