Oklahoma Journeys
Week of April 19, 2008
The First Oklahoma Land Run
This week: Making a run from the border! One of the unique components of Oklahoma is the method of using land runs, there were five of them altogether, to open up various sections of land. The first of these runs, perhaps the first such event in the known history of the world, occurred one hundred nineteen years ago today, and that’s the topic of this week’s Oklahoma Journeys from the Oklahoma Historical Society.
From the Oklahoma Historical Society, this is Oklahoma Journeys. I’m Michael Dean.
Most Oklahomans know about the land runs that helped open up the various parts of our state. These wild events can be and are viewed as both wonderfully adventurous and tragic beyond belief. While white settlers involved themselves in a race for what some might call their last chance at making it, various Native American nations watched the land that was promised to them for so long as the waters shall run being swallowed up by the advancing hoard. For better or worse this week marks the 119th anniversary of the first of five Oklahoma land runs.
Following the Civil War a somewhat rectangular chunk of land, about three million acres in approximately the center of the present-day state of Oklahoma, was purchased from several tribes by the federal government. The government intended to move additional Indian tribes into this unassigned land. The land was allowed to lay vacant until a constant campaign to open up the lands proved to be effective. David L. Payne was a one-man boomer campaign fighting for years to open up these now unoccupied lands for white settlement. Although Payne never lived to see the fruit of his labor, the land eventually indeed was opened and done so via the land run system. No other known part of the world has ever been settled in this manner and probably for good reason.
Beginning weeks before the opening date, hopeful settlers gathered in border towns in Kansas, all massing to prepare themselves for the great run. Horses were trained and hardened up in order to make the run as fast as speed as possible while people stockpiled as many supplies as possible. On the celebrated day the crowd of thousands now surrounded the border of the unassigned lands waiting for the alarm. At exactly 12:00 noon on April 22nd cannons stationed along the line exploded, and the crowd surged forward as one. A mass of humanity riding horses, carriages, bicycles, even running and walking, swarmed in to the area. Trains carrying hopefuls to town lots were allowed to move forward only as fast as a horse could travel stopping at Edmond, Guthrie and other town sites.
As a method of settlement the land run was spectacular to watch, but it proved to be not at all practical as great numbers of complications occurred during every step of the process. From participating in the actual run, finding land and more importantly keeping it, to filing your claim afterward, the process was full of fraud, hazards and entanglements. The chaotic nature of the event, however, apparently didn’t faze officials as four other land runs took place over the next six years.
You can learn more about these land runs and see a wagon that made the 1889 run as well as the 1893 land run that opened the Cherokee Strip at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City on NE 23rd Street, just east of the state capitol. Oklahoma Journeys is a production of the Oklahoma Historical Society, dedicated to the collection, preservation and sharing of our state’s past. I’m Michael Dean.