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Elk City, Oklahoma

In 1901 the United States, Oklahoma and the tiny spot on the map known as Elk City stood at the threshold of a new era. William McKinley was president, the age of electricity, after many experiments, had come and its effect was being felt in many directions. The Flatiron building in New York rose to 20 stories to become the world's first skyscraper. Big business was also rising to new heights.

The Floradora Sextette was being imitated all over the country and everyone was humming, whistling or singing "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine". In Oklahoma and Indian Territories, agitation for statehood was beginning. William M. Jenkins of Guthrie succeeded Cassius M. Barnes, also of Guthrie, as territorial governor.

Mrs. Ben Brooks who moved to Oklahoma Territory before Elk City became a town, remembers many early day experiences and events that happened in Elk City's infancy. According to Mrs. Brooks there were three families who came in three covered wagons from northeast of Kansas City, to a few miles east of Elk City, about one mile east of the Washita County line. She was in one of the wagons driven by her Scotch-Irish father, John W. McDonald, along with her French mother, Lodosky, her sister and two brothers. In another of the wagons was the Joe Thornpson family and in the other wagon was Ed Thompson, Joe's son, and his family. "Joe Thompson’s daughter, Ethel, who married Jim Mayberry, had an experienc when we were traveling in the wagons. She picked up a little rifle and let go. It went off and the bullet went around the bone in her leg. It was two days before we could get to a doctor. The doctor looked at it and said 'Leave it alone, it's lead and it won't canker." For awhile she walked with a broomstick but she carried that lead with her to her grave.” It was her father, Carl Edgar McDonald, a cousin, and Clabe Thompson, Joe's son, Mrs. Brooks said, who hauled lumber from El Reno to build the McDonald's first house - a 14 by 16 foot one room structure. For the first couple years there was no school for settlers' children, but her father and Joe Gillintine drove their teams and wagons to Mountain View and hauled back lumber to build the Pleasant Valley school house. All the neighbors pitched in and built it. Picnics, especially on the 4th of July always attracted the interest of early day pioneers. It was when Mrs. Brooks, then Ethel McDonald, was 16 years of age that she and six other youths were going to a picnic at the old Red Moon school, that they nearly drowned. "There were seven of us in one wagon. Sam Vanpelt who filed on land across the road from my father, Mike Combs, Ben Brooks, and three Wray sisters, Annie, Minnie and Leta, and myself. It was stormy when we left so we put up the wagon sheet. When we got to old Barnitz Creek, it was bankfull. Ben who had been reared around lots of water near San Marcos, Tex., told the driver not to drive into it, but he paid no attention and plunged the team and wagon headlong into the swollen creek. The team went out of sight. The spring seat, quilts, and all our dinner except one loaf of bread, went floating down the creek and the horses began swimming trying to get out. We submerged up to our necks. Ben shouted, 'Give them the reins,' and we managed to get out." But their plight had not ended. They were on the wrong side of the creek, they couldn't get home or notify their parents, and were soaking wet with no food and nowhere to stay. They headed in a westerly direction until midnight when they spotted a faint light. They followed it to a farm house, where a family with several children lived in one room. After assuring her all the people were respectable she invited them in and fried bacon. They didn't get home until the next day at noon, and their anxious parents were indeed glad to see them. Mrs. Brooks recalled that about two years later Ben Brooks had six dollars in his pocket when the couple got married and he gave half of that to the preacher. They were married in a borrowed buggy on a country lane about three miles northeast of Elk City on Nov. 8, 1903. They farmed for 22 years near Grimes before moving back to Elk City in 1925. She remembers that Elk City's first restaurant was operated by her mother’s brother, Bill Smallwood and was located just east of the First National Bank. He erected a huge tent and placed long tables and benches inside, serving-home cooked food at 25 cents a meal. Old Man Tarver was the cook and John Gray waited tables.

And 'way out on the prairie in Roger Mills County near the Texas border, the homesteaders, drummers and traders were talking excitedly about the new town of Elk City which was to be set up.

A year before M, G. Robinson had made a deal with Beeks Erick, Weatherford banker, to buy the Elk City townsite for the Choctaw Townsite Company of Weatherford. Posing as a Missourian looking for ranch lands, Robinson bought land from Joe and Frank Allee and from James Lusk and others, and turned it over to the townsite company.

On March 20, 1901, the first lots of the 320-acre Elk City townsite were sold by Charles Dewaide, representing the Choctaw company, which was spreading its activities westward ahead of the glistening rails and fresh red cuts of the old Choctaw railroad.

A tent town soon sprang up among the shinnery, prairie chickens, and fleas, the tents interspersed with a few shacks hastily set up to house the eager men who thronged the town, some hoping to get rich quickly, others in search of new adventure in a mushrooming little city, but most looking for homes in which to settle.

There were ten saloons in the town, with the east side of Main street between Broadway and Fifth almost a solid row of swinging doors. The Choctaw company had started work on the streets with a ten-horse grader. High board sidewalks were being constructed.

