Oklahoma, Part 4 (except we're really in Kansas....)

Before I get back to the Indian portion of this trip, I have to tell you about this odd little thing we're doing in restaurants. Well, actually, two odd little things we're doing. Some background: Every morning for the past several months, my parents have been going to the same restaurant for breakfast, and they have a favorite waitress. Before we left on this trip, she jotted the words "That's all she wrote" on a piece of place mat, and asked my parents to get as many waitstaff as possible to sign it. We've asked probably a dozen up to this point, on both the train and in restaurants, and none have said "No" yet.

In addition, I have discovered the "art" of dollar bill origami. (Well, money origami, really, as I have folded a few fives as well.) I've been handing these out as tips. Mom commented that since we're "out West" I should do boots, so I've altered a pattern in my instruction book to make things that look like cowboy boots (kind of). People seem really pleased by this, although they may just saying that to be polite. Anyway, it's been amusing, and I've gotten good enough to fold a boot out of a dollar bill without referring to my instructions.

There's a link here for a similar model if anyone wants to give it a shot. This is a YouTube video, and the steps are different from the ones I use. I'll be happy to teach people the method I learned if they ask.

This really has nothing to do with the fact that we're in Kansas for the next part of the trip, it's just trivia. We stopped in Arkansas City to visit the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum. Again, flash photography was not allowed inside the museum, so my pictures are pretty dim and few in number.

The Cherokee Indians had been given land in Oklahoma, as well as a path to their hunting grounds (the Cherokee Strip or the Cherokee Outlet). However, as is typical for U.S. government agreements with the Native Americans, when a lot of settlers wanted Indian land, the government found a way to give it to them.

In April of 1893, thousands of people had gathered in Arkansas City to wait for signal to move into Cherokee territory and claim a parcel. (An eyewitness account is posted here. More information on the land rush can be found here.) An estimated 100,000 people walked, rode horses, or drove horse-drawn vehicles into the area to stake a claim. (One of the wall displays note that before the news of the land rush was published, there were 5,ooo people living in Arkansas City. Just before the land rush began, Arkansas City's population rose to 150,000. Once the guns had sounded to begin the rush, the population plunged back to 5,000.)

In addition to artifacts from the time of the land rush (including an actual claim flag that settlers would plant on their property -- one of only two original flags in existence, a staff member told me), the museum hosts a display of various type of shoes used in Oklahoma history, and a section housing local non-land rush artifacts and historic items. Local theater companies also put on dramas in the museum at various times -- there is a stage and activity area set aside for this.

I don't have any photos to post this time around. As with many museums displaying actual historical objects, flash photography is discouraged (the light will eventually damage the items). The lighting was dim enough that most of my pictures came out rather dark.

I've mentioned the fact that we've been seeing a lot of school children on our travels. We had a busload here, too, and I wish I had gotten the name of the school to list here, because these were some of the best behaved kids I've ever seen. I said so to one of the teachers, who passed it on to her students.