Oklahoma History

In the past 150 years as many as two thousand Oklahoma hamlets, villages, towns, and even cities have bloomed and then died. Some have faded away, with not even a fallen chimney to mark their location. Others have left ghostly marks of their past--mounds of rubble grown over with grass or crumbling walls of buildings. A few still cling tenaciously to life, with a few inhibitants left to call them home.

In these pages John W. Morris tells about 130 of the towns. He describes how and why each was established, the activities of its people in its heyday, and the conditions that cuased it to fade away. Of course, to tell about the towns is also to tell about the people who built them and lived in them--and once had high hopes for their success.

After taking Davis D. Joyce’s course in Oklahoma history, a student once said, “I saw an Oklahoma I’d never seen before.”

“This is a splendid collection of writings in the true spirit of a ‘people’s history’. It begins with a delightful, wry overlook at Oklahoma by George Milburn, and goes on to tell about the state in way rarely seen in traditional histories. There are accounts of progressivism, of socialism, of labor radicalism, of Indian resistance, of black struggle against segregation, of women’s campaigns for abortion rights. It includes fascinating portraits of people, some famous, some obscure, who were engaged in these struggles. I hope this become a model for similar volumes on other states.”–Howard Zinn, author of People’s History of the United States.

Contents: “Oklahoma,” George Milburn; “The Difficulty of Celebrating an Invasion, “Jerald C. Walker;“Progressivism in Oklahoma Politics, 1900-1913: A Reinterpretation,” Kenny L. Brown;“Kate Barnard, Progressivism, and the West,” Suzanne J. Crawford and Lynn R. Musslewhite; “’In Death You Shall not Wear It Either’: The Persecution of Mennonite Pacifists in Oklahoma,” Marvin E. Kroeker;“She Never Weakened: The Heroism of Freda Ameringer,” John Thompson; “Wobblies in the Oilfields: The Suppression of the Industrial Workers of the World in Oklahoma,” Nigel sellars; “The Road Once Taken: Socialist Medicine in Southwestern Oklahoma,” Alana Hughes;  “Woody Guthrie: The Oklahoma Years, 1912-1929,” Harry Menig;  “The  New Deal Comes to Shawnee,” Dale E.Soden; “The Social Gospel of Nicholas Comfort,” Bob Cottrell; “Behold the Walls,” Clara Luper;  “The Case of  the Deerslayer,”  Stan Steiner; “Black Oklahoma and Sense of place ,” Jimmie L. Franklin; “The Southern Influence on Oklahoma ,” Danney Goble; “The Creation of an Oklahoma Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights: A Presonal/Historical Essay” Carole Jane Joyce; “Violence and Oppression of Women in Rural Oklahoma,”  Elizabeth D. Barlow; “Oklahoma’s Gay Liberation Movement,” Thomas E. Guild, Joan Luxenburg, and Keith Smith; “Even Among the Sooners, There Are More Important Things than Football,” Alan Ehrenhalt.

In revealing an Oklahoma many have never seen, this book can remind Oklahoma citizens of changes yet to be made, show how to mark them, and (perhaps most important of all) inspire them to do the job.

The Historical Atlas of Oklahoma has been an indispensable reference for longer than four decades. Issued on the eve of the Oklahoma Centennial, this fourth edition of the atlas is much more than an updated version. Oklahoma authors Charles Robert Goins and Danney Goble are joined by seventeen contributing scholars (including natural and physical scientists) and other professionals to present 119 topics. To explore each, one or more maps with explanatory legends, tables, and graphs are paired with an interpretive essay.

Created by cartographer James H. Anderson, more than 170 new maps—in full color—chart Oklahoma’s rich and varied history and current population trends.

Like earlier editions, the Atlas describes Oklahoma’s landforms and natural resources and traces the state’s geographic history from the earliest hunter-gatherer bands to today’s mostly urban inhabitants. New to this edition are maps exploring additional aspects of the state’s economy and its diverse society, politics, and culture, such as black history, women’s experiences, and the musicians, writers, and other artists identified with the state. Reflecting the most up-to-date information as of 2005 from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources, this new edition of the Historical Atlas of Oklahoma will be an invaluable resource for scholars, teachers, students, and any reader who wants to know more about the history of Oklahoma.

“Son, there's more treasure buried right here In Oklahoma than in the rest of the whole Southwest.” Those words from an old-timer launched Steve Wilson on a yearslong quest for the stones of Oklahoma’s treasures. This book is the result.

It is a book of stories-some true, some legendary- about fabulous caches of lost treasure: outlaw loot buried in the heat of pursuit, hoards of Spanish gold dud silver secreted for a later day, Frenchmen's gold ingots hidden amid massive cryptic symbols, Indian treasure concealed in caves, and lost mines- gold and silver and platinum.

It tells about the earliest treasure seekers of the region and those who are still hunting today. Along the way it describes shootouts and massacres, trails whose routes are preserved in the countless legends of gold hidden alongside them, Mexicans' smelters, and mines hidden and sought over the centuries.

Among the chapters:

• 'The Secrets Spanish Fort Tells,"
• "Quests for Red River's Silver Mines,"
• "Oklahoma's Forgotten Treasure Trail,'"
• "Ghosts of Devil's Canyon and Their Gold,"
• "Jesse James's Two-Million-Dollar Treasure,"
• "The Last Cave with the Iron Door,"
• and, perhaps most intriguing of all, "The Mystery of Cascorillo-A Lost" City."

This is a book about quests over trails dim before the turn of the century. It is about early peoples, Mound Builders, Vikings, conquistadors, explorers, outlaw, gold seekers. The author has spent years tracking down the stories and hours listening to the old-timers' tales of their searches.

Wilson has provided maps, both detailed modem ones and photographs of early treasure maps and has richly illustrated the book with pictures of the sites that gave rise to the tales. .

For armchair travelers, never-say-die treasure hunters, historians, and chroniclers and aficionados of western lore, this is an absorbing and delightful book. And who knows? The reader may find gold! 

Interviews of Oklahoma history’s diverse women

They came in land runs and on the Trail of Tears, sometimes with families, sometimes alone. But the women who first came to Oklahoma all had trials to face—and stories to tell.

In this stirring collection, the women who settled what would become Oklahoma tell their own stories in their own words. From thousands of interviews conducted by the Work Projects Administration in 1936–37 and preserved in the Indian Pioneer Papers of Oklahoma, editors Terri M. Baker and Connie Oliver Henshaw have selected the words of women from a wide range of socioeconomic groups, ethnic backgrounds, and geographical locations to relate the pioneer experience as it was really lived.

Elegantly written, skillfully edited, Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma reflects the everyday will and courage to survive of Oklahoma’s founding mothers. It conveys the violence of a frontier culture set in a landscape of stark beauty where death was always just a heartbeat away. A vital part of the state centennial, theirs is the story of real Oklahoma, writ large—and in a distinctly female hand.