CLOUD CHIEF, OKLAHOMA HISTORY
information compiled by
John C. McCornack of Yukon, Oklahoma
CLOUD CHIEF, OKLAHOMA
After the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians were settled in their 160 acre parcels of land, the rest of the Indian Reservation was available for settlement. President Harrison signed a proclamation on the 12 April 1892 to open the lands for settlement. The date for the opening was set for the 19th of April 1892. The Secretary of Interior, as a preliminary to the opening, divided the 3,500,000 acre area into six new counties (C, D, E, F, G, and H).. Later the voters of these respective counties named them Blaine, Dewey, Day, Roger Mills, Custer and Washita.
FOUR PISTOL SHOTS
Four pistol shots rang out during the noon hour on April 19, 1892, and some 5,000 settlers raced into County "H" which later became Washita county to stake claims to homesteads. The greatest run was made from Tacola, a few miles south of the county line near the present site of Cloud Chief. Soldiers patrolled the south line of Tacola, from where the run was made. At 1:00 o'clock, the order was given by the soldiers that horses must not be staked closer than a set mark and all settlers must make the race on foot.
3000 PEOPLE
At noon on the 19th of April, Tacola had no inhabitants, the second day it had a population of more than 3,000 people with at least 50 stores established in tents. Tacola was retained as the name of the settlement until application was made for a post office. Later, the post office department selected the name of Cloud Chief in honor of a Cheyenne Indian Chief.
EARLY DAYS
Cloud Chief was at the fringe of "Texas" and as a result was settled mainly by Texans. Nobody who competed for the town lots could ever forget the excitement. Fights over claims were commonplace, and the cry of "claimjumper" was heard. In two hours the town was established. Many of the settlers left almost immediately after their claims were legally staked, for they had six months from the time they filed to the time they had to settle on their claims.
Many of the settlers went home to get their families and households. Many had left their business hanging fire until they found out whether or not they could actually find a claim in the newly opened country. They had to sell out or close out their business and farms back home.
The population dwindled, but only for six months. Then the town began its growth that was to continue for a eight year period. When Cloud Chief was at its peak it had population of about 700 people.
CLOUD CHIEF INDIANS
No Cloud Chief history would be complete without some comments on the Indians that lived in the area. In 1893, when John and Ida Stutzman, my grandparents, moved to their new 160 acre farm located east of Cloud Chief, Oklahoma. They settled in the middle of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian reservation. By studying the documentation by T.A. Edwards, an early day settler of Cloud Chief, we can learn why these Indians were in this area.
The Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians were of the North Plains, first known to the white men in Minnesota, they were pushed west into Montana and Wyoming and the adjacent territory by the warlike Sioux. As a people they were a fine physical type, excellent horsemen, brave and hardy, with leaders such as Black Kettle, Dull Knife, and Roman Nose.
To understand why these northern Indians were located in the Cloud Chief Area, we must study some of the events that took place in the 19th century. In the early part of the 19th century, the five Civilized Tribes, that is the Cherokee, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles were forced to move west to new lands which included what now is the State of Oklahoma. Some of these lands were already claimed by other tribes such as the Osages and Quapaws, but the government did not recognize the claims of these tribes.
Then came the Civil War and the civilized Indians were in a difficult spot. Some perceived them to have been loyal to the South. After the war, the Indians were forced to pay for their lack of support to the Union, and as a result the Western part of their assigned land was taken away from them. This included the area which is now the Western part of the state of Oklahoma.
The government with its newly acquired land began the settlement of other tribes in the Oklahoma territory. "Oklahoma" is formed from two Choctaw words, "Okla" (people) and Humma (red). At the Great Council between the Government and Indians at Medicine Lodge, Kansas in 1867, the Cheyennes and Arapahos, who had been at war with the white people were assigned the land between the Cimarron River (center part of Oklahoma) and the Kansas line. Later on this assignment was annulled and a new reservation was made. The reservation consisted of the area between the south line of Washita County, the Cherokee Strip, the 98th meridian west to the 100th meridian, the Texas boundary. This included the Cloud Chief area.
Although lands had been assigned to various tribes of the Plains Indians, they were not ready to settle down on them and they continued to raid in parts of Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. As a result there were many battles with Government troops, including General Sheridan and General George Custer. Many of the proud Plains Indians were killed. In one of the larger battles, Custer claimed he killed 100 warriors. At one time, 800 horses of the Indians were captured and killed on the orders of Custer.
THE GOVERNMENT WINS?
After many battles, the Cheyennes and Arapahos settled down on "their" reservation. What an empire this was - 4,297,711 acres and only slightly more that 3000 Indians, two-thirds Cheyennes and one-third Arapahos. In 1890, the government once again met with the Cheyennes and Arapahos. They persuaded each Indian to take an allotment of 160 acres each and release the balance of their tribal domain in consideration of which they were promised $1,500,000.
The money was kept in the Treasury and placed on credit for the tribes, where it would draw five per cent interest. This interest was to be paid annually on a per capita basis. On the 19th of July 1891, the payment in hard cash began. Each Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian received seventy-five silver dollars. By October of 1891, some 2835 members of these tribes had received $212,625. By March 1892, 3,329 allotments (160 acre farms) had been made, involving over 500,000 acres of land. This left a balance of 3,500,000 acres which were released for white settlements. By 1893, John and Ida Stutzman had homesteaded a 160 acre farm and were living in the same area as the Cheyennes and Arapahos.
LEARNING TO LIVE WITH THE INDIANS
Allie B. Wallace, one of John and Ida Stutzman's neighbors who lived a few miles north, provides us with her impressions of living in Indian Country with Cheyennes and Arapahos.
"During our first few years in this pioneer community (Cloud Chief), I often became alarmed over talk about the probable uprising of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians. At any time, so it was said, they might attack the white settlers who had undoubtedly encroached upon their hunting grounds, destroying large numbers of buffalo. and I heard horrifying tales of their carrying off small children, sometimes killing them by throwing them high in the air so that they would fall on the sharp point of a long knife-blade. It was even rumored that these Indians cooked and ate children.
The presence of Indians in my home at first sent cold chills running up and down my spine. They would sometimes stop when passing our house and come in without so much as knocking at the door and remaining almost as cold and as mute as statues, except for an occasional grunt to one another. They would stare intently at the cookstove and our fancy furniture. They had no hesitancy in handling anything that suited their fancy, and since all of them were fascinated by the pink, red, and blue-beaded pincushions on the table, they examined these items in minute detail.
Even as my cold chills subsided, I felt eerie as I stared at these strangely-garbed, sober creatures sitting somewhat ill at ease in our best straight-backed walnut chairs, or prowling around the rooms, examining our accouterments of civilization.
Later I lost all fear of the Indians and enjoyed bargaining with them for such trinkets as small beaded baskets, moccasins, and occasionally for a few yards of new calico which the government had given them and which they felt they did not need.
Long, slow-moving trains of covered wagons loaded with Indians often passed our place. In the spring they would be going to the reservation: in the fall, to the Boarding School at Colony where the Indian parents were required to place their children to learn the ways of the white man. I was only a little girl, but I sensed that the white man's rule was terribly resented by the Indians."
