While the original colonists, or boomers, gained little or nothing for themselves by the hardships they insisted on encountering, they really brought about the opening for settlement of Oklahoma.  About the year 1885 it began to be generally understood that the necessary proclamation would be issued, and from all parts of the country home-hunters began to set out on a journey, varying in length from a few hundreds to several thousand miles.  The Kansas border towns on the south were made the headquarters for the home-seekers, and as they arrived at different points they were astonished to find that others had got there before them.  In the neighborhood of Arkansas City, particularly, there were large settlements of boomers, who from time to time made efforts to enter the promised land in advance of the proclamation, only to be turned back by the soldiers who were guarding every trail.  The majority of the newcomers thought it better to obey the law, and these settled down, with their wagons for their homes, and sought work with which to maintain their families until the proclamation was issued and the country opened to them.

It was a long and dreary wait.  The children were sent to school, the men obtained such employment as was possible, and life went on peacefully in some of the most peculiar settlements ever seen in this country.  Finally the Springer Bill was passed and the speedy opening of at least a portion of Oklahoma assured.  The news was telegraphed to the four winds of heaven, and where there had been one boomer before there were soon fifty or a hundred.  In the winter of 1888, various estimates were made as to the number of people awaiting the President’s proclamation, and the total could not have been less than 50,000 or 60,000.  Finally the long-looked-for document appeared, and Easter Monday, 1889, was named as the date on which the section of Oklahoma included in the bill was to be declared open.  There was a special proviso that any one entering the promised and mysterious land prior to noon on the day named, would be forever disqualified from holding land in it, and accordingly the opening resolved itself into a race, to commence promptly at high noon on the day named.

Seldom has such a remarkable race been witnessed in any part of the world.  The principal town sites were on the line of the Sante Fe Railroad, and those who were seeking town lots crowded the trains, which were not allowed to enter Oklahoma until noon.  All available rolling stock was brought into requisition for the occasion, and provision was made for hauling thousands of home-seekers to the towns of Guthrie and Oklahoma City, as well as to intervening points.  Before daylight on the morning of the opening, the approaches of the railway station at Arkansas City were blocked with masses of humanity, and every train was thronged with town boomers, or with people in search of free land or town lots.

The author was fortunate in securing a seat on the first train which crossed the Oklahoma border, and which arrived at Guthrie before 1 o’clock on the day of the opening.  It was presumed that the law had been enforced, and that we should find nothing but a land-office and a few officials on the town site.