Before the Founding of Lawton
Land Lottery and Auction
Game
Teaching Materials
Registration of homesteaders at the Rice and Quinette Store, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, during the opening of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache reservation, July 1901. |
The registration took place at both of the Land Offices. People could sign up at either the El Reno or the Fort Sill Land Office. Rules were set up for people to follow. If people wanted a chance to win some of the land, they had to follow the rules. People could sign up for 16 days. They all hoped to win free land. |
Thousands of people lined up to register.
They stood in lines for hours. The land offices opened at 9:00 a.m.
on July 10, 1901. They closed at 6:00 p.m. on July 26th.
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had to sign up in person. One person was not allowed to sign up for
anyone else. People had to use their real names. Many people
lost their right to sign up because they registered more than once.
Who could sign up for a chance to win free land? |
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Single men over the age of 21 could sign up. Men who could prove they were the heads of households could sign up. Single women could sign up. Everyone who signed up had to be a U.S. citizen or had to sign a form saying he or she intended to become a citizen.
Who was not allowed to try to win free land? If you owned more than 160 acres in another territory, you could not sign up for the Land Lottery.
Some 29,000 people signed up at Fort Sill. And 135, 000 people signed up to win at the El Reno Land Office. They all hoped to win free land. The forms were guarded. The Land Lottery was supposed to be a fair drawing. Everyone was supposed to have the same chance to win.
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“The identification cards were carefully guarded during the day at the time of registration by being placed in locked cash boxes through a slit cut for that purpose, no one but myself having a key to any of these boxes. At night these cards were placed in the vault of the Citizens’ State Bank of El Reno and taken out only upon order. No one but land office clerks were employed in placing these cards in the envelopes…”
- William Alford
Richards, Assistant Commissioner, in his report to the Secretary of the
Interior
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