INDIAN LADIES
Allie continues: "The Indian ladies wore odd costumes of varicolored calico slips, just reaching their knees and meeting the tops of their buckskin leggings. They draped gorgeously colored blankets around their shoulders, and in the winter wore them around their hips. Their hair, parted straight down the middle all the way back, hung down in front of their shoulders in long braids, entwined with yellow or red calico strings. Some of the girls wore beaded bands drawn tightly around their foreheads with a feather at the back or front. Gaudy earrings and bracelets of silver or colorful beads often adorned the women, particularly the young ones, and all had their feet encased in close-fitting buckskin moccasins, decorated with tiny red, green, and white beads in complicated patterns.
The huge, shapeless older women, their faces stolid and ox-like, made me wonder if there could possibly have been a time in their lives when they had been as beautiful as their young daughters. It is easy to see how the stereotype of the 'pretty little Indian maid' developed. Their mothers may have been lumpy and unattractive but nearly all the younger girls were slender, well-formed and graceful, their jet black hair framing their lovely features of soft, dark eyes, smiling red lips, and gleaming white teeth.
The men dressed much like the women, wearing almost identical loose-sleeve, calico slips, shawls or blankets over their shoulders, and moccasins, decorated with beads. They also braided their hair and intertwined it with gaily colored strings, hanging just in front of their ears, as did the squaws. Their two distinguishing manners of dress were their 'store bought' trousers and their wide-brimmed, felt hats, usually with a feather in the band. I never saw an adult Indian without a colorful woolen blanket thrown over his shoulders, summer or winter.
INDIAN CUSTOMS
"An extremely puzzling practice to me was that of the father of an Indian family sitting alone, or perhaps with one of his small boys, in the big springseat in the front of the wagon while his several wives and children sat flat on the wagon-bed at the extreme back, jolting along stolidly and patiently, with out apparent discontent. I was accustomed to seeing white women riding in the most comfortable seats.
Although the home life of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes was quite primitive, they seemed distinctly loath to give it up. The teepee, a kind of circular tent, was erected by stretching cloth over long, slender poles, arranged in a circle and slanted to converge at the top, where a flap-like opening was left in the covering through which the smoke could escape when it was necessary. The sleeping quarters were on the ground, near the back edge of the tent, with only blankets or buffalo hides to cover the sleepers in winter.
The cooking was done outdoors except during the most miserable weather, over campfires, with huge iron pots hung on iron frames and in which the meat stew was made. They baked bread over the coals in a covered iron skillet.
These tribes used no furniture whatsoever and they changed their clothing very seldom in winter, for they had no bathing facilities not even the big zinc tub used by the whites. The Indian women washed their clothes in the streams near their teepees.
FAMILY LIFE
Arapaho and Cheyenne men, as a rule, had more than one wife. However, they could hardly provide food for more than two families, but Old Two-Baby, the Indian whom our family knew best, had three wives. This fat, good-natured Indian buck with his wide mouth, huge nose, flabby jaws, and double chin left an indelible impression on me as he waddled about our yard in his broad leather moccasins and leggings, pointing, grunting, or tying to make father understand him by his use of the sign language.
A few years later when the federal government decided that the Indians could have only one wife, I wondered as I looked at Two-Baby's three wives, all sitting down flat on the bottom of his wagon-bed, about as expressionless as sphinxes, just which one Old Two-Baby would keep, and thought how tragic it would be for the other two to be abandoned.
PAPOOSE
I was fascinated by the babies who rode in the cradles on their mothers' backs. They always seemed happy to be high enough to observe what was going on around them, and I never heard one crying as he rode along, nor when he was swinging in one of these cradles from a low limb of a tree watching the mother do her chores. The frame of the cradle was made of willow branches, with a beaded buckskin covering which was about twelve inches longer than the framework of the cradle so that it could lap up over the papoose's feet. Lashings of Buckskin held the child securely within this case-like affair. At the back was attached the carrying strap, a narrow band of buckskin which served as a shoulder strap when the mother carried the baby on her back."
RAIN DANCE
Allie Wallace continues: "I can still recall the weird and mystifying sound of the Indian tom-toms, beating out stately rhythms for their dances in the summer evenings down in the valley of the Washita River three miles west of my home, where the tribe gathered during hot, dry spells to intercede with the Great Spirit for rain. Their solemn chants floated to me on the gentle breeze in the stillness of late twilight, and listening to their intercessions, I also prayed for a good rain, for often in summer the land was parched, the crops withered, and the air almost stifling.
When refreshing summer showers brought sweet respite from the blistering heat of July and August, what a relief it was to breathe the cooled air, to splash barefoot through the ponds of knee-deep water which had accumulated in the depressions we called 'buffalo wallows'."
John and Ida Stutzman, my grandparents, lived only one mile from the Washita River, and we are sure that they heard the same tom-toms. One can only speculate what their thoughts were as they listened to the beat of the drums and remembered their family heritage which included the Hochstetler Massacre. Family recollections indicate that Ida never trusted or liked the Indians.
CONTINUING IMPACT OF THE INDIANS
When the Indians selected their 160 acre farms, they usually selected it along the Washita River. In later years, this productive land played a key part in the land accumulation of John and Ida's daughter, Christola and son-in-law, Charlie McCornack, my father.
Charlie's father, Charlie McCornack, Sr., settled on land across the Washita River from the John and Ida Stutzman farm. The 2000 acre ranch they worked on during the later 1910's and early 1920's were partially owned by Spotted Horse. Other key Indians in the community were Joe Night who was a Indian Chief; Long Claws the mother of Spotted Horse; Rabbit Robe owner of a 160 acre farm that later became part of the McCornack property; plus Judson Crow from which a 80 acre farm was rented. The local favorite was Jock Bull-Bear, a well educated Indian who made a living by boxing and wrestling in the Eastern States in the winter. In the summer, he lived about 1/2 mile north of Cloud Chief on the Washita River where he enjoyed fishing and hunting.
TWO BABIES
One of the most colorful Indians of the Cloud Chief general area was named Two Babies. Some theories being he was named because of being a very big baby. Anyway it is reported he was the biggest Indian of the area with his weight being estimated at above 350 pounds.
Jan Cunningham's grandmother wrote about him and said that one day as her family was sitting down for dinner. Two Babies walked in the house, without knocking. He was well known for doing that. He ran two fingers through the gravy and Jan's grandmother grabbed the shotgun and chased him out of the house. He laughed as he ran out.
The "Colony Courier" reported several times about Two Babies activities.
03-16-1913: Two Babies is happy as a Big Sunflower. He is getting his monthly pension paid to him now. For a long time Two Babies hadn't received any monthly money.
04-31-1913: Two Babies and Herbert Little Bird and their wives, Bichea Two Babies says when he went to Cantonment, he learned from Bull Thunder, an old Arapaho, that his wife, Bichea, was an heir to several lands up there.
05-29-1913: Two Babies is in bad shape. He has no team to go around with and his friend, Herbert Little Bird, is too busy with his crop to haul him around.
09-18-1913: Two Babies and Little Bird were filled up on firewater and the Marshall caught on to them and they saw the inside of the jail. Some of these Indians tried to make the bootlegger's stuff better by putting some extract in it.
01-22-1914: Two Babies says he going to live like the Pale Face on his wife's allotment. He has sold his allotment and going to build a house and barn and buy 2 milk cows and some chickens.
GLORIOUS JULY 4, 1893
The front page of the Cloud Chief "Herald-Sentinel" for July 1, had this invitation.
