INTRODUCTORY.

In presenting this work in two volumes to the public, the purpose has been to give in a concise manner a resume of Oklahoma as it is today, a review of the departments of State Government, the institutions of learning, and a compilation of statistics of its wealth and resources in various classifications, and other facts of interest, legal, historical, and industrial.

The fact that this is the first volume of such a publication to be prepared has made is necessary that the story of Oklahoma be viewed from an historical as well as a present day view point. This has necessitated a large amount of original work, delving into government records and past records of the different departments, and institutions, in order that many facts in regard to the Twin Territories may not be lost to the future generations.

The one great difficulty has been to summarize, assimilate, and compile the facts and statistics in such manner that the volume would not be discarded as "Statistics," but be considered a volume for a reading and reference library.

The story of Oklahoma is one of interest. It is a land of many peoples. Its history does not begin with the clan or creed. No Goth, Norseman, Hun, or Saxon every trod its soil. Within its limits are descendents, or remnants, of not less than fifty tribes and nations of Indians. Also, every State in the

Union is represented in its pot-pouri of citizenship.

Never before, since man began to organize governments, was government of such proportions founded and builded in the same length of time between the final settlement of Oklahoma, and its joining the sisterhood of States. This has been accomplished in the short space of less than a third of a century. And the Indian has here played an important part in the construction of a State. There has been woven through the warp of Anglo-Saxon institutions, a woof element that never before gave distinction to the permanent civilization of a commonwealth, the southerner and the northerner have met on common ground and laid the foundations of a great commonwealth.

The several Indian treaties, constitutions, and related records are given in this volume on account of their being

sources of historical reference that are fugitive and little known.

For a clear and comprehensive knowledge of references and reasons for many of the legislative acts relating to the changes in the early history of the State, it is imperatively necessary that these state papers be given, so that the general reader and student may be able to properly draw his own deductions.

Oklahoma has now been a State practically four years and the metaphor might be: there has sprung from the loins of the virgin prairies, a state fullgrown. It is now the purpose of the authors of the "Oklahoma Red Book" to tell this story from a new view point in order that the citizens of other states, as well as our own, may know the truth.

It has only been through the co-operation of the members of the state administration, and the assistance of many friends that the facts presented herewith, under the title, "OKLAHOMA RED BOOK" has been obtained and preserved, and especially are the compilers and supervisors of the book indebted to Dr. Emmett Starr, of Claremore, Oklahoma, from whom they were able to obtain valuable information relative to Indian matters, embracing the constitutions of the Civilized Tribes and all government treaties and Congressional Acts, that bear upon the political and legal history of both the Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, which will be found in Volume No. 1.

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA.

Oklahoma's boundaries have been fixed by circumstance, rather than by design. The region embraced within the limits of the State as it is known at the present time was long known as the Indian Territory. The eastern limits were fixed by the establishment of the western boundary of Missouri and Arkansas. Later with the annexation of Texas and the acquisition of New Mexico, together with the projection westward of the line forming the southern boundary of Missouri, its southern and western boundaries were established. Its northern boundaries were established by the organization of the Territory of Kansas.

Claim is made by historians that Hernando Coronado and his company of followers were the first white men to set foot on the soil of Oklahoma. That was in 1514, when they were supposed to have passed through western Oklahoma in their search for "Quivira," the land of fabled wealth. About the same time, it seems that the surviving members of the illfated expedition of De Soto, under command of Louis de Moscosco, passed through northeastern Oklahoma along the Arkansas river in an effort to find Mexico. They became disheartened, however, and turned back before they had gone far enough to cross the trail of Coronado's party. It is also believed that the expeditions of Bonilla, 1595, and Onate, 1601, penetrated as far as Oklahoma from New Mexico. These claims are partically substantiated by the finding of several pieces. of armor and swords, bearing Spanish inscriptions, in different parts of the state.

Trappers and traders from the French Creole settlements in the Mississippi Valley became more or less familiar with the lower valleys of the Arkansas and Red rivers and their tributaries in the eastern part of the state during the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Oklahoma and the Indian Territory were originally a portion of that part of the Mississippi Valley, known as the Louisiana Territory. The Spanish, French and English claimed the land, but in 1762 the territory was all ceded to Spain. Trouble arose between Spain and the United States about the navigation of the lower Mississippi and the United States sought to buy a portion of Louisiana, but before the matter

was closed, Napoleon of France secured the cession of the province to his country in 1800. In 1803, however, Monroe and Livingston, sent by President Thomas Jefferson, perfected the agreement by which the territory became a portion of the United States domain for the sum of $15,000,000.

Permanent civilization made its first appearance on the borders of Oklahoma in 1817 when a military post was established at Fort Smith, Arkansas, followed a little later by the establishing of Fort Gibson near where the Grand or Neosho river empties into the Arkansas. Fort Towson was established next, near the Red river in the southeastern portion of the state. Forts Arbuckle and Cobb in the Washita Valley and Camp Radziminski in the Wichita mountains followed.

Dissatisfied with the encroachment of the whites on the east side of the Mississippi, numerous members of the tribe of Cherokees, as early as 1819, in company with members of some of the other tribes of the southern states voluntarily sought the freedom of the wilderness west of the river, and left their homes in North Carolina, Georgia and East Tennessee, settling in the Indian Territory. The main body of the tribe came between 1832-38. The Choctaws and Chickasaws, from Alabama and Mississippi, were removed to the Indian Territory between the years 1840-45. The Creeks were removed about the same time from Alabama, although many had emigrated voluntarily as early as 1830. The Seminoles came after the war in Florida, 1845.

In

The Civil War disturbed conditions in the Indian Territory rudely. Although it was a white man's quarrel, nearly all of the Chickasaws and Choctaws sided with the south. the other nations, sentiment was more generally divided. The end of the war brought poverty among the Indians of the Five Tribes. The Delawares, Kickapoos, Shawnee, Wichitas, Caddos, Keechis and affiliated tribes fled to Kansas for protection. While there smallpox all but decimated their number, and the death roll was increased to a greater amount by the subsequent appearance of cholera when they started on their return to their old hunting grounds in the valley of the Washita.

While this history was transpiring the tribes of the plains, the Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, Cheyennes and Arapahoes were busy plundering, burning and killing along the entire frontier. Their depredations were brought to a close by the campaign waged by General Custer in 1868. This marked the beginning of a more pacific state of affairs in western Oklahoma.

By the treaty with the Five Tribes in 1866, agreement was made with the government for the settlement of other