Buch—The Settlement of Oklahoma. 
341 
made such representations to Secretary Lamar of the Interior 
Department, concerning the; injustice of excluding settlers and 
allowing cattlemen to remain, that an order was issued in 
March 1885 for the removal of the cattle in Oklahoma. The 
carrying out of this order was long delayed by the plea of the 
cattlemen that their herds had been crowded for range and 
were too poor to stand the journey, and it is probable that it 
was never strictly enforced. 1 
Two raids occurred under the leadership of Couch in 1885. 
In January he was found at Stillwater 1 with several hundred 
armed men and a few women and children, living in small ex¬ 
cavations in the sand hills on the left bank of the Cimarron 
river. When Lieutenant D'ay with a troop of thirty men or¬ 
dered them to remove, he was met by two hundred men armed 
with shotguns and Winchesters. Nlot wishing to precipitate a 
collision, the Lieutenant sent for reinforcements' and arranged 
his troops so as to cut off supplies and new arrivals! who were 
constantly pouring in. Finally the provisions gave out, and 
on January 27th the troops closed in and effected a removal. 2 
During the summer a camp of “boomers” was formed near 
Arkansas City numbering from' six to eight; hundred, with the 
avowed intention of crossing the border at the first opportunity. 
In October and ^November they entered, headed by Couch, and 
encamped near Council Grove on the Canadian, but were soon 
removed by the military with little difficulty. 3 The Gulf, 
Colorado and Santa Fe railroad having by this time succeeded 
in getting from Congress a right of way through the territory, 
Couch now ceased “booming” to take contracts for grading the 
new line, and although a few people entered Oklahoma every 
year from 1885 to 1889, there were no more organized raids. 4 
Although a great many petitions for the opening of Okla¬ 
homa were received by Congress at each session from the wesr 
tern states, and although several bills concerning it had been in- 
1 Cosmopolitan, vol. 7, p. 461. 
2 Sec. Int. Rept., 1885, vol. 2, pp. 58-60; Sen. Ex. Doc., 50, 48 Cong.,. 
2 Sess., p. 7. 
3 Sec. Int. Rept., 1885, vol. 2, pp. 58-60. 
4 Chautauquan, June 1889, p. 535. 
