Jump to:
At noon on April 22, 1889, the blast of a starting gun echoed across Fort Reno in Oklahoma, signaling the official start of the first Oklahoma Land Rush. Approximately 50,000 men, women and children raced one another across the plains hoping to claim a parcel of land in a 1.9 million-acre tract of "Indian Territory" that had not been assigned to an American Indian tribe. When the rush ended, tents and cooking fires marked the settlement of Oklahoma City, Kingfisher, El Reno, Norman, Guthrie and Stillwater and many other Oklahoma towns. The 1889 and subsequent land rushes helped the Oklahoma and Indian Territories' population grow from 258,657 in 1890 to 1,414,177 at the time of the 1907 special census. On November 16, 1907, Oklahoma became our nation's 46th state.
An 1894 map depicts the Oklahoma and Indian Territories after land rushes conducted in 1889, 1891, and 1892.
Between 1889 and 1906, the federal government conducted land rushes, a lottery, and auction to distribute land for settlement in the Oklahoma Territory.
Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The United States purchased the land that would eventually become the state of Oklahoma from France with the signing of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty on April 30, 1803. For $15 million, France sold its claim to more than 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River. Present-day Oklahoma became part of the Missouri Territory in 1812, and of the Arkansas Territory in 1819. In 1820, the federal government began forcibly moving American Indians from the southeastern United States to "Indian Territory" in the western region of the Arkansas Territory. The forced relocation of American Indians (known as the "Trail of Tears") expanded rapidly after passage of the 1830 Indian Removal Act. Over the next two decades, as many as 100,000 American Indians were forced to resettle on reservations assigned by the federal government. In the 1870s, leaders of the "Boomer Movement" pushed the federal government should allow settlers to move onto land in Indian Territory that was not officially assigned to an American Indian Tribe. In 1884, the U.S. District Court in Topeka, KS, ruled that unassigned land in Indian Territory could be settled. Three years later, the 1887 Dawes Act reassigned tribal lands to individual American Indian households and allowed tribes to sell large swaths of vacant land back to the federal government.
In 1889, the federal government identified nearly 1.9 million acres of unassigned land. President Benjamin Harrison signed Proclamation 288—Opening to Settlement Certain Lands in the Indian Territory on March 23, 1889, setting the stage for a race for land—or "land rush"—the following month. In early April 1889, thousands of people seeking land crowded into towns bordering the Unassigned Territory that served as the official starting points for the April 22 race. To the north, settlers who had gathered in Arkansas City and Caldwell, OK, received permission to begin an orderly passage through Cherokee Territory with a U.S. Army escort beginning on April 18, 1889. In contrast, land seekers at the jumping-off point near Fort Reno to the south took part in a frantic and chaotic dash into the Unassigned Territory once a cannon shot announced the land rush's start. Still other settlers traveled into the territory in relative comfort aboard the Santa Fe Railway. Passengers disembarked at desolate station stops, purchased small town plots and began the task of building cities. When the sun set on April 22, the cities of Guthrie and Oklahoma City were home to 10,000 or more settlers. Much to the chagrin of many rush participants (including legal government employees and illegal settlers violating the rush rules), large numbers of settlers "jumped the gun" and illegally claimed prime parcels of land "sooner" than the April 22 starting time.
In the years that followed the 1889 Oklahoma Land Rush, the federal government hosted additional rushes, a land lottery, and an auction to distribute acreage in what had been Indian Territory. During two rushes in September 1891, settlers claimed thousands of 160-acres homesteads carved out of land purchased from the Iowa, Sac, Fox, Pottawatomie, and Shawnee American Indian tribes. The rush created Lincoln and Pottawatomie counties, which boasted populations in the 1900 Census of 27,007 and 26,412, respectively.
A land rush on April 19, 1892, opened 4.3 million acres of Cheyenne and Arapaho land to settlement creating Blaine, Dewey, Day, Roger Mills, Custer, and Washita counties. A September 16, 1893, land rush was the largest with as many as 100,000 participants hoping to claim part of the 6.3 million acres of Cherokee grazing land the federal government had purchased two years earlier. The 1893 rush established Garfield, Grant, Kay, Noble, Pawnee, Woods, and Woodward counties. The last and smallest of the Oklahoma land rushes took place on May 3, 1895, and distributed parcels carved out of 183,000 acres of land in Lincoln, Oklahoma, and Pottawatomie counties that had once been inhabited by the Kickapoo Indians.
