BRAND NEW STATE
chapter
The Economy
The Fat Years
Key Themes
Multicultural Heritage
Wild West shows re-create the lives
of Indians and cowboys during territorial days for twentieth-century
audiences.
Commerce and
Economic Development
Agriculture grows larger in scale
and more commercial. The discover
of new fields leads to a boom in the
oil and gas industry.
Individual and Family Life
Some Oklahomans, especially those
in the oil business, create large fortunes and share some of their wealth
with their community and state.
Objectives
•Describe how the Wild West shows
turned Indian culture and cowboy
life into show business
•Describe the causes of the economic boom in cattle, cotton, wheat,
and oil production in Oklahoma
•Compare and contrast the agricultural empire of the 101 Ranch with
the oil empire of E. W. Marland
Key Terms
308
19
•agribusiness
•cotton belt
•brood stock
•cotton gins
•tannery
•cotton presses
•Hereford
•mural
Overview
Oklahomans make a living and create wealth mainly
from what they grow in the soil or drill for in the ground.
Production and profits soar as more Hereford cattle
are raised on bigger ranches, more acres are planted
in cotton and wheat, and more oil wells are drilled.
Builders of commercial empires assume that fertile
soils and high prices for their products will last.
I
n 1870, Colonel George
Washington Miller sold his share
of his family’s Kentucky plantation and headed west. He took with
him all that was left of his original
fortune: 20,000 pounds of bacon. He
intended to take it to California, but
he never got that far. Instead he traded
some of the bacon to Texas cattlemen
for 400 longhorns. He traded the rest
for a lease on several thousand acres
of grassland from Oklahoma’s Ponca
Indians. After hiring a few Texas cowboys to tend the herd, Colonel Miller
grazed the cattle on his new ranch,
southwest of present Ponca City. To
keep his cowboys’ minds on work, Colonel Miller named the
ranch for a San Antonio saloon known for the hangovers it gave
its customers. Thus was born an Oklahoma legend: the 101 Ranch.
In the first decades of Oklahoma’s statehood, the 101 Ranch in
Kay County became a legend. Called a “fabulous empire,” it was
known to presidents, kings, and common folk around the world.
Although much of its operation was unique, most of the ranch’s
success was due to the new state’s economy. But, first, the story
of the 101.
Key People and Events
1903
Miller Brothers 101 Ranch begins transformation into the state’s
first “agribusiness”
1919
Cushing and Drumright oil fields provide one-fifth of all
U.S. oil output
1920s
Cotton, wheat, and cattle businesses are booming
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The 101
By the time Colonel George Miller died in 1903, the 101
covered more than 50,000 acres and produced an income
of $500,000 a year. Its greatest days, however, lay ahead.
Under the direction of the colonel’s three sons—Joseph,
Zack, and George—the ranch grew until it reached
135,000 acres. By then, the 101 was more than a cattle
ranch. In fact, by the 1920s it was the first—and certainly
the largest—agribusiness in the world, even though the
word “agribusiness” had not been invented yet. Decades
before giant corporations transformed American agriculture, the 101 Ranch had 18 departments, each with its
own manager.
Cattle raising was just one department, and these cattle were not mangy longhorns. They were some of the
world’s finest beef cattle, including prize-blooded stock
that regularly won national championships as the best of
their breeds. In another department, the colonel’s sons
crossbred Arabian stallions with native mares to yield
excellent polo ponies that sold for up to $1,000 each.
Hogs also were produced in typical Miller fashion. From
a brood stock (animals kept for breeding) of purebred
Durocs worth $75,000, the 101 was processing 20,000
hogs per year in the late 1920s. Huge flocks of geese,
chickens, and turkeys added their thousands to annual
sales.
Meanwhile, the colonel’s early experiments in field
crops became a major operation under his sons. Each
year, the Miller brothers planted over 15,000 acres in
cereals. The two main crops—wheat and corn—each
yielded more than 200,000 bushels per year. Many of the
grain crops were hybrid varieties developed by Joe Miller.
So superior were their qualities that the state agricultural
college (now Oklahoma State University) required its students to spend two weeks at the 101 to observe the growing crops.
Some ranch departments became entire industries, with
ranch workers doing all the jobs related to the products.
