Arkansas City

By Heather D. Ferguson

Arkansas City has often been called the gateway to the West. The name lends a lot to describing the town a town that was founded as a border town to Indian Territory, a major trade hub to the Indian agencies in Indian Territory, and a major transportation center for those wishing to travel through the territory and farther west. Arkansas City started off as a small town with false-fronted stores but became a bustling community where the people were forward thinkers and pushed for quality and modernization in everything they brought to the city whether that was business, industry, or entertainment. Arkansas City is known for the Cherokee Strip Land Rush of September 16, 1893, interaction with the Native Americans in Indian Territory, farming, ranching, and aircraft. Although Arkansas City was a civilized community, it was a city on the fringe of a lawless and unsettled territory where outlaws lurked and Native Americans were forced to settle. People loaded their wagons or went by train to cross through Oklahoma to Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona, leaving from Arkansas City. Due to Arkansas City s location, interaction with major figures and events in history, and its importance to travel farther west, Arkansas City was truly the gateway to the West.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Aug 25, 2008
• ISBN: 9781439619278

Heather D. Ferguson

Heather D. Ferguson is the director of the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum in Arkansas City. She holds a master�s degree in anthropology and a bachelor�s degree in history. She has been at the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum for nine years and is well studied on the history of the area. Most of the images from this book are from the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum�s extensive collections, and much of the information used is from previous publications and research assistance from Wilbur Killblane and Terry Eaton.

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INTRODUCTION

Arkansas City has a vast and amazing history. Throughout the nation’s past, there have been major events: Native Americans before European contact, colonization, manifest destiny, boosterism, Prohibition, and warfare; each of these events and many more are represented in the history of one small town in Kansas.

Arkansas City was making history before it was a town. Who would have thought that both Spanish and French explorers set foot upon the soil that would become Arkansas City? Through trade and exploration, the little town between two rivers has an early written and archaeological record. Most towns in the West begin their stories with pioneers driving up in their Conestoga wagons, but Arkansas City’s story begins with the Wichita Indians. Their culture and their story are told in the first chapter, and its intertwining with early European exploration of North America is a reflection of development of North America in the 1700s. This interaction with the major claim stakers in American history makes the story of the Wichitas an example of the impact of colonization on the native populations in America.

Furthermore, the settlement of Arkansas City signifies the manifest destiny attitude affluent in America from the 1840s to the 1890s. The cry Go West, Young Man! (attributed to Horace Greeley but originated with John Soule) was heard throughout the country. As with most western towns, someone heard the cry and went west to find a new destiny. Arkansas City was founded by a group of boosters, the Creswell Town Company, in 1870. It was a group that pushed for its town to be superior. In the evolution of Arkansas City, it was these boosters who brought in industry, entertainment, and people. Arkansas City’s boosters, to be mentioned in later chapters, promoted their community to the point that it contained almost any business imaginable, was the largest starting point for the Cherokee Strip Land Rush, had its own power source, and had the top modern conveniences for the time.

From early Native American removal to Oklahoma and beyond, Arkansas City and the Native American tribes of Oklahoma had a symbiotic relationship. Many events have shaped the history of Arkansas City. A. A. Newman, one of the early boosters, began his department store business in the back of a wagon traveling into Indian Territory to sell supplies to the tribes there. W. S. Prettyman’s photographs have become a photograph documentary of the changes in the Native American tribes of Oklahoma from their traditional ways to more Eurocentric ways. Arkansas City’s first newspaper editor, C. M. Scott, was a Native American agent for the governor of Kansas and created many a friendship with the natives. In fact, Chief Joseph of the Nez Percés and Washunga of the Kaws frequently came to visit one or all of these men. The Cherokee Strip Livestock Association rented the Cherokee Outlet from the Cherokees prior to the Cherokee Strip Land Rush, and Chilocco Indian Agricultural School students frequently came to town to trade, as many natives did.

The relationship demonstrated in Arkansas City among the settlers and the various Native American cultures surrounding the city is not typical of America. Throughout the history of America and its attempts at acculturating the natives, there has been an attitude of dominance in order to conquer. For example, the schools set up for the Native Americans across the country were done so to assimilate the Native American groups into Euro-American lifestyle. Chilocco Indian Agricultural School was no exception. At its inception and for years afterward, children were taken from their parents, forbidden to speak their native tongue, and often never allowed to go home. However, as time passed, its purpose seemed to become clouded. Yes, the school continued to teach Native American children farming, sewing, bridge building, and other Euro-American lifestyles, but the children who went there were welcomed into Arkansas City with open arms. Many an Arkansas Citian recalls friendly relationships with the students at Chilocco Indian Agricultural School. In Arkansas City, the dominant attitude was a friendly relationship.

Arkansas City is a prime example of prospecting, Protestant work ethic, and achieving the American dream. The town grew and prospered and was often at the forefront of technological advances. Arkansas City mirrored many national events and in some ways reacted differently to them. The one thing that set Arkansas City apart from others was the booster mentality of its founders that made it grow into a largely self-sufficient community, as will be demonstrated throughout this text.

One

WICHITA ORIGINS

Before the area that is now known as Arkansas City was settled by Europeans and later Americans, the Wichita natives called it home. The Wichitas have five major subdivisions to their cultural group, the Wichitas, Taovayas, Tawakonis, Iscanis, and Wacos. These groups were spread widely throughout the midwestern states of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and Nebraska as early as A.D. 900. At this time, they were small groups of hunter-gatherers. As time passed, the Wichitas adopted more farming to supplement their diets, which made them more sedentary. Due to this, the groups converged into larger villages, and by 1450, the Wichitas were located in six more centralized locations: the Little Arkansas River area around the great bend of the Arkansas River, Cow Creek, and Smoky Hill River, which is called Little River Focus by archaeologists; the Cottonwood River area around Marion; the Lower Walnut Focus, as termed by archaeologists, which is where the Walnut and Arkansas Rivers merge; a group in southwest Oklahoma known as the Wheeler Phase; one in the Texas panhandle known as Tierra Blanca, which is thought to be Apache; and another south of Tierra Blanca known as the Garza.

The group that lived around Arkansas City was the Wichita subgroup of the Wichitas. This group remained in the same area up until around 1758. They were joined by other groups as European influence, disease, and other enemy native groups decreased their members and forced them to move southward. The Wichitas played an important role in the history of the area as well as the exploration and fur trade era of United States history.

The Wichitas were prominent in the plains from around A.D. 900–1780. This map illustrates the Wichita cultural complexes around A.D. 1450. The Wichitas are Caddoan speaking. They are matrilineal and matrilocal, meaning that kinship passes through the woman’s lineage and a married couple resides with the woman’s family. They had a loose political system with a chief. (Courtesy of Dr. Susan Vehik.)

The Wichitas were always hunter-gatherers, but as time passed they adopted more farming into their lifestyle. They hunted bison, deer, antelope, birds, and other small animals. They farmed