Tulsa History

Don Wise was a Charter Member of Indian Nations Camp #3 SUVCW, and also an active member of several other organizations, including the Sons of the American Revolution and the Tulsa Genealogical Society. From 1999 until his passing early in 2007, he maintained a website, "Oklahoma History by Don Wise". We are grateful for the use of excerpts from his website, which are reprinted here with kind permission of Mrs. Wise. Our Brother Don will be missed by all who had the privilege of knowing him.

Linda Haas Davenport has terrific pictures of early Tulsa at Welcome to Tulsa County.

Historical Context

  The original Tulsa was a Muscogee (Creek) Indian village on the Talapoosa River in what is now the state of Alabama. DeSoto reached this place 18 September 1540 on his famous discovery journey through the Gulf country. Angie Debo in her book on Tulsa: from Creek Town to Oil Capital states that the name "Tulsa" (originally spelled Tulsey or Tulsee) is a shortened pronunciation of Tallasi, which is almost certainly a contraction of Tullahassee meaning "Old Town."

  On 28 March 1836, the Federal officials called the Muscogee (Creek) Indians to a council at Lochapoka and urged them to emigrate to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). When the Lochapokas arrived at Fort Gibson in Indian Territory, they decided to go up the Arkansas River to settle. The Lochapoka Indians chose a site between the present 17th and 18th streets and Cheyenne and Denver avenues. Here on the crest of the hill overlooking the Arkansas River, they deposited their campfire ashes and kindled a new fire with grave words of dedication. A great oak tree that towered above this site still stands at 1730 South Cheyenne Avenue and is known as the Council Oak. Around this place they constructed their dwellings and took possession of their plots of land. They planted and raised corn along with cattle and horses. They had a peaceful life for some 25 years.

  The Civil War had a disastrous effect upon the local Indians. When the United States abandoned the country, many of the local Indians enlisted in the Confederate Army. The Creek Indians were not unanimous in their decision to support the Confederacy. Some of the Indians believed that they should move north into Kansas and seek protection there. These Union Indians gathered their movable possessions, rounded up their livestock and with their wives and children commenced moving north towards Kansas. A force of Texas cavalry and Confederate Indians pursued the Union Indians north where the Battle of Round Mountain was fought. This occurred northwest of Tulsa near where the Cimarron River flows into the Arkansas River. Two other battles were fought north of Tulsa. These were the Chustenahlah and Chursto-Talasah. The surviving Union Indians

moved into Kansas near the Fort Scott area. Eventually the Creek Indians enlisted 1,575 men in the Confederate armies and 1,675 men in the Union forces. After the end of the Civil War, the Creek Indians returned to their homes in the Tulsa area. A United States census taken in 1867 showed that the Tulsa area had a population of 264 Creek Indians.

  On 25 March 1879, a post office was established at the Perryman Ranch house and Josiah C. Perryman was made postmaster. The post office was designated as "Tulsa". In January, 1882, a railroad contracting company started to survey and grade a right-of-way from Vinita to Tulsa. A number of white pioneers were moving into the Tulsa area. Chauncey A. Owen, a white man, who was married to a Creek lady, was supplying the railroad contractors with beef from his farm and he had teams freighting supplies into the area. The two Hall brothers: Harry C. and James Monroe, were some of the contractors involved with the railroad extension.

  The chief construction engineer had already had the grading done for the side track as a station to be located on the Cherokee Nation side of the line at Lewis Avenue. The laws of the Cherokee Nation prohibited a white man, not intermarried and not a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, from doing business there. H.C. Hall and other white pioneers persuaded the engineer to relocate the railroad terminal into the Creek Nation country where the tribal laws were more liberal to non-citizen traders. Under Creek laws a white man, not a citizen, could engage in business in the Creek Nation on filing a bond of $10,000 with the Secretary of the Interior for good behavior and on payment of taxes on the merchandise shipped in.

  The engineer accordingly placed the railroad terminal at the site where the present Union Station stands in downtown Tulsa. A two-stall roundhouse was built on the right-of-way fronting east on what is now Boulder Avenue; a section house was erected on the north side of the principal tracks; a depot was built and a stockyard constructed. Soon trading stores, boarding houses, a livery stable, lumber yard and other businesses were established along the track terminal.

