Mrs. Delia Moore was born in 1879, in Arkansas. Her father, Dr.
J.L. Stewart, deceased, was born in Arkansas. Mrs. Moore's mother, Rebecca Owens,
deceased, was born in Missouri.
I came to the Indian Territory with my husband, John M. Moore. We settled at
Pauls Valley in the Chickasaw Nation in 1900, and at that time it was a very small place.
There was one bank owned by Sam Garvin, and the stores and restaurants, what few
there were, faced the railroad. Mr. Moore put in a restaurant right after we came to
Pauls Valley. Dr. J.R. Calloway and Dr. Branham were the leading doctors when I came
here. Jim Hightower was a large cattle owner.
There was quite a lot of cotton raised at that time, but the main crop was corn.
Alfalfa was just being started. There were two or three small patches of
alfalfa.
Pauls Valley was called a Saturday town. Through the week there wouldn't be many
people in town but on Saturday the streets would be crowded with people. We had
board sidewalks and no pavement at all.
When it would rain, Rush Creek would get up and overflow the town, and mud would be
knee deep in the streets. The first year we lived here the creek overflowed several
times and Mr. Moore was dissatisfied and wanted to go back to Arkansas but his business
was good and we were making ala living, and owned our home, so he decided to stay.
Year by year the town grew. People began building and a new church house was
built. Pauls Valley, at the time I came, had a free school. The town was
building fast by 1908. And that year we had the biggest flood I have ever seen.
The Washita River got out of its banks and water was all over town. People
rode around town in boats.
In 1911, we had our worst drought. Along in June everything looked beautiful.
There were large fields of corn, from two to three hundred acres in a field, and
just in the silk and tassel, and the hot winds set it. In thirty or forty days the
corn was wilted to the ground.
Mr. Moore stayed in the restaurant business seventeen years.
I have lived in Pauls Valley since we settled here.