Hoping to prevent the chaos, legal disputes, and violence witnessed during the land rushes, the federal government held a land lottery in 1901 to distribute more than 2 million acres of land formerly owned by the Wichita-Caddo, Comanche, Kiowa and Apache tribes. From July 9 to July 28, 1901, nearly 170,000 people visited land offices in El Reno and Fort Sill, OK, to enter their names in the lottery. The names of more than 6,500 lucky new residents of Kiowa, Caddo, and Comanche counties were drawn between July 29 and August 5, with claims settled on August 6, 1901.
The last major transfer of land in the Oklahoma Territory took place in December 1906. The United States Land Office held a land auction to sell approximately 500,000 acres of land in Oklahoma's southwest corner, bordering Texas and the Red River. From December 3 to 15, 1906, hopeful settlers submitted bids for land that the land office unsealed and awarded on December 17, 1906. Winning bidders had the option to pay for the land in installments as long as they lived on the land.
Following the 1889 and later land rushes, the inhabitants of Oklahoma and Indian Territory began exploring the possibility of statehood. In 1902, leaders in Oklahoma's Indian Territory held a convention in Eufaula, OK, at which representatives of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole American Indian tribes recommended creating an American Indian state called "Sequoyah." Following a August 21, 1905, constitutional convention, residents of the Indian Territory overwhelmingly voted in favor of the American Indian-led state. After Congress defeated the bill to admit the state of Sequoyah to the United States, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed creating a single state that included the Oklahoma and Indian Territories. Roosevelt signed the Oklahoma Enabling Act on June 16, 1906, setting into motion the steps Oklahoma needed to follow to become a state. Among them: holding a constitutional convention and vote; choosing a permanent state capital; establishing a public school system, etc. On September 17, 1907, residents of the Indian and Oklahoma Territories voted in favor of statehood. Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation 780 admitting Oklahoma as the nation's 46th state on November 16, 1907.
You can learn more about the Oklahoma and the 1889 Land Rush using census data and records. For example:
Oklahoma City is the capital of Oklahoma and also the state's largest city. Oklahoma's capital moved from Guthrie, to Oklahoma City in June 1910.
That year, Oklahoma City had a population of 64,205. Today, Oklahoma City is home to an estimated 694,800 people.
Photo courtesy of the City of Oklahoma City.
The National Archives releases census records to the public 72 years after Census Day.
The National Archives released records from the 1950 Census on April 1, 2022. The 1960 Census will become available in April 2032.
Learn more about the availability of census records at our Genealogy webpages.
Preeman J. McClure was born near Bryan County, OK, in September 1864.
McClure became a successful farmer, stockman, Oklahoma Territory politician, and census taker.
After serving in the Oklahoma Territory's legislature, McClure assisted with a special 1896 census of Tobucksy County—present-day Pittsburg County, OK. The Dawes Commission used the count to allocate land to members of the Choctaw American Indian Tribe. Four years later, McClure visited the county's residents again to conduct the 1900 Census.
In November 1906, McClure served as a delegate to the Oklahoma Territory's constitutional convention.
As the Oklahoma Territory moved towards statehood, the Census Bureau conducted a special Census of Oklahoma in 1907, during which it counted 1,414,177 people. The territory's voters approved the state constitution that McClure helped draft on September 17, 1907, and Oklahoma became the nation's 46th state on November 16, 1907.
Preeman McClure died at his home near Broken Bow, OK, in September 1910.
Learn more about McClure and other Census Bureau employees at our Notable Alumni webpages.
Did you know the "Sooner" nickname given to people from Oklahoma has its origins in the 1889 Land Rush? It was not initially a term of endearment!
The "Sooner" moniker comes from a section of the 1889 Indian Appropriation Act called the "sooner clause." It states that no person would be permitted to enter and occupy the Oklahoma Territory before the official start of the land rush scheduled for April 22, 1889.
Violators entering the territory "sooner" than the land rush's start could be denied a right to claim ownership to the land. Many Sooners still secretly entered the territory early, claimed desirable parcels of land, and angered legal land rushers.
Being called a "Sooner" was an insult for many years until the University of Oklahoma football team took the name in 1908. The team's popularity redeemed the name so that Oklahomans proudly adopted the "Sooner" nickname.
Just a few notable Sooners include: baseball hall-of-famer Mickey Mantle; actor James Garner; singer and songwriter Woody Guthrie; actor and humorist Will Rogers; astronaut Gordon Cooper (above); cowboy actor and singer Gene Autry; Olympic gold medalist Jim Thorpe; Walmart founder Sam Walton; evangelist Oral Roberts; and National Book Award-winning author Ralph Ellison.
Cooper’s Mercury flight set a U.S. endurance record at the time, and he became the first astronaut to sleep in space during his 34 hour, 22 orbit mission.
Photo courtesy of NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration