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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: July 15 1937
Interview: James Allen Bannister
Post Office: Sentinel, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: March 22, 1867
Place of Birth: Marion County Alabama
Father: Allen Bannister
Place of Birth: Carolina
Other information about father: Farmer
Mother: Gregory
Place of Birth: Alabama
Other information about mother: 
I do not know anything about my mother or her people.
Interviewed by: Ruby Woldenbarger 
Interview #

I came to Oklahoma in the year 1888, from Texas. I came through in a covered wagon, and brought my family through with me. We were on the road 21 days. It was in January and was very cold and bad. We camped one night at Terral Crossing on Red River and at Lawton, where we had to stay several days because of bad weather. 

At Lawton I got with five more wagons that were going to locate in Oklahoma. I came on with them until we got two miles east of Sentinel. They settled at Retrop, near Sentinel. I camped at Sentinel for two days, then went to Roger Mills County.

I settled here on one hundred sixty acres of land that I got from a young single man who had filed here, but got homesick for Texas and wanted to go back.

I built a one room house. It took me eight days to go to Mountain View after the lumber to build it. There weren't any roads at that time and progress was very slow. You had to use a block and tackle every time that you got in a rough place in the road. 

I had two windows and one door in my house. My furniture was not much. I used a kerosene lamp and to go 45 miles after my oil. I had a monkey stove that I used to cook with and also to warm by. 

For fuel we used dead bark that we got from the trees and stumps that we grubbed up. If we got any coal we had to haul it from El Reno, a distance of about 125 miles.

I dug a well and also hauled water from the creek. I got enough wire from Mountain View to fence forty acres of my land.

I put part of my land in feed and part of it in cotton. I just made 2 bales of cotton the first year and got ten cents a pound for it. I had it ginned at a small country gin near my place, then hauled it about 45 miles to sell it.

There were lots of prairie chickens, turkeys and coyotes. I had to guard my chickens at night to keep the coyotes from eating them. They came in droves. I have seen as many as eleven at one time. 

We could not have a house cat unless we kept it locked up. The wolves were so bad.

Rattlesnakes were very bad too. The stock would break and run when they heard a rattlesnake sing. We could not let the children out of the house when I first settled here. 

There was lots of blue grass and sage grass in this part of the country. 

The Indians would pass my place coming from the Kiowa Country going up into the Cheyenne Strip to visit their Indian friends. They would stay a few days then they would pass back in a few days taking the other Indians home with them. The men wore their hair braided and the women carried their babies on their backs.

About the only entertainment that we had was chasing jack rabbits and chopping wood.

The people were all friendly and were good neighbors. We helped each other in every way that we could. 

I relinquished my rights back to the government and planned to make the run of 1892 into the Kiowa Country. I had my place picked out near Hobart, but when I got to El Reno they had decided to draw for the land and not run for it. I know that I could have gotten a good farm, because I had one of the best cow ponies in the country. 

The Kiowa Country was settled by the people from the north. I have been a farmer most all of my life and up until the past few years. I have seen good times and bad times. I have seen droughts and sand storms just as we have now. 

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Kelsey Banister, kgban@arn.net  December 2001.