School Population of the various Counties, Enrolment, At endale and Teachers' Sales, Certificates, and the Value of Segool Districts.......... 207 INTRODUCTORY OKLAHOMA'S STORY The story of the contest waged for the opening of the lands of Oklahoma to white settlement is most interesting. The long fight made by the "colonies" for entrance to the forbidden land showed the charcater of the men and women who were to become the basic element of the state's citizenship. As the desire for unoccupied lands grew, a large army of prospective settlers clamored for the unused lands of Indian Territory. These settlers joined forces with the railroads and together they waged war on the cattle kings of Oklahoma's pastoral regime. On April 15, 1879, T. C. Sears, an attorney for the M. K. & T., railroad announced that there were fourteen million acres of public land located here which were subject to homestead entry. This seems to have been the original discovery of the "unassigned lands" and immediately aroused much interest. Three "colonies" were organized. Charles C. Carpenter, a leader of one of the colonies and a man who, three years before, had rushed the Black Hills region, crossed the border with his band May 7, 1879, but was promptly ejected by general Wesley Merritt in command of troops of the Fifth Cavalry. David L. Payne then came to the front as an organizer and leader of the boomers. Again and again presidential proclamations warned the boomers out of the forbidden territory, but as often did Captain Payne and his persistent followers return only to be ejected. Much agitation of the question of settlement resulted. The sudden death of Captain Payne at Wellington, Kas., November 27, 1884, put something of a damper on boomer enthusiasm, although the next year Captain William L. Couch, Payne's lieutenant, led another expedition into what is now Payne County. He was forced to withdraw and made a second attempt in November of the same year with no better success. It was in 1885 that the Santa Fe railroad was built into the Territory from Arkansas City, and the boomers were convinced that Oklahoma, would soon be opened to settlement by legal proclamation, and invasion was given up. In the interim from 1885 to 1889, the boomers turned their attention to "No Man's-Land". When Texas joined the United States in 1845, all its territory north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes had to be surrendered because, according to the Missouri compromise there would be no more slave territory north of that line. By the organization of Kansas in 1856 its southern boundary was made thirtyseven degrees. This left a strip of land thirty minutes in width from the 100th meridian, north of Texas and south of Kansas, long known as "No Man's Land." The Indians laid no claim to this region and the cattlemen had already taken possession of those limitless prairies, now constituting the Pan Handle of Oklahoma or Beaver, Texas and Cimarron counties. By the spring of 1887, it was estimated that six |