The WPA Guide to Oklahoma

The Sooner State

Federal Writers' Project

• Publisher: Trinity University Press
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781595342348
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authors—many of whom would later become celebrated literary figures—were commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison are among the more than 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers who documented this celebration of local histories. Photographs, drawings, driving tours, detailed descriptions of towns, and rich cultural details exhibit each state’s unique flavor.The WPA Guide to Oklahoma is filled with descriptions of Native American life in the region, accompanied by many photographs. From Black Mesa to Cavanal Hill, this guide to the Sooner State takes the reader on a journey across the state’s vast and varied landscape. Also, notable in this guide is an essay by prominent historian Edward Everett Dale entitled "The Spirit of Oklahoma.”

PART I

The General Background

The Spirit of Oklahoma

By EDWARD EVERETT DALE

THAT “the child is father to the man” is as true of a state or a nation as it is of an individual. Largely, we are what our past has made us. Behind ideas and ideals, no less than back of institutions social, economic, and political, always lie certain vital forces which have called them into life and which shape their progress. Such being the case, it is clear that any attempt to analyze or explain that intangible thing which we call the spirit of a state must be made in the light of its history.

The most significant thing in the romantic and colorful history of Oklahoma is the former Indian occupation of this region. A century ago the pressure of land-hungry whites drove the Five Civilized Tribes westward to Oklahoma, and virtually all of the present state except the Panhandle was granted to them for “as long as grass grows and the waters run.” It was as though a wall had been erected about Oklahoma by governmental decree. It was an intangible barrier, of course, and yet none the less real because of that. Denied entrance into this “Indian Territory,” white settlers crept slowly westward occupying lands on either side of it; but the wall held firm.

Because of this long Indian occupation, Oklahoma presented for generations the picture of an area of arrested development. The last American frontier, it lies in point of time very near to pioneer society, but it has made greater material progress in a single generation than has any other area of comparable size in the United States.

That this long Indian era has profoundly affected present-day Oklahoma is readily apparent. The Five Civilized Tribes in their old homes east of the Mississippi occupied what might be described as a “strategic region,” between Spain in Florida, France in Louisiana, and England in the Carolinas and Georgia. The Indians were quick to realize the advantages of their position and with rare ability began to play one nation off against the other.

This long training, to which was added the experience of administering the affairs of their tribal governments after reaching Oklahoma, gave the Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes a knowledge of diplomacy and politics equal to that of any people in the world. Oklahoma’s constitutional convention was largely dominated by that group of Indian Territory statesmen trained in the hard school of tribal politics. Many of the outstanding political figures of the state have either had Indian blood or been intermarried citizens of one of the Five Civilized Tribes. Among these may be listed two governors, a United States senator, several members of the lower house of Congress, at least two speakers of the Oklahoma legislature, and many other prominent state officials.

Indians have given Oklahoma not only able statesmen but soldiers, artists, literary men, and civic leaders as well, while the two men the state has honored with statues in the national Capitol, Sequoyah and Will Rogers, were both of Indian blood. Perhaps most important of all, the Indian race has given to Oklahoma many thousands of good citizens who in a more humble capacity have done much for the advancement of their own communities and of the state.

Steadily there is being woven into the fabric of Oklahoma’s citizenship this red thread of the Indian. Through intermarriage, Indian blood in Oklahoma is becoming more widely diffused. The time may come when an Indian recognizable as such will be hard to find within the state, but perhaps through wider dissemination the influences of Indian blood may be greater in the future than they have ever been in the past.

Important as has been the influence of the Indian in the formation of the spirit of Oklahoma, that of the pioneer white settler was no less significant. Much of western Oklahoma was opened to settlement by the so-called “Runs.” In these it was literally true that “the race was to the swift, the battle to the strong.” The first of these, that of the “Unassigned Lands,” was at high noon, April 22, 1889. When the President’s proclamation, issued thirty days earlier, fixed the date of this opening, it also provided that anyone entering upon these lands prior to that date should forfeit all claim to any part of them as a homestead.

Before the day fixed for the opening many thousand eager young men had gathered along the border of this new Promised Land impatiently waiting for the hour when they would be free to cross the line and choose a claim. Some of these had for years been urging, or “booming,” the opening of these lands to settlement and were, in consequence, known as “Boomers.”

It is not surprising that some of them should grow weary of waiting and under the cover of darkness cross into the forbidden area too soon. Here they chose choice tracts and either occupied them or lay in concealment near by ready to dash out and assert their claims when the hour of opening had come.

These men, known as “Sooners” because they had entered the territory too soon, had not technically committed any crime for which they could be punished by law. Yet they could not legally secure any of these lands by homestead or acquire a right to any part of them. In the language of sport, they were merely put out of the game for a violation of the rules.

For a long time the term “Sooner” was one of reproach, but with the passing of the years the word began to lose its original connotation. As its origin was gradually forgotten, it eventually came to mean merely one who is alert, ambitious, and enterprising, or one who gets up earlier than others, always takes the lead, and strives to triumph over obstacles.