4th of July Celebration
In the Government School Park at Seger
Come One, Come all
An old fashioned Basket Picnic
and a General Good Time
Speeches and Music
Killing of Beeves by Indians the Old Way
With Bow and Arrow
Wind up with a Jack Rabbit hunt in the evening
Fireworks at Night
A GOOD TIME BY ALL
The July 8th edition of the paper provided the following: "The dawn dawned beautiful, and owing to the bountiful rains of the four proceeding days a magnificent cool breeze wafted hither from the towering peaks of the Wichita Mountains south of us, and thus beneath the wide spreading branches of those gigantic elms was assembled the largest gathering ever witnessed in Washita County since her eventful opening. As early as seven o'clock teams began to come in from every direction and by nine the roads were literally lined as far as the eye could reach, with wagons, carriages, carts, horsemen and footman, all making their way to Steger to celebrate.
About ten o'clock the program was announced and carried out completely. First came a slow mule race in which a dozen or fifteen squaws of all ages and sizes took part. Kid races in which a large number of white and Indian boys took part. It was a nice race and won by a white boy. A Free for all foot race was made of about the same number and proportion as the kid race and an Indian won first place. After a few other minor races and some music, the beeves were rounded up and a band of Indians turned loose upon them with bows and arrows.
YELLING LIKE DEMONS
The Indians made a run of about a half mile, bare backed, with hair flying and yelling like demons, and dressed in their most primitive costumes. Killing cattle in this way seemed cruel and barbarous, but it was not many minutes after the charge was made that the last hoof lay dead. Lizard pulled the fatal shot on one by sending an arrow clear through one of the animals as Little Chief did to another.
After the killing, dinner was in order and for a couple of hours all were busily engaged taking care of contents of their well filled baskets. After dinner there was music and speaking. The principal speakers were Prof. Young, C. L. Davis, J. H. Seger, Little Chief and Two Babies. After the speaking, some more races were held. After the races, the crowd began to disperse, some going home, some to attend the ball in town and some remaining to witness the ghost dance which commenced at dark and lasted all night."
INDIAN DOCTORS AND POISON BALLS
Emma Christian provides the following about experiences with an Indian doctor.
"The Indian doctors that I knew were mostly women and they made their medicines out of various kinds of weeds, the bark and roots of trees, and herbs, and they also believed in witches. My oldest sister had a bad sick spell, and Mother sent for an Indian doctor. She came, examined Sister, then she went off to the woods to get her medicines. There was a room built off, separate from our bedrooms the boys generally occupied. This room had a fire place and the floor was very near the ground. She demanded the use of this room and called for an old fashioned pot to cook her herbs and roots in. When she got them prepared, she took one of two planks out of the floor, then she dug a hole in the ground to fit her pot into, then she fixed a bed for Sister to lie on over this place then she steamed her several times a day for three days in succession, and gave her teas to drink. After the time of steaming was over she showed Mother a little ball, presumably made of hair and a clot of something like blood in it. She pretended that she drew this out of Sister's side by the steaming process. She said that Sister had been shot by an enemy with a poisoned ball. Sister got well and lived to be seventy - seven years of age. No doubt she had pneumonia and steaming was good for her, but the poison ball was a hoax."
DANCING AND DEATH
Emma Christian provides additional insight into Indian doctoring.
"We went in several Indian homes where they had the conjurer or witch doctor, where they served pachofa (made of corn and fresh pork cooked together) and had dancing while doctoring the sick which was a queer way of doing in case of sickness. When all were through eating, the weird music of the tom tom began in front of the place where the patient lay: We were not allowed to see the patient. I listened attentively to the whimsical noise the doctor was making in the area of the patient, which to me, sounded like a dried gourd, with shells, dried peas, beans or buttons in it, and her muttering contained he, he, ho, ho. When all this was over and all starting for home, one of my mischievous sisters ran by the forbidden area. The guards chased her but it was dark and she got away. The patient died and they blamed my sister for the patient's death. If the guards had caught her they would have stripped her clothing off and dipped her under cold water, thereby dispelling the evil spirit."
CHIEF LITTLE WOLF
The Foss Enterprise newspaper reported the following on May 5, 1922.
"Chief Little Wolf, the most noted Indian of the Cheyenne tribe died Wednesday morning, one mile south of Clinton and was buried at 6 o'clock Wednesday on the Crooked Arm allotment. Little Wolf was elected chief of the Cheyennes in 1890 and served his people in that capacity until his death last week. The Cheyennes will gather shortly and elect a new chief. Chief Little Wolf had traveled extensively in the United States and had been awarded many honors. His name on the government rolls was Little Coyote. He was one of the few who escaped the trap of Custer's Battle on the Washita. Little Wolf was 67 years of age and was married to Shell Woman. Shell Woman and a daughter, Nina Little Wolf, survived the chief. His grave probably hides many of the traditions of his tribe. Thus has passed one of the greatest characters in the drama of every day Western life.
INDIAN NAMES
In addition to early day books, discussions with my father, personal memories, the Colony Courier newspapers were a good source for Indian names. Colony is located about 12 miles northeast of Cloud Chief. Below is a sampling of Indian names that I have observed over the years.
Dan Tall Sun
Robert North Gretchen
Howling Crane
Francis Red Bird
Alice Harry
Joe Creeping Bear
Mastamaha Wolf
Chief Belle
Black Owl
Lady
Arey
Sage Woman , Big Bodied Woman, Different Standing, Johnny Red Bird, Sitting in Lodge, Gus White Shirt, Bichea Charcoal, Little Chief, Ghost Bull, Greasy Dog, Stone Hammer, Creeping Bear, Yellow Calf. Marten Buffalo, Indian Policeman, Little Eyes, Wolf Tongue, Sage Back
Easter Heap O'Birds
Paul
Ridge
Bear Washee
Cloud Chief
Yellow Coyote
Little Man
Skunk Running
Harry Good Bear
Red Leggings
Joseph Black
Bear
Swift Wolf, Van Horn Flying, Andrew Throwing Water, War Medicene Horse, Broken Rib, Black Short Nose, Bent Little Man, Lame Deer, Red Belly Woman, Peter Creeping Bear, Mary Moran, Washee Lucy, Little Man, Guy Lumpmoth, Spotted Bear, Red Bird, Wolf Chief
Drunkard
Left Hand Woman
Standing Tree
Scolding Woman
Medicine Woman
White Buffalo
Lame Woman
White Hawk
Two Crows Prudie
Two
Crows
Spotted Bear, Howling Walks, Red Woman, Walking Woman, Killing Woman, Crow Woman, Short Woman, Howling Water, Antelope, Mrs. Nan Above
Big Face Nis-Ta-Nek
Gotebo
Red Bird Walking
High Rat Woman
White Buffalo Woman
Magpie Woman
Wondering Woman
Shoshone Woman
Beaver Woman
Little White Horse, Jennie Spotted Bear, Night Walker, E. Howling Man, Singing Otter, Charley Mountain. Guy Lump Mouth, Throwing Water, Red Shin, Spotted Horse, Smooth Standing. Woman Heart, Wolf in Middle, Jock Bull Bear, Lone Wolf, Two Baby
Mrs. White Elk
Big Smoke
Joel Little Bird
Long Nose
Ridge Bear
Morning Killer
Little Wolf
Shell Woman
Nina Little Wolf
Beaver Woman
Bad Finger
Black Paint
Spotted Coon, Smells Like Bear, White Man High Nose, Oscar Bull Bear, White Bird Walking, Woman Old Bull, Aetna Tall Bear, Long Hair Bull, Looking Around, Black Wolf Sarah, Wolf Chief, Two Hatchet, Buffalo Woman, Wandering Woman, Walking Ahead, Lizzard, Hollering Man, Crooked Belly.
