OKLAHOMA CITY

    þ Oklahoma City is a short trip west. All that was happening from October 26-31, 832 could have been seen by the guardian on the dome of the Capitol.

Oklahoma City
    Capitol

1832  A party of Rangers and Tourists got a good look at the land that would become Metropolitan Oklahoma City.
1879  A group of boomers from Kansas came to the land. They were convinced it belonged to nobody.
1880  David L. Payne, a Boomer, began to make forays into the Oklahoma lands. He attracted followers, fought in the courts, lobbied Congress , and made many invasions into Oklahoma until he died and William L. Couch took up the cause.
1887 The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad built tracks through Guthrie, Edmond, Oklahoma City, Moore, Norman, and Purcell.
1889  On April 22, 1889 Oklahoma City was settled. A tent city was the immediate result.
1890  The Organic Act formed Oklahoma Territory with Guthrie as capital.
1913  Oklahoma City took the symbols of power from Guthrie and became the Capital of Oklahoma.
1995  Oklahoma City was both devastated and uplifted.

Imagine the Tourists’ reactions to this impressive air base. Imagine Pourtalès’ reaction to the Osage General Clarence Tinker that the base is named for. He was after all the lover of all things Osage. October 27, it again looked like a foul day. Another day under cover would yield some more stories, but no charging buffalo.

The morning opened gloomy and lowering; but toward eight o’clock the sun struggled forth and lighted up the forest . . . Now began a scene of bustle, and clamor, and gayety. . . . stripping the poles of the wet blankets . . . loading the baggage horses . . . I always felt disposed to linger . . . that I might behold the wilderness relapsing into silence and solitude . . . the deserted scene of our late bustling encampment had a forlorn and desolate appearance. The surrounding forest . . . trampled into a quagmire. Trees felled and partly hewn in pieces, and scattered in huge fragments; tent-poles stripped of their covering; smouldering fires, with great morsels of roasted venison and buffalo meat, standing in wooden spits before them hacked and slashed by the knives of hungry hunters . . . the hides, the horns, the antlers, and bones of buffaloes and deer . . . turkey-buzzards, or vultures, were already on the wing, wheeling their magnificent flight high in the air, and preparing for a descent upon the camp as soon as it should be abandoned. WI 170

The turkey-buzzards, vultures, would clean up after them, since obviously the party did not clean up after themselves. This party did not lie lightly on the land. The Indians of the plains, including the Pawnees would never have left a hunting campsite with so much bounty behind.

 

Midwest City, Oklahoma
    Tinker Air Force Base

1832  Washington Irving spent three soggy nights here.
1889  Metropolitan Oklahoma City was open to settlers.
1941  Midwest City was founded and named after the Midwest Air Depot.
1943  Midwest City had its first US Post Office. Midwest Air Depot became Tinker Air Force Base in honor of General Clarence Tinker, an Osage Indian and American hero.
1949  Midwest City was named America’s Model City.

Continue on Sooner Road past Tinker Air Force Base. Irving and party probably walked right across the runways. Drive around the base for a while before you turn back south on Sooner Road. Imagine what it must have been like in 1832.

OKLAHOMA CITY
    þ Sooner Road will become OK 77H.
    þ Turn right/south at NE 134th Street.

The Guardian on the dome could have watched the drama of the buffalo hunt which took place on October 29, 1832.

 

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