A meat-packing plant processed the ranch’s livestock. An
adjoining tannery turned hides into leather, which was
used by the saddle shop next door. A creamery produced
dairy goods, which the ranch delivered in its own refrigerated trucks, fueled by its own gasoline, which was made
at its own refinery from oil coming from its own wells
and pumped at its own filling station. A steady stream of
visitors purchased ranch-made products at the ranch-run
general store. Others dined on ranch-produced foods at
the ranch-owned cafe.
Sales from the 101 Ranch industries totaled more than
$1.6 million for the five-year period that ended in 1929.
Combined with crop sales and oil production, gross
income for the ranch exceeded $3 million over the same
period.
Economic success was just one element of the 101’s
legend. What established its international fame was its
Taken from the top of the ranch’s headquarters—called the White House—this photograph shows most (but not all) of the 101 Ranch
­buildings.
310 the story of oklahoma
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began. But in the first years of statehood, ranching became more specialized, scientific, and managed. In short,
it became more commercial.
One sign of this change was the swift
disappearance of livestock directly
descended from the original Spanish
stocks. Scrawny, half-wild longhorns
gave way to modern, boxy breeds
with fat bellies that barely cleared the
ground. The most popular new breed
was the Hereford. Of British origin,
Herefords began to replace longhorns
and other “scrub cattle” just after
statehood. By the First World War,
cattlemen like J. K. and Henry C.
The 101’s company store and office. Like other headquarters buildings, this one was
Hitch in the Panhandle raised hardly
destroyed in a fire, leaving only the foundation.
any cattle but Herefords. Soon central
Oklahoma was known nationally as
Hereford Heaven.
Wild West show. The show re-created (and glamorized) One reason for the success of commercial ranching was
western life as it had been before manufacturing and that in large portions of the state the land was perfect
modern agriculture—that is, before there was anything for grazing. In particular, the short-grass prairie in westlike the 101 Ranch itself. Indian powwows, dances, and ern Oklahoma was ideal country for ranching. Its rolling,
buffalo hunts were staged, and perfectly dressed cow- treeless expanses, covered with native grasses, fed fenced
boys showed off riding and roping skills.
cattle just as richly as they had fattened roaming buffalo.
The show toured the nation and much of the world. In the east, the lush bluestem grass of Osage County proIn its peak years during the 1920s, the Miller Brothers’ vided some of the best cattle range anywhere. No wonder
101 Ranch Wild West Show added about $800,000 to the the county has long been a leader in the nation’s beef proranch’s annual income. It also added greatly to the 101’s duction and a place where cattle still greatly outnumber
people.
legend and to the public’s notion of life in the West.
Although the 101’s story is unusual or even unique, it
points to several aspects of Oklahoma’s economy during
King Cotton and Queen Wheat
the prosperous first years of statehood. The success of both
the ranch and the state rested on Oklahomans’ imagina- Other regions of Oklahoma proved to be just as hospitive use of nature’s resources. Wealth first took the form of table to early economic development. Soils in far eastraw materials pulled from nature’s grip. But the real story ern Oklahoma—especially in the Ozark and Ouachita
lay in what Oklahomans did with those resources in those regions—are slightly acidic and have a high clay content.
early years. In time, that story would prove to be as tragic In addition, the climate tends to be milder than in the rest
as it once had been fabulous.
of Oklahoma, and the area receives much more rainfall
than the central or western parts do. In those ways, eastern Oklahoma is more like the southeastern United States
Hereford Heaven
than the Midwest or the Great Plains. Indeed, most of its
The Miller brothers were not the only Sooners to use original non-Indian settlers came from southern states like
living animals to turn grass and water into food and Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. In time, their portion of
wealth. Raising livestock had been an important part of Oklahoma became part of the South’s traditional “cotton
the area’s economy since the earliest Spanish explorers kingdom.”
introduced cattle and horses, and a few Indian families Of course, cotton had been grown in the area since
had large ranches even before non-Indian settlement members of the Five Tribes brought it with them from
the economy : the fat years 311
The Stars of the 101
The Indians who worked in the Miller Brothers’
101 Ranch Wild West Show came largely from
Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and usually wintered at
Inceville, California. Many of the performers in the
show had once been cowboys. Two of the most
famous cowboy stars were Bill Pickett and Yakima
Canutt.
Like many of the real, working cowboys, Bill
Pickett was black. Skills that he had developed over
years of working cattle and horses were the basis
of his act. One particular talent became his trademark: the ability to ride beside a running steer, throw
himself onto the animal, and toss it to the ground.
