This is a list of names of those who claimed land in the Cherokee Strip Land Run of 1893 that registered at the Enid Land Office, located in County O (later became Garfield). This information was compiled by William E. Shaklee and was taken from a file in the Marquis James Room of the Enid Public Library. Apparently a 3x5 card had been made earlier for each claimant and the cards had been hand written or hand printed by several persons and then photocopied on 8 1/2 by 11 paper. Some were difficult to read, often misspelled and in a few instances items of information were missing. In others, large blocks of listings were missing. Please keep in mind that this should only serve as a reference. It is unknown how complete or accurate this record is. The city and state given are where the people came from.

It was Sept. 16, 1893, the day of the largest land "run" in history, the opening of the Cherokee Strip to settlement. 15,000 people had gathered along the boundaries for many days and were ready for the gunshot at noon to start them on their quest for claims, every acre was claimed by nightfall. Land offices for the filing of claims were at Perry, Enid, Alva and Woodward. Seven counties had been designated in the Strip at that time, with letter names K,L,M,N,O,P and Q with county names to be chosen later by the settlers.

K became KAY
L became Grant
M became Woods
N became Woodward
O became Garfield
P became Noble
Q became Pawnee

At statehood the 7 counties became 10 1/2 counties, as Alfalfa was created from part of Woods Co., Harper from part of Woodward Co., and the north half of Ellis was also from part of Woodward Co. Major was from the southern part of Woods Co.

In this reference O.T. stands for Oklahoma Territory. Happy Hunting!

CLICK ON THE LETTER BELOW TO FIND THE SURNAME
Those names marked with an * were proven as claimants and entered at a later date.

AB

CD

EF

GH

IJK

LM

NO

PQ

R

S

TU

VW

XYZ

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