09.20.05
Posted in History at 5:28 pm by NW Okie
[taken from Renfrew’s Record, dated Friday, January 23, 1920, Alva, Woods Co., Oklahoma, frontpage article] — The old Nicholson & Noel barn, at the southeast corner of the square, is being torn down and a new filling station will immediately be built on the site by the Farmers’ Independent Oil Company, now on the corner of Fourth and Barnes, opposite. The Nicholson & Noel corner has quite a history.
Clay McGrath, the first elected sheriff of old Woods county, built a feed and horse barn about 1895, and Jack Pennington run it until it was sold to Grank Carter, a few years later. Carter, in 1901 or 1902, sold the barn to Arthur & Emmett Noel, who sold it to Johnnie Nicholson, in 1905. The present barn was built that year by Mr. Nicholson. W. H. Wiggins having charge of the work.
Soon after this A. G. Noel bought a half interest in the barn and it was run as a horse and feed barn until three years ago the barn was converted into a garage. The old barn and those that preceded it saw many flourishing years, when horses filled the stalls and wagons and buggies filled the barn and the street in front of it. Before railroads were built between Alva and Oklahoma City, loads of wheat, broom corn and other porduce were brought from as far south as Fairview and the drivers left their teams and loads here or at other barns until they found a market for their produce.
Times have changed very much in the past 20 years, when the garage and filling station succeeds the old livery barn. We are under obligations to Mr. Nicholson for the most of the data contained in this article.
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Posted in History at 7:51 am by NW Okie
Sac and Fox Tribes…
The following information is taken from the Oklahoma Historical Society book on the History of Lincoln County.
The Sac or Sauk, or people of the yellow earth, and the Fox or Mesquakie, or people of the red earth, began as two separate but neighboring tribes and their earliest known habitiat was within the eastern penisula of Michigan.
From the book, Thwaite’s Jesuit Relations, comes this fact: “when first known to history, i.e. in 1650, the Sauk and Foxes numbered probably 6500 (Sauk, 3500; Foxes, 3000).”
Father Allouez, the first person to describe the Sauk, wrote this in the book: “… in 1667 they (Sauk) were more savage than all the other peoples he had met; That they were a populous tribe, although they had no fixed dwelling place, being wanderers and vagabonds in the forests.”
Because their language and customs were similiar and for protection and survival, the Sac and Foxes banded together and are considered Woodland Indians of the Algonquin linguistic family.
It was in November of 1869 that the first Sac and Fox Indians arrived in Indian Territory in what is now called Lincoln County, Oklahoma. The group traveled for 19 days from Osage County, Kansas, in 17 government wagons to reach their new home, the Sac and Fox reservation land, six miles south of what is now called Stroud. Twenty-three wagons filled with baggage, implements and provisions preceded the party and were already on the groundwhen the Indians arrived.
The Sac and Fox Indians had signed a treaty with the United States in 1867 and agreed to purchase 750,000 square miles of land in portions of what is now Payne, Lincoln and Pottawatomie counties.
The tribes sojourn in Kansas was just one of the many stops in a succession of moves forced on them by the migration of white settlers beginning in 1804, when they left their original Great Lakes homeland and lived in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas, before the move to Indian Territory.
Government Chief Keokuk negotiated the 1867 treaty to exchange Kansas land for the Indian Territory property, and some of the tribe protested the transaction. In 1868, a delegation went to Washington D.C. to protest and file lawsuits concerning the document, but in 1869 and 1870 most of the tribe removed to Indian Territory.
One band of the Sac and Fox, lead by heriditary Chief Mo-Ko-Ho-Ko, protested the move to Indian Territory and for years after the treaty was signed (and even after his death in 1880) many of his band kept returning to their old homes in Kansas and Iowa.
One discontented group of Sac and Fox returned to the Tama, Iowa area where they purchased land and remained as a separate tribe. The Sac and Fox of Iowa, who call themselves Mesquakie, list a about 700 on their tribal roles. There is also a Sac and Fox of Kansas and a Sac and Fox of Missouri, each tribe with fewer than 200 members. The Sac and Fox of Oklahoma is by far the largest of the four and list more than 2300 persons on the tribal roll.
The winter of arrival at their Indian Territory home in 1869 was a mild one — lucky for the Sac and Fox — as they were forced to live in linen tents until homes and buildings were constructed.
A large number of the more able tribesmen came to the reservation area in the spring of 1870, after participating in a winter hunt, and so saved the United States government moving costs.
A few months after their arrival in Indian Territory, the Sac and Fox government agent, John Hadley, reported a total of 418 Sac and Fox Indians on the reservation: 220 males and 228 females.