FIRST PIONEER CELEBRATION - 1897
On the afternoon of April 18th, people from a distance began to arrive. By nine o'clock that night, there were hundreds of prairie schooners parked around Cloud Chief. Large brush arbors and various kinds of booths were erected for speaking, also for music, both vocal and instrumental. There would be entertainment for everyone. The race tracks had been worked down to perfection. The best horses in the southwest had been entered in the races.
By ten o'clock an immense crowd had gathered. The foot races, the first on the program, were going on at the tracks west of town. Between the tracks and the town were the ball diamonds where two or three games were going on at the same time.
The committee in charge of the dinner had erected a table one hundred and fifty feet long. It was customary for everybody to bring a big box of dinner. Everyone brought their box to the table and turned it over to the committee in charge. The beeves were barbecued and ready for the table. All of the Indians from miles around were there and there is nothing that an Indian loves more than barbecued beef unless it is more of the same thing.
At the dinner, not one in ten were able to get to the long table. People would go and get their hands full and step back to give others a chance. So all were able to get something. Everybody was in good humor and seemed to consider the rights of others. It was two hours before the dinner was over.
At about 3 o'clock, while all the programs were going along smoothly, a man by the name of Cal Moore came riding through the streets on his horse in a dead run, his hat in one hand and a big six-shooter in the other and yelling at the top of his voice. He rode up to the saloon, threw down the reins and walked in, boasting that there were not enough men in Cloud Chief to arrest him. He was an old cowboy and had a bad reputation, but was considered a pretty good fellow when sober. He had been drinking hard all day, and officers knew there would be trouble if they tried to arrest him. So they decided to let him alone rather than spoil everything by starting a scene. The sheriff told one of his deputies to come with him and they would try to get the drop on him before he did some damage. They went around to the back door of the saloon and walked in. But Cal was watching them, his revolver still in his hand.
"Hello, Sheriff," he said, as the officers walked in.
The sheriff thought if he could get him to talking, they might be able to take him without any trouble.
"Hello Cal, how are you today"
"Just as drunk as hell and mean as ever. What do you want?" as he backed toward the door.
"Put up your gun, Cal and consider yourself under arrest."
"Not by damn sight do I put up my gun!" At the same time he fired at the sheriff, the ball going through the sheriff's right breast.
By this time Cal had backed out on the sidewalk. The deputy fired at him but missed, the ball going clean through a horse standing at the hitching rack. Cal kept dodging and firing as he backed off. The sheriff and two deputies kept firing until Cal fell in the middle of the street and even then he raised on knees and emptied a second revolver. But he was to drunk to do good shooting or they would have all been killed as he was a sure shot. The sheriff had emptied his revolver and started across the street to get shells. He fell in the middle of the street. The two deputies carried the sheriff into a store and called a doctor.
By this time some of Cal's friends had come up from the races and carried him into the hotel. Five balls had passed through his body. He died at 12 o'clock that night.
The sheriff was shot through the right lung, the ball coming out through the shoulder. He lingered along for several months and finally recovered.
Cal had emptied two revolvers. About 30 shots had been fired and the crowd was everywhere, but no one was touched except Cal and the sheriff. What a miracle!
A FARMING COMMUNITY
The base for support of the Cloud Chief area is agriculture. It was laid out by homesteaders using crude implements. The first pioneers carved out crops pushing old sod plows behind teams of skinny ponies. By October of 1892 only about half the farming land had been staked by the homesteaders. Records indicate John P. Stutzman filed a homestead entry for his 160 acre farm on the 4 Dec 1893. It was probably one the few remaining farms available for homesteading. The biggest reason, probably for the early lag in settlement was that people knew it was a semiarid region. Many of the farmers waited until the earlier comers proved the land would grow excellent crops before moving in.
TRIPS TO CLOUD CHIEF
Allie Wallace provides us with impressions of what it was like to visit Cloud Cloud shortly after John and Ida Stutzman arrived in the community.
"During the early years the occasional family trip in the big road-wagon to Cloud Chief on Saturday was a notable event. The sight of the tall facades of the business buildings when we reached the turn of the road, just after we had crossed the Washita River, was impressive indeed. Extending several feet above the roofs of its building, each front announced, in glaring letters, the name of the proprietor and kind of business, such as C.E. Summer, General Merchandise, or Brown, Smith, and Jones, Hardware and Implements. The youngsters enjoyed making up such signs as 'Ketchem, Holder, and Skinner, Ladies' Ready-to-Wear.'
MAIN STREET
On Main Street were two general merchandise stores. a post office, two hardware stores, two restaurants, two saloons, a bank a barber shop, a real estate office, a printing shop where the country newspaper was printed, and, at some distance away at the west end, the village blacksmith shop. One of my Saturday entertainments was to watch the blacksmith sharpen plowshares and weld metals. His pumping bellows fanned the fire in the furnace, making it hot enough to heat the iron to a deep red so that it would be malleable. The children who came to town visited his shop to see the sparks fly and hear the clanks of the hammer on the hot iron as the blacksmith pounded it into the desired shape.
The public watering trough, an absolute necessity in every town when all conveyances were horse drawn, was at the east end of Main Street. For those who could afford twenty-five cents, there was a wagon-yard about a block north of the watering trough where one could water his horses and have access to stalls with feed-troughs, and even a bunk to sleep in, himself, if he wished to stay overnight.
THE LIVERY-STABLE
The livery-stable, located in the south part of town, was patronized primarily on weekends when the beaux of the town needed buggies and teams to take their girls to a dance or party on Saturday night, or buggy-riding on Sunday afternoon, a popular pastime of this era. Of course, many of the swains could not afford to hire a 'rig' at a cost of two or three dollars and had to ride along beside their girls on horseback. Buggy-riding was about the only way in which a couple could have any privacy for courtship.
THE IRON HOTEL
To the south of Main Street was the rightfully named Iron Hotel, a one-story affair, armored with large sheets of galvanized iron. Even the roof was covered with the iron and guests said it was impossible to sleep when it rained or hailed, for the noise was like the attack of a gang of warriors firing their repeating Winchesters. The guests consisted mostly of 'drummers' (salesman), and cattlemen who often had no families. Their main recreation was, I was told, the exchange of vulgar jokes, or hair-raising tall tales, presumably about their experiences in the lands to the west.
THE CLOUD CHIEF COURT HOUSE
The one-story, 20 x 30 foot courthouse (build in 1894) was constructed of badly warped, cottonwood lumber, when I first saw it. Anyone acquainted with the nature of cottonwood lumber knows that no other wood can make the peculiar twists and turns, both sidewise and edgewise, that it makes in drying. Perhaps the roof was the worst sight, for each shingle seemed to have a terrible aversion to lying close to another, and great yearning to thrust itself upward toward the alluring blue sky."
From other records we find the peak of Cloud Chief's development occurred from 1892 to 1900 and the fall covered only a few months after the removal of the courthouse to Cordell, the current county seat. There was much legal controversy and wrangling over the removal of the courthouse. One young attorney named Baker was even "tarred and feathered" during the process.
