Interview #4811
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson
Date: July 12, 1937
Name: Mr. G.P. Rollow
Residence: Wynnewood, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 1865
Place of Birth: Tennessee
Father: Johna Rollow, born in Tennessee
Mother: Rebecca Kay, born in Tennessee
Story told by Mr. G.P. Rollow, born in 1865 in Tennessee.
I came to the Indian Territory in 1898 and settled at Wynnewood in the
Chickasaw nation and went into the retail business for myself. Wynnewood at that
time was a trading place. People from as far as Stonewall traded with us.
People around Wynnewood at that time were very religious. There was
a Baptist Church and a Methodist Church at Wynnewood and on Sundays both of these churches
would be full of people.
This was a very beautiful country back in 1898. the prairies would
be covered with flowers and the woods were full of wild plums and grapes.
I dealt in real estate some. Land that sold then for thirty dollars
an acre is today worth a hundred and fifty per acre. I have raised a bale of
cotton to the acre off of this river bottom land and corn would make from seventy five to
a hundred bushels to the acre and we did not half farm it.
I remember when I came here you could buy dressed turkeys for fifty cents
a turkey and frying chickens for one dollar a dozen. Corn was fifteen cents a bushel
and oats ten cents a bushel.
I have talked to old settlers living around Wynnewood and have been told
that Wynnewood was built on Indian land belonging to Mrs. R.W. Jennings.
Wynnewood got its name from two men named Wynne and Wood, who were surveying engineers and
who surveyed the right of way for the Santa Fe Railroad through here. Wynnewood was
surveyed and named in 1887.
W.C. Lee was the first Mayor of Wynnewood and C.E.
Austy was the first City Marshal. J.H. Walner was the first
merchant, having moved his store from old Cherokee Town after the railroad came through
here. Dr. A.P. Ryan was the first practicing physician.
Joe Walker was the first hotel proprietor and the Pioneer Church Society was the
Methodist Episcopal Church South. Reverend A.N. Everett was the
pastor and David Anstine of Illinois and Miss Allie Kizer
were the first couple married in Wynnewood. The first births were twins born to Mr.
and Mrs. D.C. Clark. Both babies died and were the first to be
buried in the Wynnewood Cemetery. Mr. Harry Keiser
became Wynnewood's first post master. Mrs. M.S. Hotchkiss was the
first school teacher at Wynnewood.
I am now in the real estate business at Wynnewood where I have been since
1898.
