History tells the stories of what real people did.  History is about the choices people made and how they lived their lives.  Like every town, Lawton, Oklahoma, has a history. The people who lived here in 1901 were real.  Some of them made good choices.  Some did not.

Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and whites made history in Lawton.  They were men and women and children just like us.  Their stories tell how they made good choices and how they made bad choices.  What people did long ago can teach us lessons about how to live our lives today.

Quanah Parker on Horseback

Lawton started off as a buffalo pasture. By 1901, the buffalo were all gone.  The Native Americans were on reservations.  Quanah Parker had quit fighting.  Geronimo had given up too. He was at Fort Sill.  Congress paid the Indians less than $1 an acre for the land they owned around Lawton. The government wanted to give this land to white settlers.  But Congress wanted to be fair.  So they held a land lottery and a land auction.

President William McKinley opened the land for settlement.  The land was divided into three counties.  A town was built in each county.  A courthouse was to be built in each county so county business could be carried on. 

People registered at El Reno and Fort Sill for a chance to win land.  They traveled to the new town site from Marlow and Duncan in wagons.  Some people rode horses over the prairie.  Others just walked.  All of them were in a hurry to get some land before it was all gone.  Wagons loaded with homesteaders rolled along in the middle of the night. Ten thousand people camped out along Cache Creek.  Hundreds and hundreds of campfires lit up the night, holding back the dark.

Land Lottery at El Reno

The soldiers in Troops C and D of the 8th Cavalry kept the peace.  Major G. L. Scott was the commander.  (Guess who Mt. Scott is named after?)

By the end of July 1901, the borders of the town site were jammed with 20,000 campers.  They set up canvas tents to live in.  The tents were crowded close together.  The weather was hot.  The wind blew hard.  Dust covered everything.  The tents were pitched so close together that the ropes of one tent crossed over the ropes of the next. The people were wilder because the Fort Sill soldiers were not allowed to be the police anymore.
 

Building A Saloon

Some tents were saloons.  Some tents were set up as law offices.  Others were set up as churches.  Gamblers set up tents, too.  They urged the soldiers to come in and try their luck.  There were over 100 saloons on Goo Goo Avenue.  Some of the church people were not happy about all of these gamblers and saloonkeepers living in Lawton.  They thought the soldiers were cheated in the saloons.

The best tent sites were on the northern edge of the town site where Gore Boulevard is now.  Grandview was named for the grand view of the Wichita Mountains.  Robbers camped along Squaw Creek on the west and Cache Creek on the east.

"Rag Town" grew up along the east side of the town site.  People in this section of the tent city used anything they could find to build shelters.  Some people lived in ragged tents.  Others spread wagon sheets over poles.  Many lived under wagon sheets hung between two tents.  The tents in Rag Town held meat markets, hardware stories, eating places, and even bathhouses.

A Bathhouse in the Tent City

People had to decide on a name for the new town.  Mr. William M. Jenkins was the territorial governor.  He took a ride with friends over the Indian Sub-Agency.  He met Ransome Payne, a well-known pioneer.  Ransome had an idea for the name of the new town.  He had just returned from Washington, D.C.  Ransome had gone to the funeral of a good friend.  General Henry W. Lawton had been killed in battle.  Ransome asked William to name the new town after his friend, Henry W. Lawton. 
 

General Henry W. Lawton

General Lawton was known as a very brave man.  He had led Army soldiers in fights against the Indians.  He captured Geronimo and his band and put them on a reservation. He was one of the most important American heroes of his time.  Theodore Roosevelt called General Lawton "one the finest men in the U.S. Army."  He was described as a fearless, tireless, and determined officer.  William and his friends agreed with Ransome.  Naming the town "Lawton" would be a good way to remember and honor the general.

Lawton started off as a tent city.  On August 6, 1901, there were only three wooden buildings in town.  People who were going to buy lots in the town site during the auction were not allowed in town.  But Frank English, a pioneer, was in charge of selling the lots in the town site.  He built a two-room house.

(From left to right) First National Bank (tent),  City National Bank, the Land Office

There were only two other wooden buildings.  The Land Office and an auction stand were built in time for the land auction.  There was some lumber left over.  A small wooden house on rollers was built at Fort Sill.  It was rolled over the prairie to Lawton.  The small wooden house became City National Bank. First National Bank was set up in a tent across the street.
 

Bidding on a Town Site

The morning of the land auction dawned hot and clear.  The campers were moving around at dawn, throwing up dust, on the morning of August 6, 1901.  The business lots were sold first.  Each lot was 25 feet wide.  Each block in the town site was numbered.  Each lot in each block was numbered.

The lot with the lowest number in the block was sold first.  Each person who bid had to pay $25 in cash. The rest of the bid had to be paid in cash in 30 minutes.  Otherwise, the lot was sold again.  Lots for people to build homes on were sold in the same way.

The auctioneer called for bids.  He pounded the little wooden hammer on the table and shook the auction stand.  The highest bidder for each lot went straight to the Land Office.  The high bidder paid in cash.  A row of soldiers on horses stood guard by the Land Office.  Foot soldiers stood at attention.  All of the soldiers carried guns.  It was their job to protect the people and the money at the land auction.
 

More soldiers were inside the Land Office.  They were armed, too.  The winning bidders went to a long table inside the Land Office. A clerk gave them receipts for their money.  Then the bidders could claim their lots and start to build their homes and businesses.  The first business lot sold was Lot 1 in Block 23.  It is the lot at the corner of B Avenue and Railroad Street in Lawton.  As soon as they bought their lots, people began building wooden frame buildings.  Dust clouds filled the air.

The Land Office in Lawton

Everyone was excited.  It was hot and dry, and water sold for five cents a glass. People had trouble finding the lots they bought.  Tall prairie grass grew thick and high on the lots.  Some people hired surveyors to find their lots.  Others paced off the length and width of their property.  One smart man tied a white rag onto the wheel of his wagon.  He counted the number of times the wheel turned around in order to measure his land.

Not everyone had the money to buy the lumber they needed to build a frame building right away.  So they lived in tents for a long time.  The sheriff used a covered wagon for a courthouse.  Prisoners were chained to the wagon wheels of the covered wagon.  There was no jail.  One night a prisoner escaped.  He was caught carrying the wagon wheel over his shoulders along Cache Creek. 

The tent city will always be remembered as the beginning of the town of Lawton.  This half section of buffalo pasture, 30 miles away from the railroad, sold for the highest price ever paid for land in the United States.  It sold for an average of $15,000 an acre. 

After the Land Lottery and Land Auction were over in Lawton, the last frontier in America was gone.