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A Little History
The land area that is now Oklahoma (Choctaw word for
“red people”) became part of the United States on
November 3, 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. This
land formed parts of the homelands of the Kiowa, the
Kiowa-Apache, the Wichita, the Osage, the Caddo, and the
Comanche. When Congress created Arkansas Territory on
March 2, 1819, it included the area that is present-day
Oklahoma west to the one hundredth meridian. In 1830,
the federal government adopted a formal policy of
removal of the Five Tribes—Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek,
Seminole and Chickasaw—from their southeastern homelands
to the western half of Arkansas Territory that would
then become known as Indian Territory. Following the
Civil War in 1865, the United States established a
commission to renegotiate treaty relationships with the
Five Tribes. Because the governments of the Five Tribes
had supported the confederacy during the war, the
federal government placed harsh demands on the tribes.
In 1866, these demands resulted in the tribes’ granting
right-of-ways for railroads and signing treaties in
which the tribes ceded large areas of their lands to the
United States.
In these treaties, the Creeks gave title to the western
portion of their lands and the Seminoles gave title to
all of their land. From these land areas, the government
retained a large block that became known as the
Unassigned Lands to be held for other Indian tribes.
However, in 1889 it became increasingly clear that the
federal government was intent upon opening the
Unassigned Lands for settlement. Both tribes were paid
by the United States to relinquish all former
restrictions placed upon this land, freeing the lands
for settlement. On March 23, 1889, President Harrison
issued a proclamation opening the unassigned lands to
settlement on April 22, 1889.
Several years prior to the land run of April 22, 1889,
the United States Land Office contracted with private
land surveyors to survey the land area comprising the
Unassigned Lands into township/range square miles. This
survey was scheduled in anticipation of the Unassigned
Lands’ being opened for future settlement. The contract
was signed in July 1870, and survey work began shortly
thereafter. A young surveyor named Abner E. Norman was
hired as a chainman and began working with a survey team
in the winter of 1871. He soon was promoted to
supervisor of his survey team and apparently became the
focus of his crew’s pranks. At their temporary camp near
the future site of Norman, the survey crew stripped the
bark from a large tree and burned the words “Norman’s
Camp” on the tree trunk. A few years later in 1886, when
the Santa Fe Railroad was being constructed through the
Unassigned Lands, the old campsite was discovered by the
railroad construction crew along with the tree with
Norman’s name branded upon it. After completion of the
railroad, the name of the old camp site was transferred
to the train station, and the town site had its new
name—Norman. On May 2, 1890, the United States
Congress passed the Organic Act which established the
boundaries of Oklahoma Territory and recognized the City
of Norman as a county seat. On December 19, 1890, George
W. Steele, first governor of the Territory of Oklahoma,
signed a bill establishing three major educational
institutions for the new territory—an agricultural and
mechanical college at Stillwater, a normal school for
education at Edmond, and a university to be located in
Norman. Mort L. Bixler and Thomas R. Waggoner, both of
Norman and members of the territory’s first legislature,
were instrumental in getting Norman selected a site for
the new university. The selection of Norman for the
location of the university was contingent upon the
citizens’ of Cleveland County acquiring a campus site of
40 acres to be within a half mile of Norman and
providing $10,000 to assist in the construction of a new
school building. Despite limited local cash, the money
was raised within the specified time and delivered to
the territorial treasure.
(Historical information courtesy of Robert Goins.) |
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