"THE CLOUD CHIEF BEACON"
One of the early day newspapers in Cloud Chief was the "The Cloud Chief Beacon". The paper's motto was "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold". In the "Local and Personal" we find the following items:
* Triple Extracts at R. M. L. Baker.
* Charley Summer is quite sick with slow fever.
* Temp. Summer feel from a tree Sunday and broke his arm.
* Thos. A. Edwards was over at Cordell the first of the week.
* Tom Galloway will remain at Cloud Chief to keep the boys straight.
* The Commissioners are having the court house torn down preparing to moving it to Cordell.
* S. O. Daws, of Salem, made the Beacon office a pleasant call on Monday.
* Bryant & Co. have received and opened up a large invoice of dry goods this week.
* Commissioner Brown was in the city Wednesday looking after some bridge matters.
The "Big" news of the week was reported in the center of the front page under a title called "Commissioners Proceedings" dated August 10, 1900.
"Board of county commissioners of Washita County, Oklahoma Territory, met and convened at Cloud Chief the county seat of said county, at the usual place of meeting of said Board at 10 o'clock a.m. of August the 10th, 1900, to canvass the vote cast at a special election held in said county, on Tuesday, August the 7th, 1900, for the purpose of locating and establishing the permanent county seat of said Washita County, due and proper notice having been previously given of the time, places and purpose of having said election as required by law.
----the said Board of County Commissioners sitting to canvas the said returns of the said election, find that there were cast at the said special election in said Washita County, sixteen hundred and fifteen votes, and that Cloud Chief received of said number of votes so cast, two hundred and seventy-five, and that New Cordell received of said votes so cast for county seat of said Washita County, thirteen hundred and forty.
----said town of New Cordell shall be and is hereby declared to be the county seat of said Washita County -----
----It is therefore ordered that the offices, furniture, books, and records of said county be removed at once to said town of New Cordell, and that the sheriff of said Washita County is hereby directed to see that this order is properly carried into effect with as little delay as possible: and he, the said sheriff, will make due returns to the Board of County Commissioners of the manner of execution of this order and his charges and expenses in the executing the same.
L.N. Williams, Chr'm Bd.
H.C. Treadaway
M.B. Brown
Witness by: G.W. Wheeler, Co. Clerk.
In the corners of the front page the following three items appeared:
FIFTY WAGONS
"Last Saturday about fifty wagons from the vicinity of Cordell, rolled into Cloud Chief and in short order, loaded all the county records, furniture, etc., up and carried them to Cordell, and of course all county officers had to follow. So Cloud Chief is left without an officer of any kind, except Deputy District Clerk, Henry N. Berry, who will do business at the old stand until his Honor, Judge Irwin, orders him to go to Cordell. Cloud Chief hated to give up the boys for they are a lively wholesome set and we will feel quite lonesome for a while without them but "such is life in the far west".
ON GUARD
The business men of Cloud Chief have two men on guard each night, to see that no harm is done to any of the county property here. The substantial citizens of Cloud Chief are law abiding citizens and want nothing that they are not entitled to by law. They condemn lawlessness of any kind in the most bitter language, no matter who the perpetrators are, and The Beacon hopes the good people of the county will not condemn them for the lawless acts of a few irresponsible parties, as they are found in all communities.
NEXT WEEK - CORDELL
Next week, The Beacon will be published at Cordell. This change has been made necessary by the change in the location of the county seat, and not from a preference on the part of The Beacon nor its owner, as the move will cost us several hundred dollars, which we are not at all able to lose if it could be avoided, The Beacon and its editor, believing on that fundamental principle of Democracy, of letting the majority rule, calmly submits and accepts the situation as the majority has made it. No subscriber will lose a single issue, nor will the policy of The Beacon be in any way changed by the removal. The Beacon will ever hold a fond recollection of the many favors and courtesies extended to it during the past three years by the good people of Cloud Chief, and will always have a good word for Cloud Chief and her citizens."
THE CLOUD CHIEF WITNESS
On Friday, July 15, 1904, Cloud Chief had a new newspaper called the Cloud Chief Witness. Below are reports from the first page of the first issue.
SALUTATORY
"CLoud Chief is awaking to its new possibilities. There is a great future in store for the old town and its numerous patrons and friends, and it has been urged that a newspaper is needed to quickly make known this fact. Therefore we present to you this, the first, issue of the CLOUD CHIEF WITNESS."
JUSTICE AT LAST
For the first time since the illegal removal of the county offices and records from Cloud Chief to the town of New Cordell are proper steps being taken to cause the same to be brought back to the site established by act of Congress, and the only lawful county seat of Washita County.
Several times since that eventful day four years ago when a crowd from Cordell, with spades and crowbars, demolished the newly-erected court house in Cloud Chief, efforts been made to secure justice, but without apparent results. At last we have secured the services of an honest and able lawyer for a reasonable consideration to take up the matter for us. Virgil M. Hobbs, a highly recommended attorney form Guthrie will appear before the Supreme Court in that city on the 25th day of July and ask for a writ of mandamus compelling the county officers to remove the records to Cloud Chief and maintain them there. It is reasonably sure that this writ will be granted if justice is meted out, as there is a law by Congress prohibiting the removal of any county seats of Oklahoma by a vote of the people so long as Oklahoma is a territory. Some of the Cordell papers are unduly excited over this county seat matter and are indulging in ungentlemanly remarks. Gentlemen, this is a matter of law, and if the law has been violated, as we think it has, you can not afford to place yourselves on record as favoring violation of law: it won't do for molders of public opinion."
-------------------------
"Cordell stole the county records which was very unjust:
Supreme Court will order them to Cloud Chief, then Cordell will bust."
"It has been suggested that in case the writ of Mandamus asked of the Supreme Court is granted, the people of Cloud Chief go to Cordell and tear up the court house and remove it to Cloud Chief, the same manner as Cordell fellows did in Cloud Chief four years ago. This suggestion is out of place, and we know the people of Cloud Chief will do nothing of the kind. Cloud Chief is law abiding."
THE HOT FARMER
"A farmer near Cordell was approached by a member of the Cordell county seat committee and asked for a contribution. It seems the farmer became warm under the neck band and asked a few questions. He said: "When we farmers are hard up, how do you fellows help us? By charging 2 per cent, eh? Why does Cordell pay less for farm products than surrounding towns? No, you can go to. I have an idea it is a good thing for us farmers to have another railroad and a good town at Cloud Chief."
Moral: Competition is the life of trade.
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
"Several days after the opening of the C and A country, Cloud Chief had a population of 3,000, and for a long time after was the best business point in Southwest Oklahoma. With the restoration of the County Seat, Cloud Chief will undoubtedly surpass its former greatness.There are a few mossbacks with some shelf-worn goods at a small town by the name of Cordell, 12 miles west of us, trying to do business, but no one thinks of going there if they wish to purchase a big bill of goods. At one time Cordell had the opportunity of making the best town in the Southwest, but her mossbacks and knockers were too slow. She had the Frisco Division, but lost it, and as one of her citizens said the other day, the trains now barely stop, and after a while it is expected the train will not even whistle when going through."
ANNUAL SCHOOL MEETING
"The annual school meeting of District 18 was held at the school house Tuesday (July 12, 1904). Willis Lowe was elected clerk and Louis Wright director. A 20 mill tax levy was voted. There will be 9 months school beginning September 5. Ex-Clerk Chas. Evans reported 77 male and 58 female children of school age in the district, 113 on the roll last year, average attendance 51. Treasurer Charles Stevenson reports $742.34 received from the county treasurer."
