| Narrator
1: |
Not
too long ago, only boys were supposed to be brave. Only boys were
supposed to have adventures. Not girls! Oh, no! But a
young girl with a brave heart dared to be different. She risked everything
she had to help build a new town in the Indian Nations. |
| Mattie: |
My name is Mattie Beal,
and this is a true story. I lived in Wichita, Kansas. I worked
as a telephone switchboard operator. One day I went to see my friend
Florence Allen. |
| Florence
[sewing on a dress]: |
I
was a dressmaker. I was making a dress for Mattie, and Mattie had
to try it on. I fitted the dress (I only stuck Mattie twice with the straight
pins!). We were talking to Mattie’s mother about the land lottery. |
| Narrator 2: |
Anyone who entered had a
chance to win some land. |
| Mattie [excited]: |
Let’s go down and register!
Let’s do it today! |
| Florence [excited]: |
Both
of us! |
| Narrator 3: |
Wherever Mattie led, Florence
was willing to follow. |
| Mattie's
Mother [upset]: |
Why,
Mattie Beal, I won’t hear a word of it! It's much too dangerous for
two young girls! You could get hurt! I won't hear of it!
You could be robbed! You could be kidnapped! |
| Narrator
4: |
The girls did not care if
it was dangerous. They wanted to register for the lottery. So they put
on their prettiest starched dresses. They laced up their high button
shoes and topped their long braids with hats. They went to catch
a train leaving Wichita for El Reno. |
| Narrator
5: |
This was where people could
register for the lottery. The two girls took the money they had saved
and bought tickets on the train from Wichita, Kansas, to El Reno, Oklahoma.
When they got to the station, they tried and tried to get on the train.
But there was no place for them to sit. Men, women, and children
were sitting any place they could, and standing in the aisle ways. |
| Florence
[upset]: |
I've never seen so many
people! What are we going to do? If we can't get to El Reno,
we can't register. Then we won't have a chance to win the lottery!
[Sounds of the crowd in the background, yelling to one another; train
whistle] |
| Mattie and Florence [together,
speaking excitedly and loudly to be heard over the crowd, waving]: |
Oh,
look! It's Bob! Hey, Bob! Over here! Bob, please help
us! |
| Bob [smiling]: |
Well, look who's here!
What are you two ladies doing here? |
| Mattie [pleading]: |
We're going to El Reno to
register for the Land Lottery, and we need your help. |
| Bob
[in a kind voice]: |
Sure! Let me help
you find a seat on the train. I'm going to be covering the story
for the paper, so I'll be working in El Reno all week. |
| Narrator
6: |
Bob found Mattie and Florence
a seat on the crowded train. Nothing very harmful happened. Nobody
stole their money or their bags. Nobody tried to kidnap them. Bob
made sure that no one bothered them. People on the train went out
of their way to be kind. They even shared their picnic lunches with
Mattie and Florence. Bob bought each of the girls a lemonade. |
| Narrator
7: |
Their friends had warned
Mattie and Florence that hotels in El Reno were dangerous for single women.
They had been told they would be lucky to even find a room. |
| Bob: |
Well, here we are!
It's getting dark, so let me escort you to your hotel. |
| Florence
[nervously]: |
Bob, we couldn't get a reservation
here. We were planning on walking from hotel to hotel until we found
somewhere to stay tonight. Would you point us in the right direction? |
| Bob
[reassuring]: |
I can do better than that.
I am staying with some friends of mine here in El Reno. Arminda told
me she and her husband are turning the attic in their home into a boarding
house this week. Why don't you come over to the Myers' home with
me, and let's see if Arminda has any extra beds? |
| Narrator
8: |
Bob was able to get Mattie
and Florence a room with his friends. The room had six cots in it.
Mattie and Florence had to pay $2.00 each to sleep on these cots. They
thought the price was very high, but they also felt safer there than
they would have in a hotel. |
| Narrator
9: |
The next morning the man
of the house helped Mattie and Florence register. The two ladies
stood in line for hours. Finally they signed their names on the registration
slips in the Land Office. The ladies were told that the drawing would be
held August 6, 1901, in the El Reno school yard. |
| Mattie: |
Then we went home to Wichita,
Kansas. We went back to work and waited to see if our names would
be drawn. We wanted so very much to win. But with so many names entered,
we knew we had very little chance. I can still remember how much my feet
hurt after we stood in line all those hours! |
| Narrator
10 [fanning to cool off]: |
The day of the drawing was
very, very hot. A crowd of over 100,000 people were at El Reno on the first
day of the drawing. They gathered in the El Reno school yard around
a platform about five feet high. The platform was covered with canvas
for protection against the sun or rain. [Sounds of the crowd,
with the announcer calling out the claim numbers heard above everyone else] |
| Narrator
1: |
A box for the El Reno district
was placed on the platform. Another box for the Lawton district was
put there, too. Both boxes had iron bars running through them.
With the bars, the boxes could be turned around and around. All of
the registration slips were mixed up in the two boxes. The officials
tried very hard to make sure the drawing was fair. |
| Ben
[eager to share his role in the story]: |
I was one of the 10 boys
who drew the envelopes from the boxes. All of us were under 18.
And all of of us were orphans with no relatives, so we couldn't help anyone
cheat. Our eyes were blindfolded. Then we were turned around
and around and around. We took turns drawing the registration slips.
