Weston Wednesday: From prairie to cosmopolitan city
Editor's Note: In collaboration with the Bartlesville Area History Museum, the Examiner-Enterprise has revived the late Edgar Weston's 'Revisiting the Past' columns that ran in the newspaper from 1997-99. Weston's columns recount the history of Bartlesville as well as Washington, Nowata and Osage counties.
From an undulating prairie in the "tall grass country," that had been a hunting area for centuries, into a cosmopolitan city in one lifetime. That is the story of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
In 1871 George B. Keeler rode his horse southwest across Kansas into Canaville, Kan. on the border of the Cherokee Nation. A dim trail led him down the Caney Valley to a horse shoe bend in the river where Nelson F. Carr had constructed a corn grist mill. The water driven mill was built to serve the influx of settlers arriving in the Nation.
A few years later Jacob H. Bartles would purchase the mill and convert it into a flour mill. Bartles would then build a large store and establish Bartlesville north of the Caney River.
Keeler rode on south and into Hardrope's camp of Osage lodges covering the high ground for over two miles centered upon Silver Lake. He dropped the reins of his horse at Chouteau’s trading post about one mile southeast of Silver Lake. Louis Chouteau, of the great St. Louis dynasty, had located at their site early in 1871 and constructed a log trading store. He had freighted in a stock of goods and needed a clerk to handle the business. George B. Keeler had been engaged to be the clerk for Chouteau's trading post.
Settlement in the area had come rapidly following the Civil War, when in 1866 the United States Government, by treaty, had required the Cherokee Indian Nation allow other tribes of Indians to settle in their Nation. This came as punishment for having joined the Confederacy in the Civil War.
The Delaware tribe of Indians came in 1867 and 1868 and settled principally in the north half of what is now Washington County. Then the Osage tribe of Indians came after the spring Buffalo Hunt on the Arkansas River in 1871 and located around Silver Lake. Two bands of Osages set up their lodges in this area and the Osage Agency buildings were constructed at Silver Lake.
The government survey of 1871 located the 96th Indian Meridian west of Silver Lake. The 96th was the eastern boundary of the land purchased from the Cherokee's for the Osage's. The Osage Agency was moved to the confluence of Bird Creek and Clear Creek and later named Pawhuska.
Chouteau's trading post near Silver Lake was closed after Louis Chouteau was stabbed in a robbery attempt at his home. His log house was just south of the present Tyler-Irwin farm. Chouteau died as a result of the stabbing and is buried there. Chouteau's mother engaged Keeler to sell the stock of goods and close the trading post.
George B. Keeler married Josie Gilstrap a half blood Cherokee maiden who lived with her mother on the present Tyler-Irwin farm. Josie's father A.J. Gilstrap had died in 1869.
Keeler continued as an Indian trader working in several states and started a ranching operation. In 1884, William Johnstone and George B. Keeler built a store on the south side of the Caney River across the limestone yard from Bartles settlement. A rapid development around the Johnstone Keeler store south of the Caney River became a village of wooden false-fronted stores and homes. It extended from the river banks to the old Washington County Courthouse on Delaware Avenue.
By 1895 the ramshackled wooden village presented such a fire hazard and was growing so rapidly that plans were made to plat a town-site. The first survey was made in 1897 and covered the area of the village south of the Caney River. The second survey platted the area west of the village to across the railroad tracks, this survey was made in 1898. Then the original Bartlesville town-site was surveyed and platted in 1902 extending the city limits beyond 10th Street.
Transportation was a major problem from the beginning of the settlement and as the area grew in population it became worse. Freighter wagons were slow and carried light loads over the "gumbo" roads in the river bottoms.
Stream crossing was impossible in the rainy seasons. Freight was tied up for weeks waiting for the streams to go down and the mud to dry out. In April 1897 the Nellie Johnstone No. 1 oil well was drilled at Bartlesville and became the first commercial oil well in what became Oklahoma. The only transportation for oil from this well was by freighter wagon with a wooden tank on it. A small amount could be hauled to the refinery at Neodesha, Kansas. This was a four-day, round trip haul in good weather. If the "gumbo" road north was muddy and wet no oil could be moved.
In 1898 Jacob H. Bartles and Col. Porter of Caney, Kan., organized a railroad company and had a survey made for a railroad from Caney, Kansas to Collins Coal Mine, now Collinsville, OK. The railroad grade was completed but due to the tremendous cost of constructing high fills across the Caney River bottoms, the company ran out of funds before the tracks were laid. Outside financing became necessary and in seeking funds to complete the railroad, the Santa Fe railroad became interested and purchased the railroad grade from Bartles and Porter and began laying rails. George B. Keeler influenced the Santa Fe to build the Bartlesville depot south of the Caney River and in late July 1899 the tracks reached Bartlesville, I.T.
The second survey in 1898 extended the town-site to the railroad and beyond. Second Street became the business center of Bartlesville. Brick and stone buildings lined 2nd Street for five blocks east of the Santa Fe Railroad in a few years’ time.
Oil discovery and development created a "boom town" status and the arrival of rail transportation, Bartlesville became crowded with all kinds of promotors getting into the action. The need for banks, hotels, offices, supply stores and extended facilities created a new "Main Street.” Third Street construction was under way and very quickly an impressive first class city arose, Bartlesville, the cosmopolitan city that oil made
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Weston Wednesday: From prairie to cosmopolitan city
