Rural Life in Murray County

By Debbie Sharp

Located in south central Oklahoma, Murray County consists of 420 square miles of rolling hills, some of the world's most unusual rock outcroppings and formations, and mountainous areas that have for centuries led to severe weather conditions such as high winds, lightning, and tornadoes. The area has produced some amazingly rugged and tough people who have called Murray County home for generations. Images of America: Rural Life in Murray County tells the story of how they lived, what they produced on their farms, how they entertained themselves, and how they learned to improve their communities. In the early 1930s, when one of the most severe droughts on record produced the Dust Bowl and the nation was in a state of economic depression, the beginning of the Oklahoma A&M Cooperative Extension took root in Murray County, bringing economic change, improving living conditions, and providing educational opportunities to the rural farm families of Murray County.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jul 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781439651759

Debbie Sharp

Author Debbie Sharp spent 32 years as an extension agent in Oklahoma, where she accumulated and documented images, stories, and cooperative extension history. Many of the photographs in Images of America: Rural Life in Murray County were part of agriculture and home economics records, which documented early Oklahoma A&M Cooperative Extension work.

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INTRODUCTION

Murray County, located in south central Oklahoma, is the state’s third smallest county in land area and consists of rolling hills, large outcrops of rocks, and some of the world’s most unusual rock formations as part of the Arbuckle Mountains. The county is the home of the state’s largest waterfalls, 177-foot Turner Falls, and the nation’s seventh oldest, and smallest national park, the original Platt National Park, established in 1904 and, later, renamed Chickasaw National Recreation Area in 1976.

The area was named in honor of William H. Alfalfa Bill Murray, president of the 1906 Oklahoma Constitutional Convention and, later, the ninth governor of the new state of Oklahoma, which entered the Union in 1907.

Present-day Murray County was once part of the land granted to the Choctaw Nation by the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1820. The Chickasaw Nation later received the area of land that makes up Murray County under the Treaty of Doaksville in 1838, and the area became part of the Chickasaw Nation in 1855.

In 1902, the Chickasaw Nation sold to the US government a 640-acre parcel of land, and Congress established the Sulphur Springs Reservation in an effort to protect 32 freshwater and mineral springs. The name was changed in 1904 to Platt National Park.

All land in Oklahoma, with the exception of the Panhandle, is surveyed from the Initial Point, a location established in the Arbuckle Mountains in 1870, and is located in Murray County. The historic rock marker, from which surveying began, is located about one mile from the original Fort Arbuckle.

In an effort to truly appreciate the content of this book, one has to understand the humble beginnings of education of the rural populations across America. These hardworking people often received little public education because leaving school at an early age and working on their family farms was necessary in helping to provide for their families. Nationwide, this common practice kept families in poor living and economic conditions. With the passage of the Morrill Act of 1862, under the authority of Pres. Abraham Lincoln, the door to rural education opened slightly when the federal government issued the instruction for each state to set up a land-grant university for the purpose of teaching branches of learning related to agriculture and mechanical arts. In 1890, the territorial legislature established Oklahoma’s land-grant college, naming the school Oklahoma Agricultural & Mechanical (A&M) College.

There was little outreach from the college for the first decade. There were the occasional off-campus lectures and an on-campus institute; time was needed for developing and growing, as well as introducing people to the roles of college and the need for higher education.

In 1914, Congress passed the Smith-Lever Act, which created a series of cooperative partnerships across the nation with the land-grant institutions, the individual states, and with the people of each county and parish. The mission of this partnership was to inform people about current developments in agriculture and home economics and to work with youth development, which became known as the 4-H Program. This partnership was known as the Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics.

Before the arrival of Murray County’s first agents, Oklahoma A&M College used farm agents to ride from farm to farm in a buggy or on horseback to share information; however, most of this work was in the northern and western parts of the state. Railroads were also used and proved to be the most reliable method of transportation, opening routes to the southern and eastern parts of the state. In 1913, the Santa Fe Railroad and the Oklahoma A&M College equipped and staffed an eight-car train that carried poultry and hogs along with agents who spoke on domestic science and boys’ and girls’ agriculture clubs. The train was then switched to the Frisco lines, which traveled the other directions, and records show the train made stops in Sulphur and Davis, the first introduction of agriculture education to Murray County citizens.

In 1929, the first county farm agent arrived in Murray County. This agent, S.E. Lewis, worked for eight months and was followed by agent L.I. Bennett. The first office was located in a creamery but was later moved to the courthouse where agents and a clerk shared office space with the county superintendent of schools.

In February 1929, Susie Baker arrived in Murray County to become the first county home demonstration agent. Prior to the arrival of these two agents, the county records reflect some type of youth work was organized around 1923, perhaps that of the Boy’s Corn Club and the Girl’s Tomato Club. After the arrival of these two agents, the youth work became recognized as the 4-H Club.

Rural life in Murray County was difficult when