In both of the reports Hadley filed with the government in 1870, he writes that the Indians were unsure of land titles and rights. They were worried about hostilities because the government was not sure of reservation boundaries. There is evidence in files of the Oklahoma Historical Society that the tribe had to move twice because the government surveyors had marked the eastern and southern boundaries incorrectly.
Soon after their arrival in Indian Territory, the Sac and Fox dispersed into several villages in the huge reservation area. They built their traditional bark houses for summer and cattail house for winter and began to farm and raise stock on the mostly thin and rocky soil, a much different farming situation than they had experienced, considering the rich river bottom land of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, and their Great Lakes homeland.
The cattails gathered in the fall were used to weave mats for the houses that the Sac and Fox lived in during the winter months, when they moved to Indian Territory in 1869. A large piece of elm bark was laid against the canvas for a door of their winter hut. They used large pieces of elm bark like this to construct their summer houses.
In 1885 the tribal council, led by Chief Ukquahoko, organized into a Sac and Fox Nation, wrote a constitution, elected a Principal Chief to approve and sign all bills and contracts and a Second Chief to chair the councils. The same year the tribe established a complete court system and instituted a police department.
Pressure for the opening of Indian Territory to white settlement resulted in an agreement made by the United States Commissioners at the Sac and Fox Agency in June, 1890, signed by Principal Chief Mahkosahtoe and First Assistant Principal Chief Moses Keokuk in behalf of the Sac and Fox Nation, providing for part of their reservation to the United States.
Allotments of 160 acres to each member of the nation were completed, and the “surplus” lands (about 385,000 acres) were opened to white settlement by a run on Tuesday, September 22, 1891.
Soon after the tribe signed the agreement that authorized the run into Sac and Fox lands, the federal government abolished the elected tribal council and Chief Mahkosahtoe held office until the council itself was dissolved officially on July 17, 1909.
Walter Battice, an early-day treasurer of the tribe, wrote that with the abolishment of the council “… We, as educated Indians, too late to ponder right and wrong of human relations with Indians and invaders … must equip ourselves for what is coming. Before 1867, we had two chiefs, one Sauk and one Fox, then we have five Chiefs, Keokuk, Chicaskuk, Ukquahoko, Pahtequah and Cuppewhe, each with a band.”
The Sac and Fox Indian Boarding School, begun by Quaker missionaries in 1872, was located on the eastern edge of the reserve land and many Sac and Fox children were forced to attend. A number of Sac and Fox elders remember the government sheriffs’ coming to their villages to “catch” children, load them into wagons and take them to the Sac and Fox School and a number of other Indian Schools as far away as Pennsylvania. There they were forced to learn English and were often punished for speaking thier antive Indian lanuage.
“Many wagon loads of nearly 100 children are expected to attend the Sac and Fox Mission School,” reported a Stroud newspaper in September of 1901.
The first school building was a handsome three-story brick structure, built at a cost to the tribe of $9500. Other school buildings included a girls’ dormitory, boys’ dormitory, a laundry, a large barn, and a water tower and sewer system.
Many buildings were erected a the Sac and Fox Agency in the years between 1870 and 1900, including several two-story brick homes for the tribal chiefs. A large brick home was constructed for Chief Keokuk and still stands about four miles west of the “agency” site. (In 1987 the Keokuk house was owned and occupied by the Ninness family and is listed on the National Register of Historic Sites).
Other structures in the Sac and Fox agency town included four brick buildings, two frame houses a sawmill, a brick kiln, two frame store buildings, a blacksmith shop, a church, a log calaboose (jail), a physicians office, and several old log cabins. At various times the town also included a cotton gin, a bank, a boarding house, cafes, and at one time even a little photography studio and a shoe repair shop.
J. Y. Bryce, a Methodist-Episcopal missionary to the Sac and Fox, wrote the following description of the agency in 1890: “… The agency was both a preaching point and a military post. Its normal popluation was less than 500….”
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Posted in History at 7:49 am by NW Okie
Newport, Woodford, Gene Autry, Durwood, Cornish & Legate -
submitted by Ernest Martin
This week I traveled to Newport, Woodford, Gene Autry, Durwood, Cornish & Legate. Legate is in the extreme NE corner of Love County. A county road travels around the outside perimeter of Lake Murray, yet for the town itself, I found nothing there except a rather large, but well kept cemetery. Now & then there would be a modern home. The land is beautiful with large trees but few signs of the land ever having been tilled. I am sure at one time they grew cotton there — Today there are a few very large peanut fields in the sandy soil. I have included a picture of the cemetery.
There’s nothing that is still standing there except a well kept cemetery. Legate had a post office from September 25, 1905 until Sept. 15, 1921. Later, I visited the Ardmore Library and although they have a book there entitled A History of Love County [credited to the Love County Heritage Society] there was not even a simple acknowledgement that Legate ever existed. Its not just a ghost town because it seems that the spirit is gone also.