This maneuver is know as steer wrestling in modern
rodeos, and the 101’s Bill Pickett invented it. But his
version had an unusual element. While twisting the
steer’s horns, Pickett would sink his teeth into the
steer’s lips. That confused and scared the animal,
so Pickett could throw it down more easily.
Yakima Canutt was already a rodeo champion
when he joined the 101, and his riding skills made
him one of the show’s main attractions. In 1914,
while the show was touring England, Canutt and
the other performers suddenly found themselves
stranded. The British had declared war on Germany,
and they confiscated the show’s horses for use by
the British army. The show split up for the rest of the
war. Canutt went to Hollywood, working as a stuntman and sometimes as a movie actor. As an actor,
he became good friends with Marion Morrison, a
former football player for the University of Southern
California. Morrison wanted to be an actor too, and
he especially wanted to play cowboys in the movies.
But Morrison had no idea of how to ride a horse or
even how to walk like a real westerner. It was the
101’s Yakima Canutt who showed him how to ride
and how to walk with a cowboy’s rolling stride.
312 the story of oklahoma
The 101’s legendary showman Bill Pickett.
When Marion Morrison changed his name to John
Wayne, he remembered the lessons. Everyone
who has seen “the Duke” play a cowboy has been
touched by a small piece of the legacy of Oklahoma’s
101 Ranch Wild West Show.
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At least one generation of Oklahomans (and probably others) had their ideas of the Old West defined by the Miller brothers’ Wild West show.
their southern homelands. But, as with ranching, the
early years of statehood saw a vast expansion of the
crop. In 1925, Oklahomans were planting a record high
of 5,396,000 acres in cotton—more than one-fourth of
all cropland in the state and a much higher proportion
in the eastern and southern counties. In fact, during the
1920s only Texas and Mississippi grew more cotton than
Oklahoma.
In that way the old Indian Territory continued to
resemble southern states, while much of the former
Oklahoma Territory was like the Midwest and the
Great Plains. The soils and climate in central and western Oklahoma had less in common with Texas and
Mississippi than with Kansas or Nebraska. Settlers in
that part of Oklahoma were also more likely to have
come from states like Kansas and Nebraska—where
wheat, not cotton, ruled.
Particularly in north-central Oklahoma, wheat growers
could benefit from the experience of their neighbors to the
north. By the turn of the century, Kansans had learned—
mainly through costly trial and error—that the most productive type of wheat was a hard winter variety known
as Turkey Red. The variety had come from southwestern Russia. German Mennonites who had grown it there
brought it with them when they immigrated to Kansas and
some communities in Oklahoma. In both states, Turkey
Red proved its superiority, particularly in surviving very
cold winters during its growing season.
As was true of cotton, wheat production increased
greatly in the early years of statehood. By 1919, just a
dozen years after Oklahoma entered the Union, Sooner
farmers were cultivating 4,718,000 acres in wheat and
harvesting more than 66,000,000 bushels a year. Only
Kansas, which devoted much more acreage to the crop,
produced more.
The agricultural boom continued through the 1920s.
Low cotton prices in the decade’s early years caused some
talk of farmers deliberately holding down production to
keep prices up. The talk remained mostly that, however:
just talk. The reality was that eastern Oklahoma’s cotton growers, many of whom did not own the land they
farmed, had little choice but to work even harder to produce more to sell for less.
In western Oklahoma, particularly in the three
Panhandle counties, not even the talk was negative.
Seldom was heard a discouraging word as farmers
rushed to profit from nature’s abundance and humankind’s latest technologies. Several years of plentiful rain
combined with cheap new farming gear—such as the
gasoline-powered tractor and the one-way disc plow—
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By the 1920s, wheat waved over—and ruled over—much of western Oklahoma. Even before gasoline-powered tractors became
common, wheat crops demanded expensive machinery and heavy seasonal labor.
to cause a “great plow-up.” Every year, tens of thousands of acres of native grasses were plowed under and
destroyed permanently. In their place came broad, flat
fields bearing tiny seeds expected to grow into amber
waves of wheat.
Not all early Oklahomans made their living from
farms, but most shared one thing with the Miller brothers—their living ultimately depended on what they could
wring from the soil. Entire communities across the state
existed to service the farms and farmers of their immediate locales. Towns like McAlester and Ardmore were
in the cotton belt (a large area of the country where
cotton was the main crop). Their cotton gins, cotton
presses, and cottonseed companies depended on the
harvests of the surrounding countryside. (A gin is a
machine that separates the cotton fiber from the seed.