The first great Run was followed by others. Each of these brought to Oklahoma a fresh influx of aggressive, eager young people to choose lands, build homes, open up farms, and establish towns and cities. Regions as large as one of the smaller states of the Union were settled within a single day and developed with amazing rapidity. Then, about the time that the free lands of western Oklahoma were all gone, came the beginning of the marvelous oil development of the eastern portion of the state. Here the opening of each new oil field brought a new “run” of youthful, adventurous people, not for homesteads but for leases, royalties, concessions, and business opportunities. In this fashion Oklahoma was peopled by a hardy, vigorous population strong in their youth and often counting material advancement as the true standard of success.

In the lean years before the coming of oil the pioneer life of Oklahoma was hard, as many people yet living can abundantly testify. But in spite of hardships due to hot winds, crop failures, and lack of material comforts, the pioneer homesteader looked into the future and saw there wonderful things. Like Christian, he had caught a glimpse far off of a celestial city, and he worked early and late to make his dreams come true.

If in his eager seeking after the things of the flesh he should neglect somewhat the things of the spirit, that too was inevitable. With his family housed in a dugout, sod house, or rude cabin, the pioneer would have been somewhat more, or less, than human to give too much attention to music, art, and literature before he had made better provisions for the physical welfare of his family.

Yet even from the first there were always to be found certain elements who kept alive the spark of cultural and intellectual progress and who strove earnestly to fan it into flame. Foremost among these were the pioneer women who planted flowers, beautified the simple home, and urged that churches, schools, and Sunday schools be established in order that the children might not grow up in want of the finer things of life. Added to their efforts were those of frontier bishops, the presidents and faculties of the struggling little colleges, and those who worked in a far more humble capacity, the rural teachers, circuit riders, and country pastors, to all of whom Oklahoma owes a deep debt of gratitude for their contribution to the spirit of the state.

It was not long before the earnest efforts of these early pioneers began to bear fruit. The dugout or sod house gave place to an attractive farm home. The trail over which the covered wagons rolled west widened to a broad highway. The tiny villages grew to thriving towns. Churches, schools, and colleges multiplied and became comparable with those of older states. Oklahoma was rapidly coming of age.

It is obvious that such a historical heritage should give to Oklahoma a remarkable and distinctive spirit. It is a spirit of youth, of optimism, and high faith in the future. It is a pioneering spirit, eagerly reaching out for things new in economic and social experimentation, or government. In the lean pioneer years, Oklahoma had to depend largely upon borrowed capital for its economic advancement and upon borrowed culture for its intellectual and educational progress. More recently it has developed not only locally produced capital but locally produced culture as well; strong financial figures as well as nationally known writers, artists, and musicians.

In recent years Oklahoma, in common with other states, has felt keenly the pinch of economic depression. This has brought to a few people a feeling of pessimism and discouragement, but only to a few. The pioneer spirit, compounded of courage, optimism, and faith, is still strong among a people so close to the frontier of yesterday.

Natural Setting

THE MAP of Oklahoma suggests in its outline a butcher’s cleaver, the Panhandle of the west representing the handle, the north line its straight back edge, the east line its square-cut end, the Red River on the south its irregular cutting edge. Lying slightly south of the geographic center of the United States, it is a part of the Great Plains region, and its surface has a gradual upward slope toward the Rocky Mountains. The lowest point, 324 feet, is in the southeastern corner; the highest is in the Panhandle, 4,978 feet. (The marker reads 4,778 feet, but later investigation proves the true elevation is 4,978 feet.) The average elevation is 1,300 feet.

Oklahoma has an area of 70,057 square miles. It is bounded on the north by Kansas and Colorado; on the east by Missouri and Arkansas; on the south by Texas; and on the west by Texas and New Mexico. Its main rivers flow in a southeasterly direction, and the entire drainage is carried to the Mississippi by the Arkansas and Red rivers. The Arkansas enters the state from Kansas about the middle of the northern border. The Salt Fork, Cimarron, Grand, Verdigris, and Canadian rivers all flow into the Arkansas within the borders of Oklahoma. The North Canadian flows nearly across the state before joining its companion stream, the Canadian. The Washita and a number of lesser streams in the southern part of the state feed Red River.

In the northeast, the Ozark Plateau extends into Oklahoma. It is a region of moderate hills with deep, narrow valleys and numerous clear streams. The base of the plateau is a great limestone formation known as the Boone Chert; and steep, picturesque bluffs have been formed where the streams have cut it deeply. Timbered with oak, ash, hickory, elm, walnut, pecan, hard maple, and sycamore, this is a region of great beauty, especially in autumn, when the forests are clothed in rich and varied colors.

South of the Ozark region, occupying most of the southeastern corner of the state, the Ouachita (Wah-she-tah) Mountain area, some of which is included in a national forest, consists of parallel ridges formed by the faulting of thick layers of sandstone. Many of the valleys are narrow, and each has its spring-fed stream. This area contains the pine forests of Oklahoma, as well as many hardwoods.

In the south central part of the state are the Arbuckle Mountains, covering an area of about sixty by twenty miles. These old mountains, worn down to a height of only seven hundred feet above the surrounding plains, present a remarkable variety of geological formations—limestone, sandstone, shale, and granite. The limestone is grass-covered, while most of the others are timbered. Many streams and attractive camping places make this one of the popular recreation areas of the state...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Foreword, by W. B. Bizzell
• Preface
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Maps
• General Information
• Calendar of Annual Events
• Part I. The General Background
• Part II. Principal Cities
• Part III. Tours
• Part IV. Appendices