Читать книгу Building Your Custom Home For Dummies - Peter Economy - Страница 63

In 1889, Oklahoma was emerging as an appealing opportunity for settlers looking for land. Oklahoma Station and Guthrie Station were two promising railroad outposts destined for urban development. In one of the strangest and most chaotic stories of land acquisition, the government created an exciting and unprecedented process for claiming land: a race! Rules were posted allowing people to gather at the nearby Arkansas and Texas borders ready to run, ride, and walk to their desired parcel of land on April 22, 1889. Upon arriving at their parcel, they would claim it by staking a flag and filing a claim form. People already in the territory (“Legal Sooners” as they were called) would cheat by staking their flags early even though prohibited by law. Thousands of people, including single white women and African-American men and women, raced that day and made Oklahoma their home. It was exhilarating and brutal. “It is an astonishing thing,” the New York Herald observed on the eve of the opening, “that men will fight harder for $500 worth of land than they will for $10,000 in money.”