Weatherford High School - Eagle Yearbook (Weatherford, OK)

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Ji.. PLENTY OF HORSEPOWER-'Horses were numerous in the Cheyenne and Arapahoe country when the picture above was taken on Weatherford's main street ln 1904. The crop going to the market here is broomcom. the run, to establish a home for himself and for his family. Mr. Weatherford was a Southerner and a long time peace officer. He started the first town of Weatherford on his land which was located a mile east and a mile north of the outskirts of the present town. The first Weatherford was never very large. At its peak it was composed only of the Weatherford buildings, the postoffice, a general store built by T. P. Press Keen, the Cottonwood Saw Mill, so named because this tree provided most of its lumber, and a blacksmith shop which stood near the trail leading from El Reno to Arapaho, then G county's biggest and most active town. Traces of this trail still remain in the vicinity. Mrs. Mary Rainey, daughter of Bill Weatherford, remembers vividly the day the troopers from Fort Reno on their way to Arapaho, where trouble with the Indians had EARLY STORE--The Harness Shop pictured below was doing business just south of the present site of Wright's Station in 1906. Miss Nannle Sm1th's father was the proprietor. ! - 1 BUILDINGS GOING UP on North Broadway. 1898-1899. A VIEW OF BROADWAY, 1906--Paved streets were unheard of and if you walked down this hill flocking southy you would probably find yourself knee--deep in mud and slush! v- -, l - 4. 1704

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-bbw' KIOWAS--This visiting tribe of Kiowa Indians from the south were photographed ln Weatherford in 1895. Kiowas visited frequently with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes in this area and many of them intermarrled. 'K THE CRUCIAL HOUR--HIGH NOON, APRIL 19, 1892 ---- It all started with the riders who lined the borders of the Chey- enne and Arapahoe country in 1892 . The vast buffalo and antelope hunting ground for wandering tribes of Indians was being opened to white settlement. Hundreds of people were gathered to wait for the Run of 1892. Although the run did not attract so many people as the Old Oklahoma Run of 1889 or the No Man's Run in 1890, some 5, 000 were at the starting points on the morning of April 19, 1892. THE RAILROAD--came to Weatherford in 1898. Like everyone else, the Indians went down to the depot to watch the train come ln. MISSOURI SCHOOL, 1898. Standing in front of the school house are Henry Lowry, E. R. Lowry, and I. P. White. The race was for the choicest land on the river and creek bottoms . At a point about four miles east of the present city of Weatherford, a line of vehi- cles and mounted riders extended for miles to the north and south. There were other starting lines adjacent to the present east and south boundaries of Washita county and on the other boundaries of the new territory When the hands of the clock approached high noon, the government starters raised their arms . . .and fired their guns! The race was on! Civilization followed in the footsteps of those who made the run--not rapidly but gradually, and not without hardships which those who did not experience them would even understand. In a matter of hours after the first home steaders arrived, tents began to spring up over all the prairie . just a small distance from the county line where the race started, a William j. Weatherford came, the day after MANSION--This frame house of the P. P. Bunker family, southeast of Weatherford was considered 'modern' in the Cheyenne and Arapahoe country in early days.

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State Bcchange Bank, now the Eaton Drug Corner. BEER DEPOT! If you can read the slgn on the front of this building you can see that the Anheuser Busch Beer company got here early. Standing near what is now the armory, this saloon was one of the many which appeared on Broadway soon after the town began. The house is the Carl Stettler residence. ivfqg if I' developed, came along this trail to stop at the Weatherford home for refreshments . She also remembers a cloudburst which occurred on May 5, 1892--washing away many of their belongings . Weatherford had four pretty daughters and his place was the social center of the region, where roughly clad homesteaders, spurred and booted cowboys came to dances . Peace officers frequently called at the Weatherford home for advice and assistance in chasing outlaws and in getting along with the Indians . Bill Weatherford started Baptist church services and his daughters taught school. His wife was the first postmistress, and the girls would put the postoffice receipts Qthey were rather small,sometimes amounting to only S15 a quartery under their mattresses for safe keeping. During the first years, the homesteaders had to convey their crops to E1 Reno by horse and wagon, to bring back most of their supplies from that railroad terminus. This trip meant fording the South Canadian River, often a dangerous task. One old timer remembers a man trying to bring a steam engine and threshing machine across the river only to lose both in the quicksand. In the summer of 1898, when the Choctaw railroad began laying its tracks westward from Geary, the present Weatherford was created. The rails would miss the old site by about a mile and a half to the south, it was found, and so the official town was platted where it now lies. iv ' E H fijiiit 2 K . , 1 gg.,-iq, - - 7.9 gg, ' sails'-gwf , -