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Cloud Chief Monument September 15, 1999
John C. McCornack
Cloud Chief
Monument
In a town called Cloud Chief,
Oklahoma
Preserved as well is the
school
Although the school yard is vacant
Youll see farm equipment as it was
Thank goodness we can experience
Marilyn Lott © 2008
- 143 In Memory of Cloud Chief
Cloud Chief
Until 1902, the closest town to the Stubblefields
and Wards was Cloud Chief, approximately eight miles north. Cloud Chief was
established in the Run of 1892 and was named for a prominent Cheyenne Indian
chief. It was the closest place for the Stubblefields and Wards to buy sugar,
flour, coffee or anything else they needed. For a few years (until Cordell
got the railroad) Cloud Chief was the county seat of Washita
County.
To give an idea of what Cloud Chief was like
back then, here is an excerpt from an address given to the Oklahoma State
Historical Society by Edward Everett Dale, noted Oklahoma educator and historian
of the West: (I attended many a class in Dale Hall, a building named after
him on the OU campus.) My first visit to Cloud Chief must have been
in the summer of 1898. More settlers were coming in, schools were springing
up rapidly and my brother was to conduct a county normal institute
at Cloud Chief for four weeks, which it was my privilege to
attend.
It was a very small town at this time, quite
remote from any railroad. There were a few stores, two hotels, the
Iron and the Central and two saloons known as the Elk Saloon and the Two
Brothers. The courthouse, which stood in the middle of the central
square, was a long, low wooden building consisting of a single room. Desks
were placed along the walls, each with a chair and a sign designating it
as the "office" of the county clerk, sheriff, school superintendent, and
so on. Only the county treasurer's desk was separated from the rest of the
room by a low railing and had an iron safe beside it. In the middle of the
room were placed rows of chairs separated from the desks of the county officers
by a wide aisle. Here district court was held, the judge sitting at a table
just in front of the first row of chairs.
Two young men teachers attending the county
institute cooked their meals over a campfire in the rear of the building
and slept each night on pallet beds on the courthouse floor. They had a wide
variety of choice since they could sleep in the office of the county clerk,
superintendent, sheriff, or any other county officer, or in the district
court room. All were enclosed by the same four walls. Travelers also often
stopped their covered wagons back of the courthouse and slept inside on the
floor, particularly in cold or rainy weather. With no locks on the doors
it was in the true sense a "public building." A short distance from the
courthouse stood the jail, a low wooden structure in which the county had
recently installed two steel cells of which the citizens of the town were
inordinately proud. Formerly the jail had consisted of only a single room
with a big cottonwood log inside to serve as a seat for men confined there.
Ordinary prisoners were merely put inside and the door locked. More desperate
offenders were put inside, chained to the cottonwood log and the door
locked.
The town's water supply came from a public well
in the central square fitted with a pump and trough. The water was clear
but so strongly impregnated with "gyp" that most of the supply for household
use was hauled from springs two or three miles away or, in the case of some
families, taken from a cistern. Most of the some forty teachers attending
the summer institute boarded with families in town at a weekly rate of two
dollars. In some cases, however, there were no beds available for men so
they slept on blankets spread on the prairie grass. The small ranchmen who
had hoped and planned for an indefinite period of free range soon realized
the extent of their error. Someone crossing the western part of the country
on horseback from north to south in 1899 saw almost no settlement for many
miles. In fact there was virtually none from the Canadian to the valley of
the Washita, which was the better part of a day's ride. Some five or six
years later there was a family living on practically every hundred and sixty
acre homestead.
http://www.redriverhistorian.com/ward4.html
In Memory of the Cloud Chief School
The World of
Mom:
My mom taught me
No one ever says Back view of school The boys school outhouse
Room in which I studied Algebra under Mrs. Herrin
Some guests arrived by tractor
Cloud Chief
Monument
To an outsider it is just a red granite
stone
It stands for my school years at Cloud
Chief
----- John
Thanks for spending a little time in my world ! John McCornack
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Monument
Signs
I enjoyed this "page" so much, You have a unique
way of bringing pictures to life, its as though you have been there yourself.
{meaning the viewer}. It is though I have personally met you. Thank you so
much for the opportunity of viewing your side of life.
Nice pictures of your old school. The boys latrine
reminded me of my third grade school , we had a similar situation. This is
a true statement. I was in third grade in 1954 and we used the old scratch
and splatter quill ink pens. It was a two room school and the other room
was first grade. It s nice to bring back some of those
memories
I am one of those nuts who stops by road monument
signs and reads them -- I always think that if someone puts up a monument,
they must have strong feelings about it, so it's worth taking the time to
read!
Cloud Chief Cotton Gin
Hi, I am a descendant of George M Hurst, who
by family legend, had a part in establishing the Cloud Chief cotton gin.
Do you have any information on that cotton gin? I am interested in reading
anything I can find on it. Thanks. Beverly Duncan, Denton,
Texas
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