Buck—The Settlement of Oklahoma. 
349 
let for a street railway. It had a population of about fifteen 
thousand, most of whom were men who had not yet brought their 
families. There were about four thousand houses in the course 
of construction and several hundred tents still scattered through 
the suburbs. The city boasted five banks, fifteen hotels, three 
music halls, fifty grocery stores and six printing offices with 
three daily papers. The price of lots had risen from five hunr 
dred dollars a few weeks before the opening, to between two and 
five thousand dollars, and Guthrie was well started on the 
fair road to prosperity. 1 
The other metropolis of Oklahoma, and the rival of Guthrie, 
was Oklahoma City, located about thirty miles further south 
on the north fork of the Canadian. This place was settled 
largely by the “boomers” from the south who had occupied 
Purcell and Beaver City, and who seem to have had a larger 
proportion of speculators, confidence men and other lawless 
characters in their ranks than those from the north. 2 Therefore 
the events attending the settlement of this site, though much 
the same as those at Guthrie, were somewhat more disorderly, 
and but for the presence of the United States troops, serious 
collisions might have taken place. The troops, which were 
under the command of Brigadier-General Merrit, and later of 
Captain Styles, were stationed at Oklahoma City to preserve 
the peace and assist the marshals in carrying out their orders, 
but the situation was such that the military took entire charge 
of the city until the sixth of May and practically controlled 
the situation all summer. 
On April 21st, Brigadier-General Mterrit issued a prociamar 
tion announcing that the presence of the troops was to protect 
the United States government property and mails, and to guard 
the people from lawlessness and disorder. 3 Soon after noon on 
the twenty-second the scramble for town lots began. The mili¬ 
tary officials were constantly forced to interfere to prevent the 
honest settlers from being bulldozed out of their rights and to 
settle rows and street fights, and. it was not always possible to 
1 Cosmopolitan, vol. 7, p. 468. 
2 Tribune Extras, vol. 1, no. 7, pp. 23-29. 
3 Sen. Ex. Doc., 72, 51 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 22. 
