REPORT

OF THE

GOVERNOR OF OKLAHOMA.

TERRITORY OF OKLAHOMA,

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Guthrie, October 1, 1900.

SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith my annual report as governor of Oklahoma Territory for the year ended June 30, 1900, depicting as it does a condition of prosperity and progress not surpassed in any of the great Commonwealths of the nation.

A PROPHECY.

A few weeks prior to the opening of Oklahoma to settlement the late Milton W. Reynolds, a well-known western journalist, who had spent much time in Oklahoma among the Indians and was thoroughly posted upon this then generally unknown land, wrote the following:

To the south and adjoining Kansas lies Oklahoma "the land of the red man." From her loins will spring vigorous communities to people the inchoate state which is now forming. Products more varied and a greater vegetable life will spring up from her teeming soil. As the civilization of the West and the East are blending and uniting to form a more vigorous and compact growth, so the products of the more northern and the extreme southern regions will furnish the greatest yields in this warm soil and genial climate, free comparatively from the forces that dwarf their development in the Gulf States and lake region or the mountainous areas of New England.

The ideal Western Commonwealth will there be formed. Climatically the conditions are perfect. Topographically the inspirations are not wanting. The atmosphere is electric and full of life-giving properties.

The struggle for the possession of Oklahoma has been long and arduous. The cattle syndicates made a desperate and prolonged contest. But the appeals of the settlers have finally been heard. Soon the vast unpeopled solitude of this mighty domain will be filled with the hum of machinery and the voices of the productive industries; and the opening of farms and the building of cities will possess the places where desolation and solitude now reign. From this great conquest an ideal State will spring, and a type of the best civilization of the age will finally be found in Oklahoma. It will be vigorous, independent, strong, but conservative and cosmopolitan. It will be the product of that civilization which is the resultant of the westerner, not of twenty-five years ago, but of the young men of the plains as we see them marching in battalions, strong, fresh from the colleges and schools, manned and equipped for the highest duties of a social life that demands and is content only with the best results.

ITS FULFILLMENT.

A few weeks ago Hon. Frank Eddy, member of Congress from Minnesota, visited Oklahoma for the first time, and upon his return home

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gave his impressions of the country and the people in an interview in the Minneapolis Journal, from which I quote the following:

I was in Oklahoma four days, and during that time I traveled over 1,200 miles in the Territory and spoke eight times, speaking at El Reno, Enid, Medford, Blackwell, Ponca City, Shawnee, Oklahoma City, and Guthrie.

Oklahoma is a great Territory, possessing inexhaustible resources, and will make a great State. I do not think the soil will equal that of Minnesota in fertility, but the climatic conditions are such that the opportunities of diversification are simply unlimited. I saw cotton, wheat, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, castor beans, common beans, watermelons, cantaloupes, peaches, turnips, tobacco, cabbage, apples, onions, pears, peas, millet, alfalfa, barley, corn, kaffir corn, oats, and, in fact, I saw everything growing on one farm that I ever saw growing anywhere, north or south, except rice, sugar cane, bananas, and oranges. It is a combination of Winnipeg and Texas, Minnesota and Georgia, Delaware and California. One admirer of mine presented me with a watermelon weighing 90 pounds and wanted me to take it to Minnesota with me.

There is a curious mixture of northern thrift and energy and southern indolence and love of ease, but the lavish hospitality of the old South prevails everywhere, and a stranger needs only to stay over night in the Territory and he feels instinctively as if he knew the people always.

Its inhabitants have come in from every State and Territory in the Union, and from every country in the world. Every face, color, and nationality has its representatives.

A YEAR OF ABUNDANCE.

This has been another year of general prosperity for all of the people of the Territory. The farms and orchards have yielded abundant harvests, the herds and flocks increased, all mercantile business expanded, manufactures developed along new lines, population of cities and counties increased, railways extended, commerce grown into magnificent proportions, and new vistas of progress and development opened before the eyes of all.

