Buck—The Settlement of Oklahoma. 363 
The first thing noticeable; about this table is that in 1894, 
the year after the Cherokee Outlet was opened, practically all 
of the available land east of the western line of Grant, Garfield, 
Kingfisher and Canadian counties (see Plate XIV) was 
taken up, the percentage being ninety-eight or above in every 
county except Pawnee, where it was ninety-five. Indeed, this 
land was not only all taken up in 1894, but its occupation, was 
practically contemporaneous with its opening and often there 
were two or even three qualified entrymen for each quarter-sec¬ 
tion. This great demand for land in eastern Oklahoma illustrates 
the fact, which the American people are gradually beginning to 
comprehend, that we have at last taken complete possession of 
our apparently unlimited heritage, that the frontier, so famous 
in American history, has finally disappeared, and that further 
agricultural development must be intensive rather than ex¬ 
tensive. 1 
In western Oklahoma, we find in 1894, Greer, Caddo, Co- 
mjanche and Kiowa counties not yet being opened, a percent¬ 
age of occupied land running from about five in Beaver, Wood¬ 
ward and Day, to eighty-nine in Blaine, and averaging fifty 
in the intervening counties. It will be seen that the westward 
advance is greater in the southern counties, so that the lines of 
equal settlement would run from northeast to southwest. The 
first of the western counties to join the ranks of those whose 
settlement was practically complete, which for convenience we 
may consider to be when ninety-five per cent of the land is oc¬ 
cupied, was Blaine, which rose from! eighty-nine per cent in 
1894 to ninety-six per cent in 1896 ; and this was soon followed 
by Washita, which advanced from seventy-five per cent in 1894 
to ninety-six per cent in 1898. 
Previous to 1898, the advance in the next tier of counties, 
Woods, Dewey and Custer, had been slow though gradual; but 
with the occupation of all available land in Blaine and Wash¬ 
ita, these counties began to take rapid strides, and in 1901 all 
three joined the column of settled counties. The increase in 
the rate of settlement all along the line in the years from 1900 
1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1891, vol. 1, p. 49. 
