Louisiana Purchase

Louisiana Purchase with future site of Shawnee, OK.

1803. Slave uprisings in Caribbean French colonies cause Napoleon to sell all French territory in North America to quickly raise money.

The United States purchases 800,000 sq miles of land, known as the Louisiana Purchase.

Neither the French nor Americans know what is actually in the land being sold or even where the boundaries are. ¹

Trail of Tears

Forced removal of eastern U.S. Indian tribes into modern day Oklahoma (yellow area at left on map). Collectively, this became known as the "Trail of Tears."

In the 1830's, president Andrew Jackson forces Native American tribes westward to make room in the eastern U.S. for white settlers. ²

Tribes are moved onto reservations in "Indian Territory" (present day Oklahoma), which is considered a worthless part of the "The Great American Desert". ³

Distrustful of the U.S. government, and being slaveholders themselves, most native tribes side with the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865). ^{4 5}

Indian Allotment Act

Kickapoo Indians in Shawnee, Indian Territory. 1894.

After the surrender of the Confederacy, the U.S. government decides it's time to force Indians to become mainstream Americans by moving them from tribes onto individual family farms and ranches. ^{6 7}

It doesn't go well. ⁸

Through dozens of forced treaties and land sales, the U.S. government takes large areas of tribal land and tries to give them back out as small. family sized farms.

The farms are partitioned carelessly, and most don't have enough water. Many Indians refuse them.

Unassigned Lands

Indian Territory in 1885 and 1891, with future site of Shawnee marked. Notice that nearly the entire western half of Oklahoma moves out of "Indian Territory" and into U.S. government control. The colored area of the last image shows the Land Runs and other ways it was opened for white settlement.

By the 1890's, this policy has accidentally emptied the entire western half of present-day Oklahoma.^{7 9}

White farmers called "Boomers" decide that this "unassigned" Oklahoma land isn't so worthless after all and convince the U.S. government that they should get it. ⁹

It's Oklahoma in late 1800's- so it's still the Wild West. Instead of organizing auctions or lotteries to divvy up land, the government holds a series of chaotic wagon races known as "Land Runs".

Land Runs

U.S. Army soldiers guard the territory being opened as wagons arrive at the starting line

Trains bring farmers and families from across the country looking for free land and a new life. ¹⁰

With 2 million acres of land made available, up to 100,000 hopeful people will arrive to a single land run. ^{11 12}

At the sound of a starter pistol, they rush into the territory and pound wooden stakes in the ground to claim 160 acres.

Towns spring up overnight. One of these "boom towns" is Shawnee, the future site of Round House.

Land Offices

Many of these men will find their land has already been claimed by "Sooners" who sneaked onto the land the night before! Fights and even murders over land disputes are not uncommon.

Settlers stand in line, sometimes for days, waiting to file their claim in the nearest town while their families remain on their land to stand guard.

Wagons continue to pour in over the next decade, soon followed by the roar of steam locomotives. Over 375 railroad cars hauling in 150,000 bales of cotton arrive each year by 1900 to feed the frontier's insatiable demand for clothing. ¹³

And out of the dust, smoke, and pandemonium of America's Wild West frontier expansion, Round House is born.

Cotton wagons on Main St. Shawnee, OK. 1896

Oklahoma railroad workers. Turn of the century.

Rock Island Railroad shops. Shawnee, Oklahoma Territory

Rock Island rail workers. (Keep in mind, these are workers for just one of the four railroads in town.)

Photograph of a depot. Shawnee, Oklahoma Territory. 1900

Parade for opening waterworks. (We're a Dust Bowl state- water is a big deal 'round here.) Shawnee, Oklahoma Territory. 1899

Rock island railroad station. Shawnee, OK