A few weeks later, the following item appeared in the Cloud Chief Witness.
SPECIAL SCHOOL MEETING
"The school meeting, Saturday, was warm. A successor to L. C. Stevenson, treasurer, resigned, was to be elected. It appears the contest was whether to employ Prof. Knie for Principal for the next year or not. The district is now nearly $300 in debt, and a number of citizens held that the district could not afford so high priced a teacher. One side supported George Pauley, the other J. G. Huckabay. Both men are popular and the vote was very close, 16 to 14 in favor of Huckabay, the man opposed to Knie. It is all right to be close, but the patrons do not expect the board to be parsimonious and do not want a cheap teacher. If a competent teacher can not be hired for the full term for a fair salary, better cut down the length of term. Better have six or seven months of good school than nine months of inferior instruction."
In the same paper the court house battle continued with the following comments.
DON'T WANT IT MOVED
"In an article under the above caption the Herald - Sentinel would have its readers believe there are a considerable number of farmers around Cloud Chief that do not want the county seat at Cloud Chief, which is proved by the fact that some are not tearing their shirts to rehabilitate the hills and hallows. There are always a few men in a community too stingy to spit when not in their own onion patch for fear some one else might raise an onion off their labor.
Regarding the hilly and broken country surrounding Cloud Chief. People that live in glass houses should not throw stones. The Beacon of July 21, (1904) speaks of the poor roads around Cordell and of the deep canyons and implores the Cordell road committee to work the township board for funds to make roads into Cordell. As to the sympathy Cordell has for the poor, ignorant, deluded people of Cloud Chief we would advise her to save it up in the deep canyons around her town for there is a day coming when she will need it all."
SERVANTS OR BOSSES, WHICH?
"Some of the county officials are boasting that they will never bring their records to Cloud Chief. They will go to jail first. We have an old-fashioned idea that county officers were the servants of the people, but in this county they are more like bosses."
"Cordell is awfully anxious to deny that the county has not paid rent to Banker Rowley and J.C. Harrel for use of the courthouse. Which also reminds us, who gave these fellows permission to obstruct the section line with a courthouse. Here is another opportunity for our fearless county attorney to enforce the laws. We hope he will see to it that the section line is cleared at the earliest possible date."
ABOUT THE RAILROAD
"It is argued that the county seat will not help Cloud Chief much without a railroad. The county seat will bring a railroad and what is more there is a line staked across the southeast corner of the town site. You may count on a railroad doing business in Cloud Chief six months after the county seat comes back which will happen in September. Mark my prediction."
A TOWN FULL OF PEOPLE
"Saturday reminded a person of old times. The town was full of people and trade was good. Just wait till the court house and railroad arrive and old town will move some. Cloud Chief has one the best town sites in Oklahoma. It is high, healthy, and well drained. The Washita river flows just north of it and will supply the water for an excellent system of water works. The US. Government set aside three full blocks centrally located for courthouse and jail, public school and High school, with three more blocks for a public park."
CLOUD CHIEF SITS ON HER OLD GYP HILL
The early day life is probably best documented by the following poem written by T. A. Edwards:
Cloud Chief sits on her old gyp hill,
And hot winds blow as hot winds
will.
The sun beats down with fervent
glare
the gullied street and dusty
square;
On the ragged row of cottonwood shacks,
Where the horses gnaw at the hitching racks,
Gnaw and paw and fight the flies
Or sagging stand with sleeping
eyes.
Here's big George Gordon a-tendin' bar,
As cowmen gather from near and
far;
Their snaffles jingle, the saddles
squeak
For the Williams riders from the Turkey
Creek,
The Hughes boys down on the
Washita
And rustlers out of the Kiowa,
The rollicking crowd of Quarles and
Teel;
Chaps and boots, and spur at
heel,
A poker game or a bit of fun,
A-cussin' some herd-law son-of-a-gun,
On the vacant lots the nester meet,
With a little jag of cotton or
wheat,
Butter and eggs and prairie
hay:
The liveliest town in the C and
A!
The night grows old, the street is
still.
Cloud Chief sits on her old gyp hill.
WHAT STUTZMAN FOUND
OUT
An 12 Aug 1904 Cloud Chief newspaper carried the above combination headline and advertisement.
"The hardest thing in the world is to get a person to help himself. We have been telling Stutzman to throw away his Empire separator and take out a DeLaval. John says 'of course I know the DeLavel is the best machine but I do not believe there is enough difference to pay me to get one.' We know the DeLavel is the best profitable machine even at $100.00 and so last Friday we loaded one into John's wagon and made him take it home and now John says. 'Well I would not believed it, I am getting double the amount of cream from the same amount of milk.' From the above article, it appears that one the enterprising Cloud Chief merchants had made another sale. By August 1914, John P. Stutzman had joined the list of Cloud Chief merchants as evidenced by the following advertisement which appeared in a Cloud Chief paper.
STUTZMAN & SON
We are prepared to do light repairing on Automobiles, Motor Cycles, Cream Sep- arators, and Gas Engines, and will grind your valves and vulcanize your inner- tubes. We'll file that dull saw for you for 5 cents Phone 552 Line 10 CLOUD CHIEF
|
HIDING IN BLUE STEM GRASS
Henry Berry and his wife Maude decided to leave Iowa to take up a homestead in April 1893. He shipped his horses, some farm equipment and some household goods in a box car and moved to a Cloud Chief homestead. When they arrived, the whole country was covered with blue stem grass which was tall enough to hide all the small children. Les Dobbs and his wife, Sallie came to Cloud Chief in 1896. As a precaution against fire, Les would always plow a wide strip around their dugout. The grass was as tall as a horse's back and it looked like water waves when it blew in the wind.
The Berrys built a dugout and made a mattress from cotton which was seeded by hand before the cotton gin arrived at Cloud Chief. For their living room wall, Maude had a beautiful white plague made from gyp rock, which was crushed and boiled in a iron kettle, and molded over a fancy glass bread plate. Other furniture consisted of a cute little barrel chair. It was made from an ordinary flour barrel with the right places for the arms and seat. This was accomplished by putting the top down inside the barrel for the seat and nailing it in place. The chair was padded with cotton and covered with calico, dark red with small white polka dots, shirred and pleated to fit.
The kids were enrolled in the Cloud Chief School which was one long room with a removable partition and two doors in the center. It could be opened for special programs but for everyday use, it was a two room school. The little room was taught by Miss Rilla Oliver and the big room was taught by Fred Greer. When April Fools day came, all the school children "ran off" to the creek south of the school where the girls picked wild violets. Some of the hardy children took off their shoes and waded. Mr. Greer waited at school for a little while and then got into his buggy and drove over to see his sweetheart, Miss Lucy Rich, who later became his wife.
THEY CAME ON HORSEBACK
William Auld was born in Arkansas in 1876. At the age of 21, he started west by horseback to homestead on some land for a home. It was a quite a distance over trails, creeks and rivers. He staked a claim 4 miles southeast of Cloud Chief, near the Washita River. He built a sod dugout with log poles, farmed with a sod walking plow and a horse. The neighbors and Indians were good to help him out. Cloud Chief was the nearest town to buy sugar, flour, meal, coffee and sometimes a slab of bacon. He hunted squirrels, rabbits, wild turkey and fish for his meals. For his light, he would braid rag material, put it in a tin pie pan with some lard. It burned like a wick. Clothes were mended by hand when torn. He cooked on a wood monkey stove with the oven connected in the stove pipe.
