Trilobites of Black Cat Mountain

By George P. Hansen

A photographic guide to Oklahomas Devonian trilobites. The geological history of Coal County, Oklahoma. Descriptions of rock formations where trilobites are found. Excavation and restoration of trilobites. A photographic atlas of the Lower Devonian trilobites of Oklahoma, with helpful information to aid in their identification.

Trilobites are a well-known fossil group, possibly second most famous only to dinosaurs. With their easily fossilized exoskeleton, they left an extensive and diverse fossil record. They began a drawn-out decline to extinction during Late Devonian time, when all but one of the trilobite orders died out.

This meticulously researched reference guide is a photographic atlas and descriptive compendium on the trilobites of Coal County, Oklahoma. The species described lived during the Lower Devonian in a shallow tropical ocean that had advanced over the landscape of North America. More than twenty species are exquisitely preserved in Oklahomas limestone rocks.

Each species is carefully illustrated, including thorough descriptions, so that those familiar and unfamiliar can understand and appreciate these amazing creatures. The most current scientific research on these trilobites is also included. For those wishing to pursue a deeper interest in trilobites, a comprehensive bibliography lists hundreds of sources of information for further study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 4, 2009
• ISBN: 9780595624614

George P. Hansen

George P. Hansen was employed in parapsychology laboratories for eight years—three at the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina, and five at Psychophysical Research Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey. His research included remote viewing, psychokinesis on electronic random number generators, séance phenomena, and ghosts. His papers in professional journals also cover mathematical statistics, deception, skepticism, conjurors in parapsychology, and methodological criticisms. He is a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

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Trilobites of Black Cat Mountain

Copyright © 2007, 2009 by George P. Hansen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-0-595-52407-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-0-595-51349-9 (dj)

ISBN: 978-0-595-62461-4 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 2/23/2009

For Henno Martin because he gave us The Sheltering Desert.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1. Explorers and Settlers

Chapter 2. Paleozoic Prelude

Chapter 3. Stratigraphy and Paleogeography

Chapter 4. Classification

Chapter 5. Trilobites

Chapter 6. Harvesting Trilobites

References and Bibliography

Web sites Referenced or Investigated

Fossil Preparation Suppliers

Foreword

The book Trilobites of Black Cat Mountain by George P. Hansen is a wonderful tribute to the lifetime work of Bob Carroll, who brought back to life, with his superb digging and microsandblasting abilities, the beautifully preserved trilobite fauna of this Devonian locality. The book goes well beyond the mere description of this trilobite fauna, but informs the reader with a compendium of expertly researched and up-to-date information on many related aspects of the chosen topic. Thus, we find a captivating historical narrative of the previous paleontological studies of this and neighboring fossil localities, which are framed within their geological and stratigraphic perspective. Trilobite evolution throughout the Paleozoic era, with emphasis on the Devonian period, and the age of the Haragan-Bois d’Arc Formation making up the Black Cat Mountain, are reviewed and correlated with the findings at corresponding worldwide localities. The intricacies of the trilobite morphology and their paleontological classification are dealt with in detail, and referenced from remarkable bibliographic research. All this, in addition to the main body of the book, dealing with the description and significance of the spectacular trilobites of Black Cat Mountain, predominantly excavated and prepared by Bob Carroll. Details of this painstaking work complete the compendium. This book is a valuable contribution to the study of the early ancestors of life on Earth, for which the author should be commended. Undoubtedly, this book will also inspire the student and the professional with a beautiful example of dedication to one’s passion, in this case that of my dear friend Bob Carroll.

Riccardo Levi-Setti, author of Trilobites

Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics University of Chicago

Director of the Enrico Fermi Institute

Preface

This story is about a uniquely preserved assemblage of Devonian trilobites and other fossils found in a small pocket of south central Oklahoma called Black Cat Mountain. Though I collected and studied fossils as a hobby since childhood, I did not learn about these particular trilobites until later in life, when I was almost twenty-eight. After several years of research and personal exploration of the region, I discovered that the most interesting trilobites could be found near a small town called Clarita. I was by no means the first to find this tremendously prolific area. I hope that by helping to make them more widely known, many more will follow and explore, collect, and investigate them. K.S.W. Campbell’s monographs on these Hunton trilobites promised me immediate discoveries, but their exploration and investigation has required all of the years since I first encountered these fossils. Winston Churchill once wrote, Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.[1] It is the same with the investigation of trilobites. Tenacity is an important requisite to their uncovering. Though I have investigated many places that yield these fascinating remains from the Paleozoic, extracting them in pristine condition is a rare event, however much I desire to the contrary. This is why Black Cat Mountain is particularly unique: its fossils are exceptionally well preserved and abundant; a collector of almost any pedigree can always find something interesting and personally valuable on each visit there.

