OKLALHOMA CITY

Oklahoma City

We spent some time looking around a homestead based
on one of the original 160 acres sites "won" in a race.

The Land Rush of 1889 started at high noon on April 22, with an estimated 50,000 people lined up ready to race for their 160 acres of the available two million acres in Oklahoma. Some of them settled around a favoured site which is now downtown Oklahoma City which was laid out by the end of the first day.

Inevitably some cheated by getting an early start. These people were called "sooners" and generated a profitable legal
business for some including a man called W Harn who lived in this house.

At first, Mr. and Mrs. Harn lived in a one-room house but Mrs. Harn wanted to return to Ohio to her family. Mr. Harn said that if she would stay in Oklahoma, he would build her any house she wanted in the National Builders Supplement catalogue, a Sears & Roebuck company. She chose a Victorian, Queen Anne style home, characterized by a small, offset front porch and the half-octagon shape of the parlor and upstairs bedroom. Mr. Harn ordered it for a Christmas present. It was crated up in Chicago, put on a train, and erected at the homestead in 6 weeks in 1904.

The inside was pretty spectacular for the time when many people who made the land run lived in tiny wooden cabins or houses built of sod.

Guess being a lawyer in the USA is a profitable business.










CAROL'S BIT

National Cowboy Museum. This is a big museum dedicated to the Cowboy and Indian era. Most of us probably have a romantic impression of the wild west. Part of the museum depicted westerns and the film stars that starred in them From the screen with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara to The Cisco Kid
and the 'Masked Man' and Tonto. Tonto was played by Jay Silverheels a full blood Native American. He went on to teach about the Indian culture and promote Indian rights. Tonto called the Lone ranger Kemo Sabay ( trusty scout ) I called two of my German Shepherds by the same names.




There was a section on Rodeo's. Which is portrayed as entertainment, not for the animals. Cattle and calves are chased by a cowboy on horseback, roped around the neck , then DRAGGED across the
arena until they are brought down and then have their legs tied together, so that they can't move.

After that they would normally have a hot iron welded to their flanks. Nowadays identification is done by chipping, or tagging the ear ( that's not painless either)

The Bucking Bronco's are apparently horses that will not tolerate anyone on their back, and there is a breed line for these horses. One of the reasons that they buck ,might be the spurs that the rider has on the heel of his boots, that come down with a thud into the horses neck everytime he bucks .

Some of the Rodeo cowboys thought a lot of their horses and would keep them after they both retired, as did Buffalo Bill Cody who was a true frontiersman and performed from experience.

One section of the museum was dedicated to a man called Lois Ortega. He specialized in making COMFORTABLE tack for horses. He made Hackamores and Cinches from hair, so that they were soft and didn't cause any cuts or pain to the horses. A Hackamore is a bridle without the metal bit that fits in the horses mouth to control it, and a Cinch is the belly band that fits under the horse and holds the saddle on.

There were display cases of Guns, Spurs, Whips, barbed wire, and branding irons. It has taken years to make films showing the truth about the west , with regard to the way the Indians were treated. The only animal that seems to have come out on top ( literally) is the bull. They could be mean, and would gore, trample, and roll on their rider.

The picture is of a Charro, a Mexican cowboy in costume. This is where Charro got his name from. The feminine is spelled Charo.