THEY CAME BY COVERED WAGON
J.R. Bailey was born in Tennessee in 1854. He came to Cloud Chief in a covered wagon in the summer of 1896. As they traveled through the Wichita Mountains on trail known as the Big Canyon, they passed by a small white house up on a hill some two or three hundred yards from the road. There were reports it was the home of Big Three, an old Indian chief who had led raids on the white settlements and captured prisoners. Bailey settled on a rough quarter section of land about 4 1/2 miles southeast of Cloud Chief. He bought a relinquishment from a fellow who had filed on it. They lived in a tent near a big spring of gyp water. In the early days, the nearest railroad was the Rock Island line at El Reno and Minco. The men of the community made frequent wagon train freighting trips to those towns to bring supplies for the stores in Cloud Chief. These trips, took around ten days. These were terrifying days for the women and small children. There was a constant fear of an Indian raid, although none occurred in this part of the country.
GYP WATER
About all the water in the immediate area was of strong gyp, unfit to drink. The Baileys had to haul water in barrels from a soft water well about three miles south, but most the families later dug cisterns to catch rain water after they had houses. Like the Bailey home, the McCornack home did not have water. In later days, all the water was hauled from Cordell in a 1000 gallon tank and dumped into a cistern where it was drawn one bucket at time. With no water, of course there was no indoor bath room, and as a result baths were a very infrequent occurrence in our household, with one in a round galvanized tub about every two months. I had a college education and was married before water was available in the Old McCornack home. In fact, one of the most enjoyable parts of college was having access to a shower and an indoor bathroom during the cold winter nights.
DANCING
Most parents had strong religious beliefs and objected to dancing. But like most things there were ways to get around the beliefs. The teenagers conducted play parties which the parents seemed to approve, although the only difference between a play party and a dance was that a play party had no fiddle. The group danced to Old Joe Clark, Skip to My Lou, Old Dan Tucker, Buffalo Gal, Shoot the Buffalo and some others. The dance steps were the same whether they had a fiddle or not. The fiddle and the name of the activity seemed to be the chief culprits. When I was young, dancing was still considered to be part of the evil society and was something that good people did not do. As a result there never was an opportunity to attend an organized dance during my high school career at Cloud Chief.
RAISING HOGS AND TRAIN WHISTLES
Carl Clark remembers his mother becoming very ill. They sent her by train to Oklahoma City to be operated on for gall stones. When she returned she was shipped back in the baggage car........dead. Her last words before she left were, "Boys, make men of yourselves." He recalled the bills for her illness amounted to $884, which they paid for by raising hogs. He never forgot the lonely sound of a train whistle.
THE HUGHES RANCH
Bailey's land adjoined the Hughes ranch on the east. The Hughes ranch was always known for a place for the outlaws to gather. Late one day, J. R. Bailey, was down on their place looking for one of his milk cows, when he was suddenly surrounded by an armed posse. He first thought that is was some of the Hughes ranch hands trying to have a little fun, but soon learned they were serious when they told him they were a posse deputized by the sheriff and brought to apprehend Bert Casey. The posse did not find Bert as he continued to be a "trigger Man" as an expert marksman belonging to various groups of outlaws which generally operated out of state.
In later years, I and my best friend Alvis Richey, spent many a warm Sunday afternoon searching for the hidden passage ways and secret tunnels that were reported to be in the Hughes complex. Charlie McCornack used tell of riding on a running board of the Hughes cars to and from Cloud Chief. During prohibition, the Hughes made hard liquor and many a car load of drink were hauled by the McCornack home during my early childhood. The Hughes Ranch mystic still remains a fascination to this day.
FIVE MILES APART
B. E. Bryant was born in Kentucky in 1864. He staked a claim 5 miles southwest of Cloud Chief during the April 1892 settlement. After a busy summer he drove a wagon to El Reno and went by train to Texas to marry his fiancee, Virginia Grant. They returned to El Reno by train and from there to Cloud Chief by wagon. Most of the trip was made in a snowstorm and they looked forward eagerly to their new home. It was after dark when they arrived and they found that a budding merchant, whose store building was not finished, had stored his room full of furniture in his home at Cloud Chief. This meant another night in the wagon. He had a little trouble explaining to his wife that when he wrote he had built two rooms, he had forgotten to say that they were five miles apart. The next day was bright and clear, making the hardships easier to forget.
ORGANIZED CHURCH
When the Thomas Coalson family came to Cloud Chief in 1901, Cloud Chief had three saloons but no churches. The first thing Coalson did was to organize a Church and a Sunday School which met in the two room school building. As many as 50 or 60 attended the Sunday School. Later a Methodist and a Christian Church were built in Cloud Chief. The Coalsons lived by the following principles:
1) Honor God with your lives. Don't let your life be a lesson for what you do not approve in others.
2) For happy homes, yesterday is gone, tomorrow may never come. Now is all you can call your own, Love one another.
3) Owe no one anything but love. Have good orchards, good gardens, plenty of chickens, good cows, some pigs to eat surplus, raise two good colts.
4) Don't neglect the children. Train them to look after stock, caring for all things.
5) Don't neglect to study the Bible. Let it be a lesson in your lives. Go to Church and Sunday School.
6) Don't give up under adversity: You are put here to overcome and to be overcomed. Blessed is he that overcometh for he shall have a crown of life.
WINDMILLS AND TELEPHONES
B. E. Bryant became a dealer for Aeromotor windmills. He installed a geared mill to power the presses of the Herald-Sentinel, Cloud Chief's leading newspaper. He also installed the same type mill on his farm. This was a twelve foot wheel on a forty foot tower which became a landmark for that part of the country. He also helped organize and install the first telephone line from Cloud Chief to Gotebo in 1906. When W. S. Skinner bought the Cloud Chief telephone in 1915, James Chappelear worked on the new telephone lines to bring a "crank telephone" to many farms including his own. His number was three long rings.
INDIAN LULLABIES
William Harvey (Harve) Dean was born in Texas and staked a claim southeast of Cloud Chief during the run of 1892. Harve married Laura Daphne Rasor in April 1891. When they lived near Cloud Chief, the Indians were their closest neighbors and became their good friends. Harve knew all the chiefs by their names. the Indian women would come to the dugout to see the baby, Ruth. They would sit in a circle, pass the baby around, saying soft little Indian words to her, and a young Indian mother sang a little Indian lullaby to her. Laura learned from a chief's young wife how to break the hard gyp water with herbs.
PANTHER ON THE ROOF TOP
James Cunningham was born in Alabama and came to the Cloud Chief area in 1897. One night while he was on a freighting trip to El Reno, his wife Clara was at home with the children. When night came, the baby was sick and started crying. This attracted a panther which jumped on the roof top and tried to come down the chimney. Clara built up the fire to keep the animal from coming down. As the night progressed the wood began to run low. The family was very scared, but as daylight came, James returned and chased the panther away.
