370 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters. 
age were selected to draw, and it having been determined by 
lot which should draw first, twenty-five envelopes were drawn 
in order from the five openings in the Eil Rieno box. Each 
one as drawn was passed to the commissioners, numbered con¬ 
secutively, opened, and the name and description read to the 
people. The El Reno box was then closed, aud the same number 
were drawn from the Lawton box, after which the session 
was adjourned until two o’clock. A great deal of interest 
was manifested by the people in this drawing, and fully 
thirty thousand were present. The crowd greeted the an¬ 
nouncement of each name with great applause. 1 
In the afternoon, five hundred lots were drawn from 
each box in the same manner, except that the announcements 
were made by typewritten lists read to the people and posted 
on bulletin boards and afterwards printed in all the Oklahoma 
and many Kansas, Missouri and Texas dailies. A force of 
clerks was also engaged in preparing postcards which were 
sent out as fast as possible to those whose names were drawn, 
notifying them of the fact. The drawing continued at the 
rate of two thousand a day until sixty-five hundred were 
drawn from each box, that, being the estimated number of posr 
sible homesteads in each district. The boxes were then re¬ 
moved to a building, the rest of the envelopes drawn in the 
same manner, and notices mailed to all so that each applicant 
might know that his name was placed in the box and duly 
drawn. 2 
On the morning of August 6th, at seven A. M., the land 
offices at El Reno and Lawton were opened for the entry of 
land. Each office was provided with a large map of the dis¬ 
trict showing the smallest legal subdivision, and each entry 
was marked off as made. These maps were accessible to all 
who wished to make entry and proved to be of great service 
to both applicants and officials. On the first day the first one 
hundred and twenty-five names were called in order at each of¬ 
fice, and the lucky holders of these numbers, having been allowed 
1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1901, pp. cclxii-cclxiii. 
2 Ibid., pp. cclxiii-cclxiv. 
