April 23, 2021

Indigenous People

We leave the Ozark Hills State Park and travel to Bartlesville, OK (population 40,000). Bartlesville is an oil town, the home of Phillips 66 and ConocoPhillips. Jacob Bartles, son-in-law of Delaware chief Charles Journeycake, founded the town in 1874, while Oklahoma was still “Indian Territory.

In the early years white guys made the settlement a “sundown town”. Any “colored people”, had to leave town by sundown. The white guys posted signs around town to that effect. Leaders in Bartlesville ended this shameful practice in 1907, but it continued until the 1960s in many states, even in the north.

Next in line on Route #60 is Nowata (population 3,700, declining). The name comes from the Lenape language. Lenape Native American people live in the area around Bartlesville and Nowata.

The indigenous Lenape people used to live in present-day northeastern Delaware, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania along the Delaware River watershed, New York City, western Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley. People also call them the Delaware. In 1737 Pennsylvania officials swindled the Delaware out of their land.

Under the Indian Removal Policy, the U. S. government force sent most Lenape to the “Indian Territory” (present-day Oklahoma and surrounding territory). Yes, we had an “Indian Removal Policy”. That removal displaced and killed lots of these unfortunate people. This is an oft repeated story in the history of American indigenous people. More shameful history indeed.

Before Anglo-Saxon settlement, this area was the home of the Cherokee Nation.

Tom Threepersons

Farther on we press to Vinita (population 5,700, declining), an Indian settlement to begin with. Cherokee Indian Tom Threepersons was born here in 1889. He was one of the last bonafide eastern gunfighters. Tom invented the “Tom Threepersons holster”. I promise I am not making this stuff up. he died in 1967, the year before I graduated from college.

So that was what people knew about Vinita then. Today, people know it as the home of the world’s largest McDonald’s restaurant, at 30,000 square feet. McDonald’s owners had the brilliant idea to build it on a bridge/arch spanning I-44. So today, in these times, you can drive on I-44 and pass UNDER the world’s largest McDonald’s. Call ahead and order a burger in a bag to be air dropped into your car as you speed by.

Even a smarter idea, they named it the “Will Rogers Archway”. Us Americans sure know a thing or two about marketing. I like remembering Tom Threepersons better.

Miami and Mines

We get on I-44 at Vinita and end up going all the way to Miami before we realize we did not want to be on I-44. Miners founded Miami in 1891 and the discovery of local lead and zinc deposits caused a boom. Now the population is declining because the mines are playing out. Locals face one added niggling problem. Not too far away is the town of Afton, with a growing population. The reason? Nearby towns Cardin and Picher shut down because of mine ground water contamination. Those folks moved to Vinita, which will be next, as the pollution migrates into added areas of the watershed. Flint, Michigan is not the only community in American plagued by drinking water problems. Lord have mercy!

Miami is the capital of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. The Modoc and Ottawa Tribes are here also, along with the Peoria and Shawnee Tribes.

You are getting the picture now I bet. Indigenous peoples play a major role in the history of these towns. As they do in about every town out west, and the east for that matter.

More Indigenous People Stuff

At Miami we leave I-44 and take back roads to Route #66 and continue to Wyandotte (population 300). It too is declining. Wyandotte is the tribal headquarters of the Wyandotte Nation, yet another indigenous tribe. Historians also called them the Huron. The Wyandotte lived on the shores of Lake Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River. In the 1630s European infectious disease decimated their numbers. The government moved them to areas in Pennsylvania and New York. From there they forced moved them to their present location.

Here is a history tidbit. In the 1920s, people in America knew about little Wyandotte. In 1919 the US Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote. Soon thereafter, Wyandotte elected the first all-female city government in America. Mamie Foster served as Oklahoma’s first female mayor for 5 years.

Near Wyandotte, the Shawnee Nation has its headquarters.

Path to Bar-K

From Wyandotte we continue on Route #60 to Neosha, Missouri (population 11,000). Then comes Grandby (population 2000). Then Monnette (population 9,000), and Aurora (population 8,000). Next comes Nixa (population 22,000), Ozark (population 18,000) and Sparta (population 1,800).

I am interested in the population of towns across America, the study of demography. It is especially interesting out west, where the population ebb and flow in small towns is particularly tied to the exploitation of natural resources like minerals, timber and, especially, water availability.

Southeast of Sparta we drive on to the Springfield Plateau of the Hills of the Ozarks at unincorporated Chadwick. Much of the plateau lies on top of cherty limestones, eroded to form steep hills, valleys, and bluffs. Chert is a a hard rock made of silica. It occurs interspersed with limestone as nodules of flint. Indigenous peoples made tools of everyday living and weapons such as axes, arrows, spears, knives, tomahawks out of flint.

And after a delightful day we finally come to the US Forest Service Bar-K Wrangler Campsite. We camp in a magic place, by ourselves on the shores of Swan Creek.

All is good as we weave our way back home. Next up – “The Land Between the Lakes”.