HUNGRY INDIANS
On the way to Washita County, the Cochran family had an interesting experience. They were driving cattle and all the cattle had to eat was dry grass and as a result they were in very poor health. One the heifers died during the night and the Cochrans were prepared to leave the dead animal for the coyotes, but someone came along with a better idea. They loaded the dead heifer on a wagon and traded her to a band of Indians for seven loads of dead wood. No sooner had the deal been consummated when several squaws dragged the heifer out of the wagon and began to skin her. While two or three were skinning, others were cutting strips of meat from the carcass and passing them out to the bucks and children. Bones were tossed to dogs and not a trace of the emaciated animal was left.
COWDEN AND CROOKED BELLY
Levi Emerson and his wife Nancy, came by covered wagon in 1893, and settled about one mile east of the Washita river. His property later became part of the Cowden School Community. At that time there were Indian Teepees on every quarter section up and down the river. The Indians were near starvation and often wanted to sell their land to get food. Some of the Indians were Washee, Two Baby, Lizzard, Hollering Man, Crooked Belly, Buffalo Man, and Running Woman.
The Emerson children attended school and church at Valley View, one mile east of their home. The first building was a one room building made of cottonwood lumber. Inside were cottonwood benches made from 1 x 4 boards. There were no desks or tables. They had slates to do their lessons on and occasionally a cheap thick tablet that had to be used on each side of the sheets. They sometimes bought penny pencils which were cut in half. The pupil getting the eraser end was lucky.
RESTROOMS AND GRADUATION
In the spring of 1915, Gernert installed a "rest room" in the corner of his store in Cloud Chief. He described it by saying:
"This is no cheap John affair, but a nice neat place to sit down and rest. There is a funny rug on the floor, solid oak, finely polished furniture: the latest magazines and papers, with a box of cigars or dish of ice cream not far away."
The newspaper reported: All of this is mighty fine for a town the size of Cloud Chief and we trust you will cooperate with Mr. Gernert to encourage him to keep it running. Just one word of caution, do not destroy or carry off any of the magazines, but assist him to prevent others from doing so"
Late May of 1915, was marked by graduation exercises at Cloud Chief. A class of eleven completed the eighth grade work. It was the largest class to ever graduate at Cloud Chief to that time. There were more boys than girls, which was unusual, because boys often dropped out earlier. The graduation exercises were held at the Christian Church. In the class were: Anna Pauley, Irene Lovell, Mabel Evans, Maud Matlaga, Clara Howell, Donald Russell, Leslie Martin, Dero Ross, Frank Coalson, Carl Ovell, and Frank Howell.
THE EGG LAYING HENS
The following poem was published in a Cloud Chief paper in 1915 by R.K. Gernet.
To drive away poverty: Keep the wolf from the door:
Get some egg laying hens, you'll need nothing more.
Corn and wheat is very good, Cotton was in its day:
but the egg laying hen on the farm will surely pay.
Of her we will talk, of her we will sing,
for there is nothing so paying as the egg laying hen.
We've planted the cotton and watched the weeds grow.
We have passed with the hoe.
We've worked with the corn,
when "t'was all burned up" by hot winds in July.
We've sowed all to wheat, saying our granaries to bust:
but we hadn't planned on it being ruined by rust.
So of her we will talk, of her we will sing,
for there's nothing so fine as the egg laying hen.
You may have the Leghorn, or the white Wyandotte,
it makes no difference what kind your have got:
But to make your farm pay, now is the time to be
stocking up well with the egg laying hens.
WIDOW WITH FIVE CHILDREN
Charlie and Laura Eskew came to Oklahoma from Texas by covered wagon. They had ten children. Charlie died in 1920 leaving Laura to raise the five younger children by herself on the family farm.
Laura was always afraid of the Indians. The Indians always wanted to stop by her farm for water on their way to Arapaho in their covered wagons. Even though the Indians were all friendly, Laura with her unfounded fear would make her five children hide out in the cotton patch south of the house until the Indians had passed. Life could be frightening for a widow on the plains.
COTTON PICKING HOLIDAY
In a 1913 issue of the Gernert's bulletin is a statement that the school board announced that school would start July 28th and continue for two months. Then the cotton picking holiday would be taken with school beginning again on December 1. The term of the school would depend on how much the people were willing to pay. The board recommended that no shorter than a six months term be taught. Although this was not pleasing to everyone. The amount of time needed for the cotton picking holiday almost mandated it.
The cotton picking holiday remained a tradition throughout the history of the Cloud Chief school. We always went to school in July and August and had October and November off for picking/pulling cotton.
SHANGHAI AND MY FAVORITE ROOSTER
Early day pioneer B. E. Byrant relates the following about his large red rooster: "He was the tallest, lankiest rooster I have ever seen and had a neck like an ostrich. When he stretched his neck and crowed the other roosters just gave up and kept quiet. We were very fond of him and called him Shanghai, for why I don't know. One bitter cold morning Father came in from his chores carrying Ol' Shanghai. He seemed to be past any help but Father put him in front of the stove to thaw out. In about thirty minutes he began to show signs of life, when he was able to sit up we decided that he needed some kind of tonic. The only thing we had was Peruna, a popular remedy with a very high alcoholic content. We propped Ol' Shanghai up and gave him about two tablespoons of Peruna which he took readily. About a minute or two after his toddy, Ol'Shanghai got up on his feet, stomped around several steps, stretched to his full height and crowed one of his best blasts, looked around at everyone, and fell dead."
Chickens were always a part of my early day life at our Cloud Chief home. The eggs provided the needed income to buy essentials at the local country store. One year I had obtained some special Rhode Island Red Chickens and had plans to show them at the county fair. From my youthful prejudicial viewpoint, I had the best looking rooster in the County. One of our neighbors, Curt and Nova Shields were always visiting us. One day we returned home just in time to find that the Shields had captured my prize red rooster and were carrying him home for their supper. Boy was I unhappy, but we did manage to rescue him and he was later to earn a blue ribbon at the county fair.
THE DUST BOWL
Edwin Propps provides the following image of the dust bowl in the late 1930's:
"Dust blew so hard the fields looked swept clean and drifts of dust piled high on fences until they looked like sand dunes in a desert. Dust filled the houses so fast that before the linoleum covered floor was swept clean the design was covered again. Men wore handkerchiefs across their nose and mouth to protect their lungs while doing outside chores."
Orval Morris provided the following:
"One afternoon in the late 1930's a sandstorm began. It got so dark and scary looking that school was dismissed. All of Gwyn's 4-H chickens that were in the house were killed by the sand. Sand was removed from the house by scoop shovels and the bedspread was taken from the bed and gallons of sand dumped from it."
John McKillip provided the following:
"The terrible depression started after our first good crop. Dust storms and drought: taxes and interest were high. President Roosevelt ordered all the farmers having over seven head of cattle to kill them, we canned 150 quarts of beef."
It was during these years that I was born in the Old Stutzman's home about two miles east of Cloud Chief. Family recollections indicate that the dust was so bad in the house at the time of my birth that you could not see across the room.
In the years of my youth I was always fascinated to observe an old horse drawn mover sitting down by our pond which had the mower blade sticking straight up and only about 6 inches of the blades was showing. The complete machine had been buried during the dust bowl days of the late 1930's. There were also fence rows on our home farm which had accumulated enough sand to be able to walk over the top part of the fence.
"CLOUD CHIEF STILL SITS ON HER OLD GYP HILL"
More Cloud Chief ...... People
Still more Cloud Chief ....Memories
For my other Web Pages .... McCornack Web Sites
Contact me at ....... JMcCornack@aol.com