  Jack Kelton, the railroad surveyor, laid out a number of streets at right angles to the railroad tracks. Therefore these streets of downtown Tulsa are in a northeast-southwest and northwest-southeast direction. Since Tulsa was located in the Creek Nation in Indian Territory, it had no right to incorporate. The white settlers were without any legal government. It had no taxes except licenses and fees paid to the Creek Nation treasury, no public school for white children, no water system and no street regulations. Creek law was binding only on tribal citizens. There was no United States court in the Indian Territory; for white people there was no civil law of any kind. Therefore Tulsa was considered a "wide open" town.

  In 1889 the first United States court in the Indian Territory was established at Muskogee. In 1895 one of the Federal judges ruled that Indian Territory towns had the right to incorporate under existing statutes. Business leaders in Tulsa immediately got together and drew up a petition to the court for incorporation. The petition was finally granted by the court, and the town of Tulsa was incorporated 18 January 1898. Therefore the municipality of Tulsa is 100 years old since its incorporation. If we go back to the original settlement of Tulsa by the Muscogee (Creek) Indians, then Tulsa's origin begins in 1836 or 161 years ago.

  Mr. J. Gus Patton (1878-1940), a civil engineer, was chosen to survey and plat the original town site, but the first survey of the Town of Tulsa was made by A.N. Collins, a pioneer citizen of Tulsa. The Collins survey was not an official survey as the authorities of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation did not authorize the surveying of town sites in their country.

  By the act of Congress, approved 28 June 1898, provisions were made for the surveying and platting of town sites in the Creek and Cherokee nations. A town site commission was created to survey and lay out town sites where towns with a population of 200 or more were located conforming to the existing surveys so far as possible with property and necessary streets, alleys and public grounds including parks and cemeteries. By authority of this act and the additional powers granted under the act of 31 May 1900, a town site commission was appointed for the Creek Nation and the survey of the Town of Tulsa was made under the authority of the acts referred to.

  J. Gus Patton surveyed and platted the original town site of Tulsa. All streets were made 80 feet wide, alleys 20 feet wide and most lots measured 100 by 140 feet in size. As the city of Tulsa expanded, it eventually filled the original town site survey plat. New additions were added to the original city plat, but their streets and blocks conformed to the United States Land Survey rectangular system of checkerboard pattern oriented in north-south and east-west directions. Hence in the downtown portion of Tulsa, you will find the streets parallel and at right angles to the Frisco

railroad tracks.

  The Tulsa City Engineer Office prepared a Map Showing Government Survey of Tulsa, Indian Territory by J. Gus Patton C.E. in 1945. This map is 16 1/2 by 17 1/2 inches in size and has a map scale of 4 1/2 inches equals 6 miles or l:84,480. This copy of the original Tulsa Town site Plat was prepared by Dan W. Patton, City Engineer of Tulsa, and brother of J. Gus Patton. It states that the "original incorporation of the U.S. Town site Survey completed Dec. 11, 1901, approved April 11, 1902 and approved by U.S. Court Order at Muskogee, Ind.

Ter., January 18, 1898." The members of the U.S. Survey Party were listed as J. Gus Patton, Chief; Dan W. Patton, J. Lasson Spear, R. Earl Miller and A. Zur Eddleman. Special recognition of the following citizens (1898 A.D.) were also listed as: J.M. Hall, L.M. Poe, Edward Calkins, D.S.G. Kennedy, P.L. Price, W.T. Brady, G.W. Mowbray, R.E. Lynch, John Seaman, Harry Campbell, et.al. Incorporators and dedicated to the memory of my brother, J. Gus Patton, who died February 4, 1940. Signed: Dan W. Patton, member of U.S. Survey Party, Original Town site of Tulsa. The U.S. Town site Survey of Tulsa included 654.58 acres. Original incorporation of Tulsa includes 1,440 acres."

  Included with this article was a copy of the original survey plat of Tulsa, Oklahoma. A modern map of Tulsa shows the present limits of the City of Tulsa. The inset on this map shows the downtown portion of Tulsa surrounded by the highway beltway where the original land survey of the city is located.

  When statehood for Oklahoma became a reality in 1907, Tulsa's population was just over 7,000. The discovery of oil nearby in the early 1900's resulted in the extensive growth patterns for Tulsa over the next several decades until it is ranked today as the second largest city in Oklahoma.

References:

  Angie Debo. Tulsa: From Creek Town to Oil Capital. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.

  Clarence Brown Douglas. History of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Chicago-Tulsa: S.J. Publishing Company, 1921, 3 vols. James Monroe Hall. The Beginning of Tulsa. (1933).

  John Wesley Morris. Historical Atlas of Oklahoma. Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1986. Why All the Fuss? Tulsa World (August 3, 1997), p. A13.