Next, I went back north and then east until I came to the location where the town of Wilson Creek once stood. Wilson Creek, which is located near Wilson Creek and SE of Ardmore 10 miles or so.(This Wilson should not be confused with the town of Wilson which is west of Ardmore about 17 miles sometimes referred to as New Wilson.)
Not a sign of any structure exists there but there is a well kept cemetery. On this road, another mile or so on east, you travel up a hill to find the location of the Wilson Creek Cemetery. The cemetery was in much disarray due to a recent storm that came through recently. Large trees appeared to having been struck by lightning. The US flag pole stood there but the flag was not mounted there in it’s usual place. Marshall County is just a very short distance from here. The countryside is beautiful with its hills & large trees.
From Wilson creek I went north on the Dickson Road until I came to Hwy 199 (old HWY 70) and I turned back east again. I located the Durwood road and traveled south on it until it branched off to the east and into Marshall County. Durwood was in two different locations when it was located in Marshall County only to later be moved to just barely inside Carter County. At this present site we are located in an area that co-mingles back and forth with Johnston, Carter & Marshall Counties. A few houses are along the road but nothing that could be identified with a town. Durwood was originally in two different locations in Marshall County - but ultimately ended up just barely inside of Carter County. This is all east of Ardmore a few miles.
When I was a child we had a neighbor that grew up at Durwood and he told about businesses being there including a Drug store, etc. He was an elderly man so I am not sure which location he was speaking of. It had its beginning in what is know as the yellow hills in Marshall County. Although it had three very distinct locations each one was graced with a post office. All I could find to take a picture of was a road sign located on the highway where you turn on Durwood Road (see photo) No ghost town here either.
Today, I went west on HWY 70 to Lone Grove and turned north on Newport Road. Newport (just north of Lonegrove) is gone, except perhaps one old building. The cemetery is at the very road side. By following this road (Newport Road) north 15 miles or so I will arrive at Woodford. Newport was located north of Lone Grove several miles and as I expected, there is nothing there now except a very large cemetery. Newport had a post office from 1892 until 1961.
As you travel north along this road the scenery becomes very picturesque and soon the mountains appears back in the north. What a beautiful drive it is as I traveled toward Woodford. I am driving on this road which is covered with an arbor of wonderful large trees. The terrain is rolling hills which soon reveal the mountains more clearly in the distance and the blue haze gives the scenery a depth that is not surpassed by any I have ever seen.
The Arbuckle mountains hold a course east and west all along the horizon. Large ranches appear all along the road and are very evident all along the north side of highway 53, which we will travel when we go back east from Woodford. However, now we are still going north on the road we called Newport road earlier and suddenly we come to the junction with highway 53 & then the location of where the town of Woodford once existed. The old store building which also housed the post office is standing but it is nailed up tight.
As I go north I occasionally see the remains of a building. Often there is only rubble where a home once stood and sometimes there is an old chimney still standing as if it were standing guard over the old home place. The road winds around the hills and there is the old covered spring which no longer flows but still trickles a little water. (click photo to see larger view.)
Next, we come to an elaborate fenced in area which lets you know that this ranch is not open to the public but now we see the gateway into the area that is located below the large concrete dam that was built to hold water for Ardmore. This Ardmore Mountain lake was the lone source of water for Ardmore many years and the pipeline that carries the water does so by gravity flow. At the lake office the lady there showed me a huge rattlesnake skin that was mounted on a board. The board was wide enough, but it was only about five feet long so it wouldn’t accommodate the longer snake skin they also have.
I drove up the mountain and took a picture of the Ardmore Mountain Lake which by the way holds the record for some of the largest fish that have ever been caught in Oklahoma. (click photo for larger view of lake). Woodford now days only exists as a memory. No growth, no new homes - nothing is going on at Woodford.
Now I am back on highway 53 and traveling east toward Springer and then on east to the town of Gene Autry. Gene Autry is NOT a ghost town. Gene Autry is changed quite a bit but it is still there & doing business. It is not really a ghost town now. Although, it did play dead for a while, it was like the Phoenix and has lifted itself out of the ashes.
The Ardmore Industrial Park, which is a short distance away has given the town a real boost. The business section has grown and many fine new homes appear all around the hills of the area. There are no vacant houses and they have at least two very beautiful churches. I took several pictures while there but some of my film was lost when I opened the camera too soon. They no longer have a school, but the old building is used as a museum. The Old Berwin school building now houses the Gene Autry Oklahoma Museum of Local History. When the town of Berwin gave up its name to be called Gene Autry the school kept the name Berwin. Cornish (Jefferson Co) has been pretty well absorbed into the Ringling Metroplex.
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