A press then compacts the clean raw cotton into bales
for shipping.) So, too, did the merchants. Their sales
rose and fell with the income earned (and spent) by their
cotton-growing neighbors. Likewise, communities such
as Perry and Woodward prospered as their grain towers
and cattle sale lots bustled with the yield from nearby
fields and pastures. Even Oklahoma City owed much of
its prosperity to businesses like the Oklahoma National
Stockyards, the Wilson and Company packing plant,
and the Oklahoma Cotton Exchange.
314 the story of oklahoma
The Oil Boom
Even the wealth produced from the animals and the crops
that grew on Oklahoma’s soils paled before the income
from the oil that gushed from beneath the surface. In
1897, only 10 years before statehood, Oklahoma had produced its first commercial oil well, the Nellie Johnstone
No. 1. Northwest of present Bartlesville, the well met an
unfortunate end. Seeking to warm themselves, ice skaters built a fire on the banks of the nearby Caney River.
The fire ignited seepage from the well, which collapsed
in a flash of fire and confusion. But Oklahoma’s passion
for oil and the wealth it could earn remained as strong
as ever.
Over the next few years that passion focused on one oil
field and then another. Each discovery seemed to surpass
all those before. South of Tulsa, near the community of
Red Fork, a large field was tapped in 1901. It erased all
memories of the Nellie Johnstone. Four years later, a well
on the little farm of Ida Glenn opened the fabulous Glenn
Pool. That oil field was large enough to make Oklahoma
the nation’s leading oil-producing state from the moment it
entered the Union, barely two years later.
That was only the beginning. In 1912, Aaron Drumright
drilled a successful well near the tiny town of Cushing.
Others developed his oil field while the original pioneer
PROFILES
Frank Faucett Phillips, 1873–1950
Born in Nebraska and reared near Creston, Iowa,
Frank Phillips knew nothing but farming until he
was fourteen years of age. Then he tried his hand
at barbering. By the time he was 24, he owned
two shops in Creston and marketed successfully
a tonic said to cure baldness. He was also married to Jane Gibson, the lovely daughter of the
town’s foremost banker.
Phillips soon became a business associate of
his father-in-law. Specifically, he sold bonds to
finance construction of a municipal convention
center in Chicago. He was so successful at it that
he financed his first oil ventures in Bartlesville. In
1905 he moved there with his wife and son. In
partnership with his brother, Lee Eldas, he struck
oil just north of Bartlesville in the well known as
Anna Anderson No. 1 in September. It was the first
of 81 successive productive wells, most of which were
on leases in the world-famous Osage reservation just
west of Bartlesville.
For a time, the Phillips brothers toyed with the idea
of making banking their primary investment, thinking
that it would be more secure than wildcatting for
oil. But the increased demand for oil and the resulting higher prices induced by World War I changed
their plans. In 1917 they merged their existing oil
operations into the Phillips Petroleum Company with
17 employees and $3 million in assets. Producing
and marketing “Phillips 66” gasoline and other products, the company had increased the value of those
assets to $50 million five years later. By the time of
his death in 1950, they had increased to $625 million
and the number of employees had grown to 17,000.
Phillips made Bartlesville his home and corporate
headquarters. As the community’s leading citizen,
he also enriched it by establishing the world-famous
Woolaroc Museum and Wildlife Preserve on 3,700
acres just southwest of the town. The museum presents unique collections of western art and artifacts;
Native American pottery, baskets, beads, blankets,
and cultural art; historical displays; and one of the
most complete collections of Colt firearms. Its art
collections include works by Frederic Remington,
Charles M. Russell, William R. Leigh, Frank Tenney
Johnson, and Thomas Moran. The preserve is home
to more than 30 varieties of native and exotic animals and birds. Woolaroc also features The Lodge,
the country home of Frank and Jane Phillips.
Unlike many other oil tycoons, Frank Phillips
was widely recognized for his civic work. Among
the honors of which he was especially proud were
admittance to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1939;
bestowal of the Silver Buffalo, the highest award presented by the Boy Scouts of America; and adoption
by the Osage Tribe with the name Wah-Shah-She
Hluah-Ke-He-Kah (Osage Eagle Chief).
Sources: Dan B. Wimberly, “Phillips, Frank Faucett
(1873–1950),” Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History &
Culture (Web ed.; c. 2007) (accessed May 15, 2012).
