Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1893 — WILD RUSH FOR LAND. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WILD RUSH FOR LAND.

CHEROKEE STRIP BESIEGED BY THOUSANDS. Unrivalled Scenes Before the Opening— Lines of Applicants Numbering Thousands—Characteristics of Their Future Home—Fair as the Garden of the Lord. Any Way to Get There. Talk about “rushes” for free land! The scenes just enacted at the opening of the Cherokee Strip surpassed anything of the kind ever known. For a week a constantly growing crowd surged about the registration booths; for no one could secure land without having first registered. Men, women and children, to the number of 20,000 or 25,000, formed in lines and remained there day and night; many were overcome by the heat and dust; some died from exhaustion. Anything eatable commanded World’s Fair prices, and water was 10 cents per cup. Still the mass of humanity waited and grew, restrained from premature encroachment by United States marshals and cordons of soldiers. There were half a dozen places for registration along the northern boundary of the Strip, and the scene at one was but a duplicate of the others. . When the last moment arrived, and the word “Go” was given, with a yell that tore a hole in the heavens the crowd started. Some on horseback, some afoot, some with wheelbarrows loaded with goods, some on bicycles, and thousands in the picturesque prairie schooners. Flowing; with Milk and Honey. Comparatively little is known of the Cherokee Strip or “Outlet” by the average American, despite the fact that it lies almost in the very midst of the nation, at the thresholds of five great States of the Union —Missouri Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado, and Texas, And yet it is pronounced by experienced judges to be the finest body of land of its size on the whole American continent, vith soil of surpassing richness and

depth, mineral resources of great value and inexhaustible quantity, natural scenery that is unrivaled, and a climate of delicious mildness and salubrity. The temperature there in winter varies from 35 to 48 degrees, ’and in summer from 77 to 82. All the extravagant things that have been written in rapturous praise of Oklahoma are said to be more than true of the Cherokee Strip, for it is regarded as equal in its entirety to the very choicest portions of Oklahoma, while its best lands are said to be veritable garden spots. The strip is 200 miles long and 56 miles wide. It lies between the 96th and 100th parallels of west longitude, with the southern border line of Kansas as its northern boundary and the Creek country and the Territory of Oklahoma as its southern. Topographically it is rolling, broken by hills and uplands and interspersed with valleys and Eden-like bottoms. Its many water courses are skirted with fine timber, oak, walnut, cedar, ash, beech, and hickory. The soil of the bottom lands and prairies is soft and loamy, black as ink, and of marvelous fertility. Upon the ridges and divides the land is not so well adapted to agriculture, but as the forest growth is slight they furnish splendid grazing pastures for sheep and cattle, being profusely clothed with succulent “bunch grass. ” Owing to this self-cured “bunch grass” and to the mildness of the climate and the abundance of water, the hilly regions are claimed by old sheep-growers to afford the best sheep country in the world. Indian Neighbors. Prospective settlers in the strip may now prepare to get acquainted with the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws and other tribes or nations of Indians in the Territory, who, with the white homesteaders of Oklahoma, will be their nearest neighbors. They are as tribes exceedingly wealthy, and are now rapidly adopting American manners, customs, usages and garments. The Cherokees number about 20,000, the Choctaws 16,000, the Creeks 15,000 and the Cheyennes and Arapahoes 7,000, and all the other tribes 22,000, making altogether 80,000 Indians resident in the Indian Territory. The price to be paid the Cherokees by the government is $8,595,736. There being 8,144,682 acres of the land, the net price per acre is $1.05. Each settler on the new lands, before receiving a patent, is required to pay, beside fees, the sum of $2.50 per acre between parallels 96 and 97i, the sum of $1.50 per acre between 97$ and 98$, and the sum of $1 per acre between 98$ and 100, together with four per oent. from the date of entry until the final payment. Some of the Lands between parallels 96 and 97$ are worth SSO per

acre in the wild state. They are splendidly watered and within easy distance of several thriving towns in Kansas and Arkansas, and every foot of it is capable of cultivation.

MAP OF CHEROKEE STRIP.

LAND OFFICE.