Seen from car windows only, the country appeared inviting to the eye.  It was known, from reports of traders, to have all the elements of agricultural wealth.

And this made the land-hungry man hungrier.

The era of the “boomer” began; and the “boomer” did not stop until he had inserted an opening wedge, in the shape of the purchase and opening to settlement of a vast area right in the heart of the prairie wilderness.  When the first opening took place it seemed as though the supply would be in excess of the demand.  Not so.  Every acre—­good, bad, or indifferent—­was gobbled up, and, like as from an army of Oliver Twists, the cry went up for more.  Then the Iowa and Pottawatomie reservations were placed on the market.  They lasted a day only, and the still unsatisfied crowd began another agitation.  Resultant of this, a third bargain-counter sale took place.  The big Cheyenne and Arapahoe country was opened for settlement.  Immigrants poured in, and now every quarter-section that is tillable there has its individual occupant and owner.

But still on the south border of Kansas there camped a landless and homeless multitude.  They looked longingly over the fertile prairies of the Cherokee Strip country, stirred the camp-fire embers emphatically, and sent another dispatch to Washington asking for a chance to get in.  Congress heard at last, and in the fall of 1893 the congestion was relieved.

The scenes attending the wild scramble from all sides of the Strip are a matter of history and do not require repetition.  Five million acres were quickly taken by 30,000 farmers.

The old proverb or adage, which states that the man who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before is a public benefactor, would seem to proclaim that Oklahoma is peopled with philanthropists, for the sturdy pioneers who braved hardship and ridicule in order to obtain a foothold in this promised land, have, in five or six years, completely changed the appearance of the country.  A larger proportion of ground in this youthful Territory shows that it is a sturdy infant, and it is doubtful whether in any part of the United States there has been more economy in land, or a more rapid use made of opportunities so bountifully provided by nature.

Truth is often much stranger than fiction, and the story of the invasion of Oklahoma reads like one long romance.  Many men lost their lives in the attempt, some few dying by violence, and many others succumbing to disease brought about by hardship.  Many of the men who started the agitation to have Oklahoma opened for settlement by white citizens are still alive, and some of them have had their heart’s desire fulfilled, and now occupy little homes they have built in some favorite nook and corner of their much loved, and at one time grievously coveted, country.

Oklahoma came into the possession of the Seminole Indians by the ordinary process, and remained their alleged home until about thirty years ago.  In 1866, the country was ceded to the United States Government for a consideration, and in 1873, it was surveyed by Federal officers, and section lines established according to law.