Woolaroc Museum and Wildlife Preserve (c. 2012),
http://www.woolaroc.org/ (accessed May 15, 2012).
the economy : the fat years 315
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The well drilled on the farm of Mary Sudik was forever known as the Wild Mary Sudik. For 11 days in 1930, it gushed oil uncontrollably.
When the wind was right (or wrong), it sent showers of oil on students heading to class at the University of Oklahoma, nearly 20 miles
south.
spent his own energies creating a town to service that field.
Oklahoma thereby gained a new city, Drumright. By 1919,
the state also had gained the legendary Cushing-Drumright
Field. That single field was producing nearly one-fifth of all
the oil sold in the United States, or about 3 percent of the
oil produced on the planet.
The decade that began the next year produced the greatest discoveries of all: Oklahoma City, Burbank, Tonkawa,
Three Sands, Seminole. Each year, the 1920s roared with
the name of yet another, even more astonishing Oklahoma
oil field.
During the 1920s, these and other, lesser fields yielded
nearly 2 billion barrels of petroleum, and Oklahoma’s
natural gas production over those years was nearly 2.5
trillion cubic feet. The official estimate of the value of
Oklahoma’s oil and gas production over those 10 years
was $3,587,139,500—a fourth of the money earned from
every American source of oil and gas during the Roaring
Twenties.
The Marland Empire
The tale of one Oklahoma oilman is as symbolic as that
of the Miller brothers and their 101 Ranch. His name was
Ernest Whitworth Marland, and he drilled his first successful Oklahoma oil well just north of the 101 in 1911.
After that, he formed his own company—Marland Oils—
but it was just the beginning. Over the next few years,
316 the story of oklahoma
Oilman and charity donor E. W. Marland was also a sportsman. A
polo fan, Marland was said to hire and promote executives on the
basis of their skills as horsemen. Many Ponca City homes now sit
on his old polo fields.
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Marland’s drilling crews opened vast new fields, and his
wells pumped millions of barrels of oil. He sold some to
outside companies (a single deal with Standard Oil of New
Jersey yielded Marland $60,000 every 24 hours), and the
rest he refined himself. Beneath green triangular signs
bearing his name, Marland gas stations filled car tanks
with Marland gasoline, refined at the Marland refinery
from Marland crude oil, pumped from Marland wells and
carried in Marland pipelines.
Ponca City was headquarters for his far-flung empire,
and Marland made it a city worthy of an empire’s capital.
With Japanese gardeners, he planted exotic trees, shrubs,
and flowers along wide boulevards that he designed.
Between those boulevards he built fine homes for his
employees, and even finer ones for his executives—his
“lieutenants,” Marland liked to call them. He gave the
city its hospital, its high school, its library, and even its
golf course and polo field. Every church that asked him for
money got it. When the University of Oklahoma needed to
build a student union and a new sports stadium, Marland’s
money bought those too.
In 1928, he launched his grandest building project
yet—a mansion that would outshine even the one that
he already occupied on Grand Avenue in Ponca City.
Outside, there would be polo stables and fields, kennels for hounds imported to chase imported foxes, three
lakes, and a swimming pool big enough to hold a house.
Surrounding it all were 300 acres of Oklahoma prairie that had been changed to look like the grounds of
England’s Hampton Court Palace and France’s Palace
of Versailles. The mansion’s interior—all 55 rooms,
15 bathrooms, and 3 kitchens of it—resembled the
Davanzati Palace in Italy. Its social center was a large
ballroom that opened onto the grounds. Winding across
the ballroom ceiling, a mural (painting on a wall or ceiling) told the history of Kay County from the earliest
times until 1928, when the mansion was completed. An
internationally famous artist, Vincent Maragliotti, and
three assistants took more than a year to complete the
mural. Neither Maragliotti nor any of his helpers spoke
a word of English, but that was all right. Money did the
talking.
So it was as the 1920s ended. Barely two decades after
statehood, and not even two generations since the first
land runs, Oklahomans had made their lands produce.
Indian ceremonies and trail drives across unbroken prai-
The internationally famous artist Vincent Maragliotti painted this
mural on canvas. Then he and his assistants glued the canvas to
this vaulted ceiling on the second floor of the Marland Mansion,
completed in 1928.
ries had been glamorized as entertainment, but they were
things of the past. In the present, cattlemen ran large
herds on the same land. In the present, wheat growers
busily plowed up virgin land, killing native grasses, to
plant rows of tiny seeds covered with a thin layer of dust.
In the present, cotton growers plowed more acres to
grow more cotton. The present was the 101 Ranch and
Marland Oil.