First we drew 25 slips from the El Reno box. Then we drew 25 slips
from the Lawton box. |
| Narrator
2: |
The Land Office workers
tried real hard to make sure everyone who registered had the same chance
of winning. The clerks mailed postcards to people whose numbers had
been drawn. After the person received the postcard, he or she could
file on the claim. |
| Mattie
[indignantly]: |
One afternoon I was walking
down the street in Wichita. All of the sudden, a total stranger took my
picture! I demanded to know why the man took my picture. |
| Reporter [excitedly]: |
You
placed second in a land lottery that included 164,516 names! |
| Mattie: |
I was thrilled! [grinning]
I
was even more excited when I found out my friend Florence had also won! |
| Florence: |
We packed up and started
down to Lawton to file our claim. Mattie's brother Frank worked for
the railroad back then, and he went with us. We took the train to
Marlow on August 4, 1901. A man with a spring wagon drove us over
the hills to Lawton, about 20 miles down the road. It was hot and
dusty. The wagon seat was a hard board, and it bounced every time
the wheels hit a rut or a rock in the road. I bounced so hard my
teeth rattled! |
| Frank: |
We finally got to Lawton.
There were thousands of tents spread out on the plains. All of the
buffalo and deer were gone, but now there were people in tents living in
the pastures. We got lucky--we found a tent to rent and bought cots
to sleep on. It was pretty quiet that first night, which surprised
me. Then . . . |
| Mattie[interrupting,
excitedly]: |
Frank,
let me tell this part of the story my way! You always make me sound
like such a scaredy-cat! The truth is, I was sound asleep.
Then, all of the sudden, there was this really loud noise! A HORSE
sat down on my face! He must have been scratching his behind against
the tent pole, and the pole broke! For a second, he was leaning on
my face! I was so scared, because I was still half asleep.
When I realized what was going on, I got up, grabbed the horse's halter,
and tied him up away from the tent. Then I went back to sleep. |
| Frank
[grinning]: |
You left out the best part--where
you screeched like a panther and had everybody convinced a mountain lion
was loose in the tents! You should have heard my sister yell! [Mattie
makes a fist and pretends to hit Frank on the arm.] |
| Mattie: |
The next morning Frank and
I went to file for my piece of land. I had decided to chose the land
closest to the town site. I figured this land would be worth more
money than land out in the country. But I had to wait my turn.
James R. Woods drew the first claim. I drew the second one. |
| Hog
Woods [defensively]: |
Everybody
said I pulled a trick on Mattie, but I was just taking care of business!
You see, most people chose their land in the shape of a square. But
I was smarter than that. I figured the land closest to town would be worth
the most money because that's where the businessmen would want to build
their homes so they could be close to work.
I chose my land in the shape
of a capital letter L [traces the shape of a capital letter L in the
air] running along the city limits. I filed my claim on land
lying in one long strip along the south side of Lawton. I'm telling
you, it just made good sense from the business angle! I wasn't trying
to cheat anybody! I was just trying to get the best deal I could
on my claim. People booed me in the streets, and the newspaper even
printed a headline about "Hog" Woods. I was stuck with that nickname
for the rest of my life, and I never did think it was fair. |
| Frank
[trying to be fair]: |
To be fair, there was no
law saying that Hog had done anything wrong. It was just that he
was a man, and my sister was a pretty young girl. A lot of folks
didn't think it was fair for Hog to take advantage of Mattie. They
got really mad! But it didn't really matter in the long run. |
| Mattie
[laughing]: |
When all of this happened,
I sure made a lot of new friends! Everyone in town knew my name!
When it was my turn to choose, I picked a claim that was on higher ground.
You see, Frank and I had walked around that area of town the very next
morning after we got to Lawton. Hog's land was in the lower Squaw
Creek bottom. And it flooded every time it rained! My land stayed
high and dry. [pleased] |
| Narrator
3: |
After Mattie had filed her
claim, she and Frank bought lumber and built a house. They invited people
over on Sunday afternoons for lemonade and cookies on the hill in the back
yard. Mattie made everyone feel at home. Everyone liked this
young lady. |
| Narrator
4: |
Many men wanted to marry
Mattie because she was rich now. She received over 500 marriage proposals!
[amazed] |
| Mattie: |
For a long time, I was too
busy proving up on my claim and homesteading to be interested in marriage.
Besides, I wanted a man who would love me more than my money. Then
I met Charles Payne. |
| Charles: |
I came to Lawton to set
up a lumber business. There wasn't much wood near town, and people were
building stores and homes and wooden sidewalks. I had more business
than I could handle, and my wood was sold long before it got to Lawton.
I fell in love with Mattie the moment I saw her. We got married,
and then Mattie and I decided to build the house she had always dreamed
about. |
| Mattie: |
I remember how we all made
fun of the "streets." At first, they were just dirt paths between
the tents. It was a while before they graded the streets and put
up the boardwalks.
We build our house on the
corner of Fourth and Summit Streets. It was really big--two stories
tall, with running water and a bathroom inside the house. Charles and I
had three lovely daughters, Lahoma, Martha Helen, and Louisa. We
were very happy together. |
| Narrator
5: |
Mattie Beal, the young girl
who was daring and lucky, lived happily in Lawton for many years.
She died in 1931. Mattie donated some of her land to the city.
She asked the city to build a school, a church, and a public park.
Mattie’s family sold the home in 1939. |
| Narrator
6: |
In 1973, the Lawton Heritage
Association was formed. People wanted to save Mattie Beal's home.
After years of work, the old home was opened to the public in 1980. Mattie
Beal Mansion was the first landmark in Lawton to be placed on the National
Register of Historic Places. |
| Narrator
7: |
If you have the chance,
go see Mattie's beautiful home and remember her--Mattie Beal, the girl
who won the Land Lottery! |