The time was, in the not far distant past, when the man or woman who started for Oklahoma from most sections of the Union was looked upon with suspicion, or bid a last farewell by friends such as is accorded the adventurer starting for the jungles of Africa or the explorer for the North Pole, and the citizen of Oklahoma was gazed upon as a curiosity in the communities of the East; but all this is changed. The person starting for Oklahoma to-day is envied by all those so unfortunate as to be left behind, and Oklahomans everywhere are besieged with inquiries regarding their wonderland.

No section of the country is so well or so favorably advertised to-day as is Oklahoma. The eyes of the nation are upon us and the feet of countless immigrants are turned this way. Capital no longer hesitates to respond to our beckoning, but comies of its own accord seeking an opportunity to participate in the fruits of the land.

With 400,000 people, with 100,000 children in her public schools, and 2,000 young men and women in her higher institutions of learning, with $50,000,000 taxable valuation and $135,000,000 real wealth; with products of farm, factory, and mines aggregating $75,000,000 for the fiscal year, with a soil whose fertility seems wonderful, with a climate unsurpassed anywhere, with crops surpassing those of many of the leading agricultural States, with waving grain, fruit-laden orchards and vineyards, and cattle upon a thousand hills, with churches, and school houses and universities, and a people as loyal and true and patriotic as ever breathed the air of heaven, Oklahoma to-day stands knocking at the portals of the Union expecting soon to place upon the starry field of the nation's banner a star whose brightness will never grow dim.

To the people of all classes and conditions less favored in their surroundings and opportunities Oklahoma extends an invitation to come and share in the bounteous plenty accorded this new and wonderful commonwealth.

GROWTH OF THE TERRITORY.

The present area of Oklahoma is 38,715 square miles.

The country originally known as Oklahoma, or "Beautiful Land," contained less than 3,000,000 acres, comprising the larger portion of the counties of Kingfisher, Canadian, Oklahoma, Cleveland, Logan, and Payne. This land was thrown open by proclamation of the President, April 22, 1889, but a Territorial government was not provided until June, 1890, the 75,000 or more people being for over a year with no form of civil government save that devised and carried on by common consent, yet during this time there was no lawlessness prevalent, and there was never an hour in which property and life were not as safe as in any of the States.

The act creating the Territorial government created the county of Beaver, with an area of 3,681,000 acres, out of No Man's Land and attached it to Oklahoma.

In September, 1890, the Sac and Fox, Iowa, and Pottawatomie reservations, embracing 1,282,434 acres in the eastern part of the Territory, were thrown open to settlement, and the following spring the Cheyenne and Arapahoe lands of 4,297,771 acres were added. In 1893 came the opening of the Cherokee Outlet, with its 6,014,239 fertile acres, in 1895 the Kickapoo Reservation of 206,662 acres, and early in 1896 Greer County, a small empire in itself, was added by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, giving the Territory its present settled area of something over 19,000,000 acres, 6,949,715 acres being still included in Indian and other reservations, of which about one-half will be opened to settlement within the coming year.

LOCATION AND GENERAL CONDITIONS.

Few people, even among the residents of the Territory, realize that Oklahoma is as far south as North Carolina. The thirty-seventh par allel, north latitude, forms the northern boundary of the Territory, and the extreme southern point touches the thirty-fourth parallel.

With the exception of Beaver County, which extends in a strip 35 miles wide to the one hundred and third meridian, nearly all of the Territory lies between 96° 30′ and 100 west longitude, being in the same belt as central Kansas and Texas.

In general, the face of the country is rolling prairie, with a considerable number of rivers and streams, usually flowing from the northwest to the southeast, and often having high and steep banks. In the eastern half there are considerable areas covered with timber, usually of the different varieties of oak. Timber is found in the valleys of the streams in all parts of the Territory.

The rainfall is sufficient for the needs of the great variety of crops successfully grown, and good water can be found in all parts of the Territory at depths ranging from 20 to 100 feet.

The winters are short and mild, the temperature rarely reaching the zero point and then only for a few hours, while on the majority of winter days it is far above freezing. The summers are hot, but a con