Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1901 — FREE HOMES OUT WEST. [ARTICLE]

FREE HOMES OUT WEST.

The Last Great Homestead Race to Be Hun Next Summer. The last and, perhaps, the greatest race, for homes ever run under government auspices is on the card for the coming summer. The Fort Sill country is to he thrown open for settlement. It lies between Texas and Oklahoma, is sixty miles square nnd in the Indian tongue is called “Beautiful Land.” It is the last or the Indian reservations of notable size which still remains a part of the public domain ami. l»y a law passed last June, it is to lie cut up into homesteads, ns the Cherokee strip and other Indian lands have been within recent years. The exact date for the opening lias not yet been fixed hv the President, who is empowered to say the word which will start thousands who are eager for free homes on a dash into the Indian country. The entire area is not. however, to In* parceled out nniong the prospective settlers. About one-third goes to the Indians. Certain sections will be set apart for public schools, government buildings and other purposes of the future State of Oklahoma, of which this section will form a part. There must also he subtracted 50,(Kk) acres for the Fort Sill military reservation, leavin^about 1,614,076 acres for settlement. Probably onefourth of thin is mineral or waste lands, so that only nbpilt 8.000 quart/r sections of desirable land will he left for the cottiers. There is bound to lie disappointment, because the number of possible winners when the Fort Sill country is opened will Ik' strikingly disproportionate to the interest felt nnd to the number of entries. It is probable that the government will to some extern mitigate the situation by opening at tbe same time the Wichita reservation. North of the eastern part of the Kiowa nml Comanche country is this Wichita reservation, containing about 750,000 acres. It is much smaller than the other tract, hut the Indians to lie given lands are not sit many. Allotmeat has been going on ihere gradually for some years. The proportion of good land is larger than in the Fort Biil country. The reservation consists of broad and fertile valleys nml rolling upland, suitable to diversified farming. It is estimated that 2,000 white settlers may he aide to find farm* there nfter all of the allotments nml reservations for school and other purposes arc made. .But, in addition to the farms to he distributed to the swiftest, the opening of these reservations will present many other opportunities, for towns will be laid out and populated in a day. While perhapa fewer than S,<MA) will win farms of 100 ncres, several times that number will find homes nud business njid lulror in the new counties to be incorporated as political parts of Oklahoma. In opposition to the delerjuiued vegeiarlnns. who condemn ull animal food, there is.a growing number of physiologist* iu Germany who insiwt that abstention from meat, if continued for ages and generations, is responsible for the feebleness and low intellect of certain races. Tire Btate of Ohio expend* $14.(A>0,000 annually on its 1.200.<A)0 school children. Of this fund Cincinnati pays sl,000.000. F. I,owortn was killed by “Gingec” Blue, Steubenville, Ohlx . »