As the time came for the Land Run to begin 12:00. The long row toeing this line is bending forward, panting with excitment, and looking with greedy eyes toward the new Canaan, the women with their dresses tucked up to their knees, the men stripped of coats and waistcoasts for the race to follow. And then a trumpet call, or a gun shot or the wave of a white hankerchief, answered by a thousand hungrey yells from all along the line, and hundreds of men and women on foot and on horseback break way across the prairie. Shrill cries rose from the boomers, their whip lashes resounded, the horsemen among them shot forward impetuously, the teams tugged at the ratteling harness and the whole motley crowd swept forward with gathering motion. In a contest so wholly one of speed the race was to the swift, and the broad line began to straggle, the galloping horsement disappearing over the forest crest. Shortly after noon, at 12:10 the Winfield and Cowley County townsite colony arrived at Guthrie, coming in from the east. THis was the organization which had sent surveyors to Guthrie before the run and had their own plat drawn up. THe various detachments of the colony had met at Ponca agency, crossed the Salt Fork ahead of the others, and moved on down across the northern flange of the Oklahoma country to a point on the border east of their destination. They did not stop there however, continuing on across the line and camping only one mile from Guthrie on the morning of the twenty-second. They arrived at Guthrie far ahead of others from the north only to discover with great dismay, that they had been beaten there by hundreds more. These being people who had been sent in as law enforcement, military, railroad, and surveyors. Authors Note (My comments) In trying to unravel all the information given, I tried to prove or disprove whether our ancestors were Oklahoma Sooners. The information I found is below as each person will have to come to his or her own conclusion, as I could not prove it one way or the other. The Land Grants are indexed in books by surnames, and microfilmed.( I only searched the name Watson) There are 3 rolls. Then the names are placed by county. I found William WAtson in Guthrie in 1890. Also in Payne Co. in 1900. I did not trace any other Watsons or Coblers. Did not find a John Watson in 1890. After reading various Watson-Coblers I then tried to find the court cases so could determine which one was ours. The Court Cases after 4 years of trying to determine who were Sooners, the records were sent to Washington D.C. In these records consisted of family histories, how they came into Oklahoma Territory , where they orginal came from. Any question so they could determine who belonged where as there were 4-5 claims on each piece of land. In 1926 The Director of the National Archives decided the Court Cases were disposable waste paper and had all records destroyed and disposed. This is a sad time in Oklahoma history. So much could have been learnt from these records. Most of this information was copied from the Oklahoma City Library in 1989. Phyllis Murphy ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1