The limestone strata comprising Black Cat Mountain were deposited almost 420 million years ago on a modestly deep, subtropical marine shelf, peripheral to the Old Red Sandstone continent. The ocean bottom where most animals lived was a nearly featureless, mud-covered plain. In this regard, it was not a remarkable environment for mid-Paleozoic times. However, given the rarity of present-day exposures with exceptional fossil preservation, these strata offer a unique view into Paleozoic life, providing potentially high temporal and spatial resolution of faunal population statistics, interactions, and lineages.

Taxonomy, the science of classifying living organisms, was derived from the Greek taxis, for an arrangement or structured order, and nomos, for law. The unit of a taxonomic arrangement is called a taxon. Its plural is taxa.

My initial idea was that this could be a photographic atlas of the fossils, similar to Riccardo Levi-Setti’s book, but focused only on lower Devonian trilobites from Oklahoma. As I learned about these fossils, though, and the formations in which they have been found, I realized that much more could be told about them. Unlike Levi-Setti’s compendium of trilobites from across the three-hundred-million-year time span of their existence, my story views them only through a brief window in time. Even though the scope of this book started out in principle to be fairly narrow, encompassing trilobites of lowest Devonian age from a single location, the various representations of their taxonomic, historical, geographical, and environmental contexts broadened it significantly. Compiling an atlas of these fossils was straightforward. However, investigating and uncovering their context and history required a preponderance of the task. I hope to convey some of this background in the chapters of this book so that these Middle Paleozoic trilobites can be more fully understood and appreciated. I can count myself among the fortunate who know Bob Carroll, the principal excavator of Black Cat Mountain trilobites, well enough to be a friend. As a result, I have been exposed to some of his craft and can describe the process, albeit lightly, whereby these trilobites are found and prepared.

If I can be so brazen as to quote my favorite statesman again, Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.[2] While I am unaware that I have created a monster, there have been long interludes during which I was consumed by this work, sometimes entirely possessed by it. My curiosity took several turns that ultimately proved too far away from the theme, but I was slow to realize this. I like historical narrative that helps me find context for interesting questions. So, boldly did I march into several histories written about the development of our Paleozoic paradigm in general, the Devonian System in particular. These are fascinating case histories in the development of Victorian science, which describe the basis for much of our modern geologic timescale. In addition, several questions nagged me about the region around Black Cat Mountain: What people settled nearby? Who were its geologic explorers? What was the fate of neighboring communities? Regrettably, I had to cull many of the stories I found, and not because they bore no interest. Quite the contrary, but too much of their detail diluted the promise implied in the title of this book. In particular, the Coal County Genealogical Society has been very active in tracing the histories and lineages of settlers there, and Oklahoma has a rich and varied history from its plethora of Native American settlers. Both of these aspects of the narrative were largely excised, only with great personal anguish. The diversity of trilobites found in Devonian rocks defies any neophyte’s ability to focus. Acquiring, reading and re-reading the literature on all of them, sifting fact from further fact, and relevance from irrelevance became an overarching preoccupation that required several years.

After much study and rumination, I finally settled on the current sequence of topics. The first chapter unfolds the human aspects of Black Cat Mountain, with anchor points on the investigators who reported on its geological and paleontological aspects. The next three chapters describe important events in trilobite history to provide a basis for those from the lower Devonian; the nature and interpretations of the rocks enclosing the fossils; and how investigators have categorized trilobites and identified their relationships to other similar animals. The largest chapter remains a photographic atlas of the trilobites of Black Cat Mountain, but complemented with summaries of the work of many investigators who have contributed to their taxonomic and environmental analyses. It was important that each species be represented by photographs of several specimens, obtained from different angles, varying lighting conditions, and choices of background. Photographs were selected for technical accuracy, conveyance of specific identifying features, and general esthetic value. The chapter concludes with a brief survey of fossils other than trilobites that are also found at Black Cat Mountain. Since it would have been impractical to catalogue these other fossils thoroughly, this piece was limited to some of the more intriguing fauna. Finally, the book closes with a chapter describing how trilobites are excavated from the limestone and prepared for display. This final chapter is intended primarily to show the effort and artistry required to achieve well-prepared trilobites from Black Cat Mountain. Regrettably, the initial goal to use only color photographs in this book was not realized. However, I did prepare a compact disk with color photographs that can be obtained through the Web site: http://www.blk-cat-mtn-trilobites.com.

