County of Marker: Sumner County
Location of Marker: 12 E. Central Ave., Caldwell
Marker Erected by: The Cladwell Cherokee Strip Centennial Committee
Date Marker Erected: 1993
Marker text:
THE LAST LAND RUSH
On September 16, 1893, 15,000 land hungry whites gathered here to make "the Run" into the Cherokee Outlet to the south. Caldwell was 1 of 9 places where over 100,000 potential settlers awaited cavalry soldiers' gunshots to start the last land rush in the United States. The Outlet, commonly, but incorrectly, referred to as the "Strip", contained 6,000,000 acres and roughly laid between Caldwell, Stillwater, and the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Originally set aside for the Indians in 1835, the Outlet went unused and white cattleman grazed Texas longhorn cattle across it on the way to eastern markets. Under heavy pressure from while landsquatters, known as "boomers", and lacking help from federal authorities to protect their property, the Indians reluctantly began negotiations with Washington in 1889.
The Cherokees sold the Outlet to the government in 1891 for $8.5 million but when Congress finally appropriated the monies in 1893, the Indians were shorted $200,000.
Erected 1993 by Donations from the Caldwell Cherokee Strip
Centennial Committee.
Difference between the "Cherokee Strip" and the Cherokee Outlet"
Under treaties made in 1828 and 1833 with the Federal Government, the Cherokee Tribe of Indians exchanged their homelands in the southeastern part of the United States for land in present northeastern Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas and a perpetual outlet west lying across southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma between the 96th and 100th meridians. In 1837, the Federal Government authorized Reverend Isaac McCoy to survey the boundaries of all the Cherokee lands. This survey showed the northern boundary of the Cherokee domain to be the southern edge of the Osage reserved lands in the territory that became the State of Kansas, I.E. a line 2.46 miles north of the 37th Parallel.
On May 30, 1854, when the United States Congress passed the Kansas - Nebraska Act, the southern boundary of the Territory of Kansas was established at the 37th Parallel. Thereby including a narrow strip of Cherokee land in the new territory. The Cherokees reported the matter to the Secretary of the Interior and asked that the southern boudary of the Kansas Territory be so modified as to make it coincide with the northern boundary of their lands. No correction was made and in 1861 Kansas was admitted as a state.
Following the Civil War, the Federal Government made a treaty with the Cherokees under which the tribe ceded in trust to the United States the 2.46 miles wide strip north of the 37th parallel and agreed that it should become part of the State of Kansas. On May 11, 1872, Congress opened the "Strip" to white settlers.
The Cherokee Outlet is often mistakenly called "the Cherokee Strip." The western limit of both tracts was the 100th meridian. Otherwise, the two areas differed in width and length. The Outlet was 226miles long and 58 miles wide, its eastern boundary was the 100th meridian. The "Strip" was 276 miles long by 2.46 miles wide. Its eastern boundary was the Neosho River. The Outlet contained approximately 13,000,000 acres. The "Strip" about 435,000. After 1866, the Outlet was all in Oklahoma. The "Strip" , all in Kansas.