Opening the Lands of Caddo County

The land now in Caddo County (Oklahoma) that was part of the Wichita-Delaware-Caddo Indian reservation to the North, and part of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Indian Reservation to the South was purchased from the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians for the sum of $300,000 on April 28, 1866.  The proclamation of Secretary of Interior Ethan Allen Hitchcock dated 24 June 1901, signed On July 4, 1901 by President William McKinley, opened these reservations for settlement by land lottery drawing and town site auction to be held on Aug. 6, 1901.  The Sac and Fox, Iowa, Pottawatomie-Shawnee, Cheyenne-Arapaho, Pawnee, Tonkawa and Kickapoo Indian reservations and the lands of the Cherokee Outlet had all been opened at a given hour and in each case there was a wild race and scramble for the most desirable homestead claims. Conflicting claims, disputes, quarrels and lawsuits were so numerous that it was determined that the method of opening other reservations to settlement should be on a different plan,  the "land lottery".

1901, August 1. Wichita-Caddo and Comanche, Kiowa and Apache lands

When the Indians of the Comanche-Kiowa and Wichita-Caddo reservations were induced to take allotments and permit the surplus lands of those reservations to be thrown open to settlement, it was arranged that each intending settler should register at the Government land offices in El Reno and Lawton; that the homesteaders would register on envelopes containing their names and addresses; that the envelopes should be enclosed in large boxes, to be mounted on axes so that they could be shuffled and mixed and that, then, as they were drawn out.  These envelopes were numbered as they were drawn by the land officials. Each person had the opportunity to "stake his claim in turn", according to the number on the envelope. The Fort Sill Military Reservation and the Wichita Mountain Forest Reserve were withdrawn from settlement. There were 13,000 quarter sections available, and over 160,000 people registered and obtained their land at El Reno. This was the last large land opening in the present state of Oklahoma.  This unique "land lottery" practically closed the homesteading era in Oklahoma.