My role as author of this book was more like a hand lens than an originator. Curiosity took me down many seemingly disconnected trails on which many disparate facts and ideas were found that could be pieced together in one place. However, these were all created by others, which I recognize in the references and bibliography, hopefully with sufficient credit. Along the way, I was encouraged and supported by friends and associates who read the manuscript and offered good suggestions or encouragement to improve the work. Tom Stanley from the Oklahoma Geological Survey visited Black Cat Mountain with me and made several interpretive suggestions about the rocks and fossils. Kevin Durney, Linda Carroll, and Bill Rushlau read the manuscript carefully at an early stage; Keith Minor somewhat later; and all made many important comments. Keith also engaged me in many thoughtful and stimulating conversations about Paleozoic geographic and environmental conditions. Eric Henry read parts and gave encouragement, but far more importantly, he played a significant role, as the reader will find in Chapter 1. A near final draft was read by Loriann Marchese who gave many excellent editorial comments that improved readability. Acknowledgement and gratitude are insufficient praise for the fastidious editorial pen of Laura McGinn at iUniverse. Any errors the reader my find here are mine, not hers. Also, no gratitude can be sufficiently expressed to Rosalie White, who patiently guided me through the process at iUniverse. Sam Gon, III, who compiled and maintains the immensely informative Web site, Guide to the Orders of Trilobites, graciously offered the use of many of his drawings, and Sam Stubbs and John Moffitt provided many photographs taken by Neil Immega. Steve Marley provided his own photographs as well, as did Roger Perkins who maintains the Virtual Fossil Museum. Sev Coursen photographed several my own specimens and provided these images for the book. Given that so many helped make this work a finished reality, at the end of the journey, I feel more like a compiler than its author. Subsequent editions will be improved by corrective notes and comments from you, the reader. These can be sent through the Web site mentioned above.

I mentioned an interest in history. Any time we look into the records of our world, whether in a library or a rock quarry, or sifting through layers of silt and dust covering a long lost, ancient city, we are following a uniquely human characteristic: the desire to know our past. Broadly speaking, this book is a work of history. But, how accurate is it? What is the nature of accuracy? Pondering history should always make us aware of the many limitations we face in drawing conclusions about a past of which we know so little. In Memoir from Antproof Case, Mark Helprin wrote:

How can you know history? You can only imagine it. Anchored though you may be in fact and document, to write a history is to write a novel with checkpoints, for you must subject the real and absolute truth, too wide and varied for any but God to comprehend, to the idiosyncratic constraints of your own understanding. A definitive history is only one in which someone has succeeded not in recreating the past but in casting it according to his own lights, in defining it. Even the most vivid portrayal must be full of sorrow, for it illuminates the darkness of memory with mere flashes and sparks, and what the past begs for is not a few bright pictures but complete reconstitution. Short of that, you can only follow the golden threads, and they are always magnificently tangled.[3]

With sincere humility I admit that, wish as I might to the contrary, what you are about to read can never be complete reconstitution. I can show you though, as if through a tiny window placed high on a cell wall, a glimmer of golden threads, magnificently entangled, a tiny portion of this Earth’s past history; its trilobites.

-{:)))))—

Chapter 1. Explorers and Settlers

The days may come, the days may go, But still the hands of mem’ry weave The blissful dreams of long ago.[4]

Eric Henry’s car crept tentatively down Main Street in the quiet village as we peered left and right for any sign of occupants. Scattered dilapidated buildings lined the street, spaced randomly by overgrown empty lots, and eerily few vehicles were visible. We had left the state highway and driven almost a mile down a hard-packed dirt road. For most of us raised in the latter half of the twentieth century, towns unadorned by ubiquitous asphalt were unknown. The sign on Highway 48 pointing us toward this little village had been uncharacteristically small after all, easily overlooked when zipping along at the speed limit. Even after coming across a second sign at the intersection of two country roads suggesting Main Street, we were not yet sure that we had found the right place. Perhaps we had missed an earlier option to turn somewhere else. Main Street had an asphalt topcoat, indeed was not even in disrepair. With its gauntlet of tall Johnson grass, occasional forlorn trees, and scattered buildings, our confusion rose. Some aspects of the town seemed to be well maintained, particularly its one or two churches and a small, but fresh looking post office. With so little municipal activity evident, Clarita left the initial impression that it was almost a ghost town, largely forgotten by the rest of the world.

