Silver City, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory

[page 173]

County: Grady
Location: (a) Sec. 22, T 10 N, R 6 W  (b) 19 miles north, 8 miles east of Chickasha; 3 miles north of Tuttle
Map: Page 219
Post Office: May 29, 1883--June 17 1890

Silver City, located just south of the Canadian River where it was crossed by the Chisholm Trail, was an important stopping point for cattlemen on their way to northern markets. Just when the village had its beginning is obscure. It is known, however, that a Mexican family living nearby sold quirts to cowboys before 1880. The Canadian may have caused the village to be located at its particular site. In the vicinity were three small creeks with good water, and the land between the creeks furnished a grazing area when the river was in flood. Even when the

[page 174]

water in the Canadian was low, quicksand could present a problem. Cattle, once they had started across, had to be kept moving. Most trail bosses preferred to hold the cattle on the south bank if the crossing could not be completed in daylight. With the opening of the Unassigned Lands, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation, and the Cherokee Outlet for settlement, the Chisholm Trail ceased to exist.

In 1890, when the Rock Island extended its tracks south of the river, there was a general movement from Silver City to the new town of Minco. One of the noted pioneers of Silver City was Meta Chestnut [sic], who had organized a subscription school. She also moved to Minco where she started Minco Academy, which later become El Meta Bond College.

The only existing reminder of Silver City is the cemetery. All land formerly occupied by the village and trail is now in agricultural use.

#

Source: John W. Morris, Ghost Towns of Oklahoma (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978), 173-74.

Note: The Oxford English Dictionary defines "quirt" as "a riding whip with a short handle and a braided leather lash."

Some of My 2014 Books

In late August of 2014 I began full-time study in the field of history. That means I got in a lot of reading last year, especially in the fall. I either perused, skimmed, read, or completely-processed more than a hundred books. And then there were the articles, essays, and book reviews. Listed here are most of the books I thoroughly digested. Almost to a one, they're worth reading if your interested in the topic.

A. Early American History

Anderson, Jennifer L. Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America (2012)

Bolster, W. Jeffrey. The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (2011)

Carp, Benjamin L. Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America (2011)

Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (1983)

Jasanoff, Maya. Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary War (2011)

Little, Ann M. Abraham in Arms: War and Gender in Colonial New England (2007)

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (2004)

Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (2001)

Taylor, Alan. The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (2013)

B. American Religious History

Conkin, Paul. Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost (1990)

Dochuck, Darren. From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (2012)

Fisher, Linford D. The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in Early America (2014)

Hall, David D. A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England (2011)

Herzog, Jonathan P. The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America's Religious Battle against Communism in the Early Cold War (2011)

Kidd, Thomas. God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (2012)

Porterfield, Amanda. Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation (2012)

C. History of Renaissance and Reformation Europe

Burke, Peter. The European Renaissance: Centres and Peripheries (1998)

Cunningham, Andrew and Ole Peter Grell, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine and Death in Reformation Europe (2000)

Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre (1983)

Ginzburg, Carlo. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (1980)

O'Malley, John W. Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (2000)

D. Twentieth-Century U.S. History

Boyle, Kevin. Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age (2004)

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (1988)

Brands. H. W. Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2009)

Brilliant, Mark. The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California, 1941-1978 (2010)

Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 (2003)

Gerstle, Gary. American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (2001)

May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988)

Miscamble, Wilson D. The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan (2011)

Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998)

Self, Robert O. All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s (2012)

E. Primary Sources

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave (1853)

Paine, Thomas. Age of Reason (1794-96)

Foster, Hannah Webster. The Coquette or, The History of Eliza Wharton (1797)