Early next morning Tilghman rode out leading the sorrel stallion. The impressions of yesterday came over him again as he retraced his route across the reservation. The rolling prairies rekindled old memories, some better than others. He was realist enough to admit that part of his discontent was deeply personal. Though he’d never discussed it with anyone, he still mourned the loss of his wife. His fresh start, the excitement of Oklahoma Territory, was a poor substitute for the woman who had graced his life. His grief was hidden, but not gone.
Yet, however great his personal loss, there was more to the overriding sense of restlessness. The Turf Exchange and the racetrack, all the money in the bank, had failed to slake some inner need. Seemingly, he had the world by the tail, but in the midst of all he’d accomplished, something was missing. He felt as though he had wandered astray, somehow lost his way, and try as he might, he couldn’t regain his sense of direction. He was searching for something and it was elusive. Hard to identify, or put into words.
Late that morning, as he approached the Deep Fork of the North Canadian, he was reminded of Bell Cow Creek. The lay of the land, the rushing stream and the grove of trees, all triggered a feeling that had come over him just yesterday. A spooky feeling, one that defied logic, but nonetheless real. A sense that he’d come home.
So maybe he wasn’t lost. Instead, he told himself as he forded the river, maybe he had found the path after all. A path that could end his search. One thought triggered another and then another as he rode toward Guthrie.
CHAPTER 6
By midsummer the frontier boomtown was gone.
In its place was a city unlike any imagined by the original settlers. Guthrie was now a thriving metropolis, the population swelled to more than twelve thousand. A waterworks and pumping station were under construction, and along with it, a rudimentary sewerage system. Tracks were laid on Oklahoma Avenue and a horse-drawn streetcar began servicing one of the town’s main thoroughfares.
A group of private investors had obtained the license for a generating plant. By early next fall they would provide streetlights at major intersections, and the wonder of electric illumination in offices and business concerns in the downtown area. Their plans, though considered overly ambitious by some, were to extend this remarkably efficient service to every home in town. The coal-oil lamp, astounding as it seemed, would soon become a thing of the past.
Near the Santa Fe railyards at the west end of Cleveland Avenue, another investor had built a warehouse and organized Guthrie’s first wholesale grocery company. Directly across the street still another go-getter had established the town’s largest lumberyard, buying in trainload lots, and outselling all other competitors combined. Mayor Dyer, by now a pillar of the community, had been instrumental in bringing all these improvements to the city.
But the mayor, for all his civic virtue, was a strong advocate of the free enterprise system. After sampling the water at a mineral well southwest of town, he bought the land, organized a bottling plant, and began selling Mineral Wells Elixir Water throughout the territory. Then, exploiting his scheme to the fullest, he built a bathhouse near downtown, piped the water in from the well, and charged outrageous prices for people to luxuriate in the warmth of a mineral bath. Nothing with the smell of profit escaped attention.
An accelerated rate of growth, stimulated by supply and demand, attracted investment at a dizzying pace. City Hall had approved the blueprints for a flour mill, two creameries, a distillery, and a bookbinding factory. The newspaper reported as well that approval was forthcoming for a wholesale meat company, a gristmill, and a cotton gin. By next summer, when the first full year of crops were harvested, the homesteaders would lack for nothing. To quench their thirst, Pabst was designing a brewing plant large enough to service the entire territory.
Growth was evident as well in the professions and retail establishments. A city directory listed fourteen doctors and thirty-six lawyers, half a dozen mercantiles, twenty-three cafes, and four drugstores. The public servants who prepared the directory were nothing if not discreet, and unlisted were eighteen saloons, five gambling dives, and several flourishing whorehouses. Still, in its own unobtrusive way, the sporting crowd did quite well in Guthrie.
For all that, Tilghman watched the surge of growth with mixed emotions. The Turf Exchange, with results relayed directly from the telegraph office, was now booking bets on horse races, prize fights, and baseball games from all across the country. The racetrack was mobbed every Saturday afternoon, and now drew horse owners from as far as Missouri and Texas. To run the whole operation required a payroll of twelve employees.
By some accounts, Tilghman and Sutton were two of the wealthiest men in town. But Tilghman rarely looked at his bank balance, and he’d turned down countless investment opportunities, including Mayor Dyer’s mineral-water bonanza. For the most part, his days were spent at the track with Neal Brown, training horses, talking bloodlines, and planning the breeding program for their stock. He took greater pleasure in speculating on the foals sired by the Sac and Fox stallion than he did in the daily receipts from the Turf Exchange. His spark for business grew dimmer by the day.
The final blow occurred toward the end of June. The Guthrie Statesman reported that the wondrous invention of Alexander Graham Bell was coming to the territorial capital. The telephone, grown
