Mark of Heritage Page: 4
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United States. The Texas Road became an important north-south
commercial artery during the period. The Great Western Trail, the
Chisholm Trail, the West Shawnee Trail and the East Shawnee
Trail were routes over which millions of Texas cattle were driven
across the state to the railroads in Kansas. All these provide another
exciting chapter to the history of the region.
Eventually Oklahoma became a "red island in a white sea" and
as the Great Plains were populated, many farmers looked to the
rich grasslands of Indian Territory as possible homesteads. The
"Unassigned Land" was opened to homesteaders by President
Benjamin Harrison on March 23, 1889. This touched off the "run"
for homesteads on April 22, 1889, in the present Oklahoma
counties Payne, Logan, Kingfisher, Canadian, Oklahoma and
Cleveland. However, this was only the beginning, and by 1906
twelve other land openings had allowed the settlement of the
entire western half of the region, which was organized as Oklahoma
Territory in 1890. However, the eastern portion of the state re-
mained under the government of the Five Civilized Tribes.
As the population grew, so did the demands for statehood.
Several efforts were made to gain admittance to the Union, in-
cluding the abortive Sequoyah Constitutional Convention of 1905,
which sought separate statehood for Indian Territory. Finally, an
Enabling Act authorizing admission of the "Twin Territories" as
one state was approved on June 16, 1906, and the following year,
on November 16, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed
Oklahoma the forty-sixth state with the boundaries of Kansas and
Colorado on the north, New Mexico and Texas on the west, Mis-
souri and Arkansas on the east and Texas on the south.
After statehood Oklahoma's history unfolded as colorful as
before: the removal of the State Seal from Guthrie, the first capital,
to Oklahoma City, the present seat of government, during a mid-
night ride in 1910; the oil boom in the 1920s and 1930s, which
were miniature re-enactments of the nineteenth-century gold
rushes; political problems which continued with the establishment
of the new state; boundary controversies between Oklahoma and
Texas which remained to be solved. In fact, the actual present
boundaries of the state were not finalized until the 1920s by a
decision of the United States Supreme Court. The dust-bowl era
4
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Mark of Heritage (Book)
Book discussing the history of Oklahoma's heritage, including descriptions about the state's historic sites and museums; also included is a folded map of over 270 historical markers in the state. Index begins on page 207.
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Wright, Muriel H. (Muriel Hazel), 1889-1975; Shirk, George H. & Franks, Kenny Arthur, 1945-. Mark of Heritage, book, 1976; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc862885/m1/16/: accessed April 23, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; .