Interview #10389
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson
Date: March 28, 1938
Name: Mr. John McManus
Residence: Wynnewood, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: December 6, 1875
Place of Birth: Texas
Father: J.C. McManus, born in Missouri
Mother: Mary Nolan, born in Missouri
I was born in 1875, in Texas, from which state I came to the Indian
Territory in 1898, in a wagon. I settled at Wynnewood, in the Chickasaw Nation and
rented a small farm from Noah Lael, who at that time was a large cattle owner.
Wynnewood and Pauls Valley at that time were the only two trading points
in this part of the country. There were no roads over the country then to speak of
and very few schools and churches.
Northeast of Wynnewood about five or six miles was a Negro Mission, that
had been founded by a Negro named Dixie Smith, in 1895, according to men who lived here
then. This mission stood until about 1917 when it was wrecked by a storm, and never
was built back. There was a subscription school at Wynnewood for white children.
People didn't raise as much cotton then, as they do now a-days.
Corn was the main crop as there was a ready market for corn and it didn't take much
work to raise a large crop of corn. The cattlemen would buy all the corn to feed out
to their beef steers. There was a feeding pen across the river from where old
Cherokee Town used to be.
After the railroad came through this country, old Cherokee Town was moved
to Wynnewood, or at least a part of it was. One of the buildings was moved to Pauls
Valley.
There were lots of wild game then. I went to the mountains south of
old Fort Arbuckle and killed a deer every winter for several winters after settling here.
The first year I lived in the Indian Territory, I had to pay a $5.00
permit to live in this country. That was the only time I ever had to pay.
I have lived in and around Wynnewood since 1898.