We had come this far after purchasing all available technical monographs on trilobites from the Oklahoma Geological Survey in Norman, and then thumbing quickly through them as we crossed and re-crossed county roads of south central Oklahoma hunting for fossils. Rarely does one remember to bring luck along on such excursions, but only one trilobite found in a day can be sufficient to sustain the excitement of the hunt. In this way, I found my first trilobite in Oklahoma while passing over a stretch of the Silurian Henryhouse Formation exposed along a country road near Ada. Eric had just stopped the car to look around, and as soon as the passenger car door opened, my eyes instinctively scanned the ground. Right there, almost underfoot was a Diacalymene clavicula! Actually, the fossil was only partially evident, the rest of it buried in a five-hundred-pound slab of the yellowish cream-colored limestone rock characteristic of this sedimentary formation. This slab in turn only fractionally emerged from surrounding rock and soil. Unimpeded, I launched into it with the apoplexy of a circus clown, hammers, chisels, and chips flying. The effort eventually reduced the size of the surrounding rock sufficiently to heft it into the trunk of Eric’s Mazda. The rear end settled a few inches. Visible parts of the fossil indicated the head and thorax had separated from one another as the animal molted over four hundred and twenty million years ago. This fossil nevertheless still resides on a shelf at the front of my collection of trilobites, its place of pride firmly fixed by being the first found.

In particular, we were now looking for trilobites in exposures of the Hunton Group, its member formations scattered in ribbons of limestone strata across seven counties of south central Oklahoma. More specifically the area of interest stretched from the Arbuckle Mountains eastward for about forty miles. Publications from the Oklahoma Geological Survey had left us aware that three large Hunton outcrops were sufficiently penetrated by county roads to yield fossils on a bet. Thus, we sought access to White Mound, an exposure of the Haragan Formation in Murray County, south of Sulfur, and limestone outcrops around the Lawrence Uplift in Pontotoc County exhibiting beautiful sections of most members of the Hunton Group. The monographs indicated several of these latter prospective sites were type localities from which the formations took their names. The best known was Yellow Bluff where the lovely Diacalymene clavicula appeared, sometimes in clusters, together with many other fossils. Then there was the similarly large exposure in Coal County, west of Clarita and north of Bromide and Wapanucka, in the county quadrant T1S, R8E. The Hunton Group took its name from a large exposure there, adjacent to the old Hunton townsite. One hill over to the east, less than a mile away, sat Black Cat Mountain, completely unknown to Eric Henry and me in our early days of hunting for these fossils. Other than the exposures shown in the map in Figure 1, the rest of the Hunton existed in Oklahoma’s subsurface, inaccessible to all but wildcatters and geologists. Though for many years the subsurface Hunton has been a significant source of petroleum revenues for the state’s economy, its trilobites were unreachable. The map in Figure 1 was our key guidance in those early days when looking for access to the Hunton formations.

The tires on Eric’s car made the signature sound of slow movement on a pavement, even slower than the usual limit customary in small towns. The sound was more a reflection of tentative perceptions about the veracity of our information. Places had changed before, and consequently even the scientific publications lost some of their accuracy.

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Figure 1. Outcrops of Hunton Group Strata in South Central Oklahoma (Area covered by map = 1770 square miles). Modified from Lundin (1968) to highlight the locations of White Mound, Yellow Bluff and the Hunton townsite.

Four octogenarians squared off at a table under the awning of a rusty, abandoned storefront. A game of dominos was in progress. We got out and approached respectfully. Following polite nods, Eric asked, This is Clarita? Yup, one replied. After an anxious moment I blurted out, We’re looking for trilobites around here. You, know, fossils. Heard there are a couple of fellows quarrying them in a hillside nearby. Can you tell us how to find them? After a noticeable delay, one said, Never heard of anything like that around here. Since these were the only living folks within sight, we faced a dead end. As we drove out of town, forlorn in the thought that the goal might have been close, the octogenarian philosophers went back to their dominos and swatting flies. Making a trip like this into Oklahoma was rare. At least six hours were necessary to drive up from central Texas, and a weekend was not much time for us to investigate new territory. It crossed our minds to ignore better judgment and drive back into the hills behind the town along the ranch roads; but without some guidance, that would have been unproductive and frustrating. In addition, we had a vague impression that the fellows mining the trilobites might have been ready to protect their claim ruthlessly, with a little help from Smith and Wesson. Trespassing was not optional.