Indians from the surrounding reservations brought in their wagons and practically camped in the streets. And during rainy spells it was quite common to see everyone's wagons bogged hub-deep in the mud. Town pranksters frequently posted "No Fishing" signs in the huge water holes which always appeared on Main street after every downpour.

The town had no sooner been laid out when a block of land was set aside for a public school building. A large building of eight rooms was soon filled with children from the village and surrounding community.

W. P. Francis, with his white chin whiskers moved into town from his claim and W. P. had the distinction of being Elk City's first real politician. He also entered the newspaper business, but Elk City's f i r s t newspaperman w a s Herman Stephens, who put out the Elk City Democrat from a tent at first, almost from the day the town opened. N. S. Mounts was editor of the Democrat to September, 1901.

Dr. M. H. Levi "of New York" was probably Elk City's first doctor. He and several other early settlers had awaited the opening of the town in Mrs. Nancy Keen's combination tent and frame boarding house in Canute, then located on the Roger Mills-Washita county line about where Pete O'Hara's farm is today. Dr. Robert Lovelady, Dr. W. H. Watson and Dr. C. B. Daugherty followed Dr. Levi here shortly.

Judge C. S. Gilkerson arrived in town on July 27 and set up his law practice: Two other lawyers, Charlie Peck and Otis Fletcher beat him here by a few months, though. P. L. Britain was the town's first photographer. I. C. Thurmond was named chairman of the town's first board of trustees, elected in August that year.

A community Sunday School was being held in a frame shack on Main street about where the Westland Theatre is located now. Soon, however, the Baptist congregation moved in their frame church from Old Canute (and incidentally got bogged in the mud of Elk Creek for some time) to the lots which Beeks Erick had donated, right where the church is now located. Earlier, in April, Rev. J. E. Keelor was sent by the Methodist conference to organize the lst Methodist Episcopal Church and in September Rev. Sid Cecil organized the M. E. Church south.

J. C. Colwell was Elk City's first city marshal and several fire watchers were also hired to guard the sleeping city from disastrous prairie fires which swept the countryside so often in those days. J. A. Adrian was the first justice of peace and H. Chadeayne was the first police judge.

G. E. Martin, who started his business enterprises by pressing pants, was elected the first president of the Commercial Club. Martin's brother, "Eff" Martin, soon joined him in his business here.

The first dance in Elk City was held for four days during the Fourth of July holiday. A platform was built down on East Broadway near the creek and dancers came from as far away as Canadian, Tex. Wagons and buggies were drawn up as close to the stand as they could get and the dancing continued for four days and nights without a break. As the dancers tired they would drop out and sleep a few hours and then come back and dance as if their lives depended on it. Music was furnished by an organ and a number of fiddlers. In those days, every other man was a fiddler.

Elk Cityans in 1901 received their mail from the Busch post office, which was located where T. F. Thornton's service station is now. The post office was named after Anheuser Busch brewing company of St. Louis by the railroad company officials. Agitation in the town, however, kept the city itself from being called Busch. So early residents, before statehood, received their mail from the Busch post office, but lived in Elk City. P. C. Hughes was first postmaster.

The story of Elk City's name is traced back to Mrs. Nancy Keen, mother of Bob Keen, who first ran the boarding house at Old Canute. Railroad men contacted Mrs. Keen relative to her boarding the men who were to build the rails westward to the Texas line.

When Mrs. Keen heard that the town was to be called Busch, she was horrified to think that the new city was to be named after a brewing company. So she suggested Elk City as the name, after Elk Creek, which in turn had been named after an Indian chief, Elk River, who lived in the vicinity years before.

And the ladies, you should have seen the ladies! They swished around in their zibeline skirts, their shirtwaists with lace insertions and their Knox sailors. And don't think they didn't have their influence on what went on in town. They kept the men in line and in many cases pitched right in and got the boys started in their businesses.

On September 6, Elk City, with the rest of the world, was stunned when William McKinley was shot in Buffalo, N. Y. while attending the Pan-American exposition. McKinley died on September 14 and Teddy Roosevelt became the new president.

But Elk City was just as excited about the coming of the railroad. When the Choctaw railroad was completed that month, the first train to reach the station was greeted by the larger portion of the population. Pete Thurmond recalls that he was a mighty scared young man when the train first appeared on the horizon so he went and hid in a corner of the station. "I wasn't the only one scared by that big fire-eating monster, though," he laughs.

Up to this time the buildings in Elk City consisted largely of box and frame structures, for the simple reason that other material was not available. But with the first freight trains came brick and lumber and within a few months came the real work of replacing the temporary wooden structures with splendid brick buildings, many of which remain today. The Dixie store was the first stone building constructed. It was located about where the C. R. Anthony store is now. By now the Church of Christ had rented a hall on North Main and began their regular meetings, and the Christian Church congregation was organized.

That Christmas Elk City had its first Christmas tree with O. I. Massey playing Santa Claus. With evergreen trees unavailable, a group of local stalwarts went down to Elk Creek and cut down a young cottonwood tree, placed it in the unfinished Herring and Young store and called on the ladies to decorate it as best they could. The committee wrapped it in green paper, making a very pretty tree. People came from miles around and sat on planks placed on kegs for that Christmas celebration.

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