REPORT

OF THE

GOVERNOR OF OKLAHOMA.

GUTHRIE, September 1, 1898.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of the condition and progress of the Territory of Oklahoma for the year ending June 30, 1898, believing that it tells a story of progress, prosperity, and development never before equaled in the history of the States and Territories of the United States.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

With a population aggregating a third of a million and greater than that of any other Territory and half a dozen different States of the Union; with an area of 40,000 square miles or 24,499,680 acres; with a prosperous, contented people largely engaged in agriculture and kindred pursuits and producing crops that astonish the world; with a taxable valuation exceeding forty millions of dollars; with a commerce that has doubled and trebled in the past twelve months; with a smaller bonded debt than any other State or Territory, and the small amount there is having been incurred only for the erection of educational institutions; with a public school system equal to any in the land; with better facilities for higher educational training of her youth than many States five times as old and with many times the population; with the best of transportation facilities and almost unlimited natural resources; with a fertile soil, a delightful climate, bright sunshine, and health-giving breezes, Oklahoma extends a cordial invitation to the farmer, the stock raiser, the fruit grower, the manufacturer, the investor, the invalid, and the homeseeker of every class to come and better his condition and challenges comparison with any other equal area of the continent.

Our north boundary is 37° north latitude. Except in Greer County little of the Territory extends south of the thirty-fifth parallel. In latitude it corresponds with southern Kentucky and Tennessee. Except Beaver County, which extends in a strip 35 miles wide to the one hundred and third meridian west longitude, nearly all the Territory lies between 96° 30' and 100° west longitude, being in the same belt as central Kansas and Texas.

In general, the face of the country is rolling prairie, with a considerable number of rivers and streams usually flowing from the northwest to the southeast, and often having high and steep banks. In the eastern half there are considerable areas covered with timber, usually of the different varieties of oak. Timber is found in the valleys of the streams in all parts of the Territory.

The altitude increases from east to west. Most of the better settled portion of the Territory is between 800 and 1,400 feet above sea level. The soil of the Territory varies greatly in appearance and considerable in composition, but it is, on the whole, fertile and well supplied with plant food.

The rainfall during the winter months is light, but most years it is abundant in the growing season in every part of the Territory, and as a result Oklahoma can produce most of the great field and orchard crops grown in the States North and South, and is well adapted to rearing and fattening each of the great classes of farm animals.

THE FARMER OUR MAINSTAY.

The Oklahoma farmer is to-day prosperous, happy, and contented, and with his success has come prosperity to the whole Territory. During the nine years of the existence of the Territory the farmer has gone through many hardships and encountered many difficulties, but he kept bravely on, surmounted every obstacle, and is to-day as prosperous as any man in the nation.

Coming into a new and unknown country, settled under conditions which rendered inevitable controversy over the possession of his land; coming, in most instances, with only such few possessions as could be loaded with his family in a single wagon and what little cash was in his pants pocket, the pioneer Oklahoman conquered the wilderness, broke the trackless prairie into field and garden, experimented until he found the things which best would grow and yield, and learned the time to plant and to reap; kept bravely on, no matter what the odds, and to-day has his reward in a comfortable home, a productive farm, and a bright future.

True, there were days when his home was a dugout or a cottonwood shack, when his family were in rags, when his farm was unproductive, when his future was anything but bright, but he forgets all these things in the comfort and content of to-day.

His family is clothed in comfort, his home is a substantial structure, he rides to church or to town in a comfortable carriage instead of the creeping white-topped schooner, well-fed stock roam his fields, growing crops are all about him, orchards are fruiting on every side, and feed and grain are found in his barns, while a schoolhouse is within easy reach of his children and a college almost at his door.

POPULATION.

Oklahoma's growth of population has been as remarkable as her development along other lines. From an unbroken, uninhabited prairie, in a single day she sprang into existence as a community of three score thousand souls.

The census of 1890 gave the Territory, then barely organized, a population of 61,834, but on several occasions since the Territory has increased its population 50 per cent or more in a single day by the settlement of Indian lands thrown open to homestead entry. For several years there have been no openings of reservations and hence no such sudden increase in population, but the tide of immigration from all parts of the United States has been an unceasing one and the peopling of some of the counties has been unprecedented for a steady growth without the attendant elements of boom or rush. Some of the western counties of the Territory have more than doubled in population