Several years passed before the opportunity came again, this time with better preparation, and more productive results. Since that second occasion, I have visited as often as possible, and have learned the story of this place and its trilobites. As will be retold in what remains of this chapter, it was simultaneously more normal and more extraordinary than my fanciful runaway imagination originally led me to believe.

On one occasion, I was hunting for trilobites with Eric Henry near Bend, a tiny hamlet on the central Texas Colorado River not far from Lampasas and San Saba. This time the dark rocks were Pennsylvanian Smithwick Shale (McBride and Kimberly 1963). While hammering away on the rounded boulders that split into knife-edged shards, Eric asked what the differences were between Ditomopyge and Paladin, two trilobite genera found in late Paleozoic rocks in Texas. Befuddled, I could not describe their unique features to him with any amount of personal satisfaction. The few years I had spent collecting trilobites should have been sufficient to know the differentiating characteristics of at least these two, represented in my home state. After all, Eric could distinguish between any two Texas Cretaceous echinoids. Not knowing that these closely related trilobites belonged in the same family, the Phillipsiidae, and the differences between them quite subtle, the deficiency felt hollow. Two good university libraries were nearby, and soon became regular sources of literature on Carboniferous and Permian trilobites. Based on the popular literature I had on fossils, it seemed the paucity of late Paleozoic trilobites would be similarly reflected in the professional literature. It would be similarly brief, readily mastered.

That was over a decade ago, and the interim has been filled with plentiful reading. Meanwhile, publications on Carboniferous and Permian trilobites have continued to issue frequently from various sources in Europe, North America, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere. This vicarious journey through the findings and discoveries of other investigators has been a fascinating, often overwhelming, one.

I continued hunting trilobites with Eric in much of south central Oklahoma, around the Arbuckle Mountains and east from there, and in Texas, and even Utah, until he succumbed to an interest in sea urchins and other fossil echinoderms. The journey with Eric Henry led us to a fork in our interest and he pursued the other path. It was understandable. Nevertheless, he helped launch me on my own travels into a new paradigm with trilobites and their scientific investigators. Before this introduction, I had been, since my youth, an impassioned but only random fossil collector, with little focus or direction to my hobby.

-{:)))))—

Facts and names given here were found in Coling 1966. A copy was loaned to the author by the Coalgate Geneological Society, Coalgate, Oklahoma.

Pondering the green, rolling countryside from the hilltop that gave these formations their name, questions percolated persistently to my attention. What happened to Hunton, its people, and the naturalists who came here investigating the fossils and these rock formations? How did they connect these formations to others nearby? How did geologists establish their ages? How old were they? This book is about its trilobites, but I beg the reader’s brief indulgence to allow a few paragraphs to place Black Cat Mountain in a historical context and address some of these questions. Its geologic history is long, but written chronicles of Oklahoma’s geologic exploration become increasingly sketchy, farther back than about 150 years, so this is a practical point in time to begin. Through much of the nineteenth century, the United States government consolidated so many indigenous tribes in the land encompassing modern Oklahoma that it was called Indian Territory. The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in September of 1830 resulted in the Choctaws relinquishing their lands east of the Mississippi River and moving to the southeast corner of Indian Territory. Then in 1832, the Chickasaw gave up their lands in the Treaty of Pontotoc and emigrated there as well. They settled west of the Choctaw, negotiating the purchase of Choctaw lands in 1837. There were many others, but only the territory of these two tribes encompassed Black Cat Mountain within their original boundaries.

Exploration and white settlement brought Indian Territory’s mineral riches and natural resources to the attention of the rest of the country. Coal deposits had been recorded by a French explorer, Bernard de la Harpe, in southeastern Oklahoma as early as 1719. Similarly, the English Naturalist Thomas Nuttall mentioned carbonaceous deposits a century later while touring the area on a botanical expedition. Then, notations by Lieutenant W. A. Whipple in an 1853 U.S. War Department railroad survey suggested inexhaustible supplies of bituminous coal in eastern Indian Territory. It was a stimulating incentive for construction of railroads in the region. Coal production began on tribal lands of the Choctaw as the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad received federal authorization to traverse Indian Territory. By 1872, large-scale production of the recently organized Osage Coal and Mining Company replaced strip mining. Next, the Choctaw Coal and Mining Company followed in 1881, later to be reorganized as the Atoka Coal and Mining Company. These were the larger mining enterprises. Many smaller ones dotted the landscape, and from this initial industry, Coal County received its name. Employment prospects generated by the mines brought cultural heritages to the area from many European countries.

In the early half of 1890, the federal government established the territory of Oklahoma, effectively laying claim to the western half of the current state to allow white settlement there. United States Geological Survey crews spent four years in the area from 1895 through 1898 charting detailed maps, a small part of which was used to develop Figure 2. The name of the territory gave some acknowledgement at the time to the indigenous peoples living there. It came from two Choctaw words: okla, meaning people, and humma, for red; Oklahoma means red people. Then, before the turn of the century, the question of statehood came up several times and conventions were held to garner support for this. Conflicting agendas within the first convention caused the first attempt to fail, but it did result in more space being opened in the territory to white settlement. This continued for almost two decades.

Oil and gas were discovered near Tulsa and other financially viable minerals were discovered frequently and regularly, and this recrystalized national interest in the region. Excavations of silver, copper, and zinc were making several tribes richer than many other Americans. Between 1901 and 1926, revenues from mineral production in Oklahoma grew from four million dollars to 569.5 million dollars (Gould 1928). Publicity stirred up about the wealth to be made brought the question of statehood again into focus. A federal senate committee visited the territory in late 1902, and that same December, it introduced a bill supporting combined statehood for Oklahoma and Indian Territory. However, political bickering from other prospective states entangled the question and the bill lapsed. Then the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention met in 1905 with the intent to form two separate states, one named Sequoyah and the other Oklahoma. The federal government rejected their proposal, but it was obliged to combine both territories and call the result Oklahoma. It was admitted to the Union as the forty-sixth state in 1907.

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Figure 2. Remnants of Hunton, Indian Territory. Image 1 is the northwest corner of the 1901 USGS Topographic Sheet, Atoka Quadrangle, Indian Territory from Taff (1902). Image 2 is an expanded view of the map in Image 1 near Hunton, showing buildings, roads, and topography. A marks the location of Hunton, and B marks the later location of Amsden’s Measured Section C1, described in Chapter 3. Contour lines of Black Cat Mountain are visible in the upper center of Image 2; roads pass within a few feet along its southern and western faces. Image 3 is an old barn on Larry Patton’s farm near the end of Burr Valley Road, situated adjacent to the western face of the Hunton hillside. The map key at the bottom shows the location of Coal County in Oklahoma and the coordinates of Black Cat Mountain in its southwestern corner.

Charles Henderson Kite married Lenora Carter in their hometown in Tennessee. Following the wedding, her parents moved to the Burrow Valley near Stonewall in Johnston County, Indian Territory. Together with his young family, Kite followed a year later in 1904, and quickly established himself in the valley as an industrious stockman and farmer. Renting land from Clarence Cravatt, he was soon doing well enough to purchase grazing and farming land for 5.25 dollars per acre. His acquisitions included lucrative areas surrounding nearby Hunton, established in October 1896 with the registration of its post office in eastern Chickasaw Nation, near its border with Atoka County, Pushmataha District of the Choctaw Nation. Hunton was barely a village, more a collection of buildings bound on all sides by farms and ranches. It included Dr. Darbison’s office, a church, a school, and the post office combined with a store. James H. Ward was Hunton’s first postmaster (Shirk 1948). Image 3 in Figure 2 is an old barn on Larry Patton’s farm near the end of Burr Valley Road that was used during these times to stable Wells Fargo horses used to draw their stagecoaches.

Details about the Clarita area history were taken from J. E. Grigsby, who wrote the chapter on Clarita for Betty Poe’s compilation of the History of Coal County (1986).

J. A. Taff ventured through Hunton at the turn of the century with D. White and G. H. Girty, investigating the coalfields and mapping the regional geology for the U.S. Geological Survey (Taff 1899, 1901,1902, 1903, Taff and Adams 1900). This was when Taff named the carbonate rocks in the adjacent hillside Hunton Limestone. Kite bought the store and Hunton post office from Nat Addison for a team of mules, a wagon, and a watch in 1904.

When its citizens ratified statehood, Coal County took its territory from part of Atoka County in the Pushmataha District of Choctaw Nation. It also included a small slice from the eastern edge of Chickasaw Nation, which encompassed Hunton. The county’s principal economic mineral product of the early twentieth century was coal, of course. Since it was closer to sites of the earliest mines, Lehigh became the original county seat. However, county governance moved to Coalgate on July 11, 1908, after more participants