In 1929, not many people thought about what all that
livestock, plowing, and planting would mean for the
future. But then, not many people knew that the Miller
brothers’ 101 Ranch was deep in debt or that E. W.
Marland’s empire—his brand-new mansion included—
was being built on borrowed money. They thought the
future would take care of itself.
They were wrong.
the economy : the fat years 317
The Fabulous Osage Hills
The Osage tribe conducted
its business from this building
in downtown Pawhuska. The
Osages benefited greatly in
the oil boom days because
they had retained their mineral
rights as a tribe.
In 1872, the U.S. government forced a deal on the
Osages. For the tribe’s land in Kansas, the United
States would pay $8.5 million. Then the Osages would
pay $1 million of that for new lands along the western
edge of the Cherokee Nation. It was one of the best
real estate deals in American history, one of the few in
which the Indians came out indisputably ahead.
The land that the Osages bought ran from present
Bartlesville west to what is now Ponca City. From
the Kansas border, their land extended south to the
Arkansas River and present Tulsa. Totaling 1.5 million acres, its most distinguishing characteristic was
its rolling hills. At the time, the Osages looked at
those hills and saw their chief value. “The white man
will not come to this land,” one of their leaders said.
“The white man does not like country where there
are hills, and he will not come. This will be a good
place for my people.”
It proved to be a false prophecy. Whites did come.
Initially, they came because of the lush bluestem
318 the story of oklahoma
prairies that covered those hills and fed their cattle.
Later, other whites came because geologists had
told them that those hills indicated that huge lakes
of oil lay beneath them.
The oilmen were right, and the Osages became
instantly wealthy. Among Oklahoma’s Indian nations,
only the Osages had kept the mineral rights to their
allotments. The 2,229 Indians on the official tribal
rolls of 1906 received the surface rights to individual allotments of 658 acres each, but the rights to
everything underground remained tribal property.
Whatever value might lie there was to be divided
equally among the 2,229 Osages and their descendants. Like Oklahoma’s other Indians, most individual Osages quickly lost their personal allotments.
But they have never lost the underground wealth of
all of Osage County.
Particularly in the 1920s, the Osages’ tribal property generated incredible wealth. After E. W. Marland
discovered oil beneath the farm of Bertha Hickman
in 1920, the rush was on. By the decade’s end,
Osage oil had created more wealth than all of the Old
West’s famous gold rushes combined. And much of
that wealth fell to a tiny band of Indians.
Oilmen bid millions of dollars for “bonuses,” paying
money up front just for the right to seek oil. Much
of the bidding took place on the lawn of the county
courthouse at Pawhuska beneath a spreading tree
forever know as the Million Dollar Elm. There on
June 22, 1924, for example, a crowd that included
America’s top oilmen gathered as auctioneer Colonel
E. Walters called for bids to drill on Osage land.
“Colonel” was his name, not his title, and he came
from just down the road, at Skeedee, Oklahoma.
When his gavel slammed down for the last time that
day, he had sold drilling rights for a total of almost
$11 million—for which he received his customary
fee, a crisp $10 bill.
The rest of the money went to the Osages, and
even more millions were collected as royalties when
the oilmen’s drilling bits pierced the 33-square-mile
lake of oil beneath the hills. Every dime was divided
equally among the 2,229 original Osages and their
heirs. By 1925, the sum equaled an annual income
of $65,000 for a typical family of five. Oklahoma’s
Osage Indians were suddenly the richest people on
earth.
Stories soon spread about the Indians’ use of the
money. Many liked fancy cars, and in 1925 the most
expensive car produced in American cost $8,500—
which was not much with $65,000 to spend every
year. Stories were told of Indians who would buy
a fine car, drive it until it ran out of gas, and then
replace it with another. Many such stories certainly
were made up—tales told to discredit the idea that
the Osages in any way deserved their good fortune.
Nonetheless, some stories were true. One involved
an Osage woman who, on a single day in 1927
spent $12,000 for a fur coat, $3,000 for a diamond
ring, $12,800 for some real estate in Florida, $7,000
for new furniture, and $600 to ship it to California.
Her purchases totaled $35,400. On that day, for that
woman at least, those
rolling hills proved to be
very good.
Beneath this elm tree on the
lawn of the Osage County
Courthouse in Pawhuska,
oilmen bid millions of dollars for
the right to drill for oil on tribal
lands. To this day, the tree is
known as the Million Dollar Elm.
the economy : the fat years 319