Before them stretched a rolling plain, bordered in the distance by stunted knolls. The Santa Fe tracks curved off to the southwest, roughly paralleled on the west by Cottonwood Creek. East of the tracks, directly across from a meandering bend in the stream, was a small depot flanked by a section house and a water tank. Several hundred yards east of the depot was an even smaller structure, the federal land office. The rest was empty land.
Three buildings and a water tank constituted the town of Guthrie.
Tilghman and Sutton skirted the depot, headed on beeline for the land office. There were now only minutes to spare, for hundreds of men were pouring off the train and running in the same direction. Reason dictated that the center of town would be located near the land office, and it was here that Tilghman meant to stake their lots. But as he hurried forward several men were already erecting a tent catty-cornered from the land office.
Tilghman immediately tagged them as Sooners. Yet there were other lots and he was satisfied to let latecomers argue the matter. He paced off twenty steps due north of the land office and an equal distance east of the tent. There he drove his stake, with his initials carved in bold letters at the top. Then, moving quickly, he repeated the process, hammering a second stake into an adjacent lot.
Sutton, meanwhile, was scurrying around what would logically represent an opposite corner. He jabbed two stakes in the ground on lots side by side, and not a minute too soon. The landscape all of a sudden sprouted horsemen and a bedlam of humanity emptying off of trains. Where moments before there had been a tranquil prairie the earth was now covered with a frenzied swarm of men, racing mindlessly to plant their stakes in what seemed the choicest spot.
Disputes erupted immediately as men attempted to claim the same lots, and within minutes a dozen slugfests were in progress. But no one came anywhere near the corner north of the land office, or the corner directly opposite. Tilghman stood between his stakes, hand on his pistol, and Sutton adopted a similar posture across the way. The message was clear, and however desperate for land, other men heeded it.
By nightfall Guthrie was a city of tents. Still, rather than sanity restored, pandemonium continued to reign. The Santa Fe station agent quit his post to stake a claim, and a southbound train collided head-on with a northbound from Oklahoma City. Cavalry troopers battled mobs of claim jumpers, who found their dirty work easier done in the dark. Saloons conducted a thriving business from planks resting across barrels, and bordello tents began servicing customers who apparently had a highly attuned sense of direction. Torches lit the night on what gave every appearance of a demented anthill.
Tilghman and Sutton maintained their vigil on opposite corners. They watched as land speculation flourished, rising to a fever pitch in the glow of blazing torches. Hundreds of men had staked claims for no other purpose than to sell them to the highest bidder, and many lots were resold on the hour. Speculators moved swiftly from location to location, dickering and swapping as the future shape of the city took form.
There were no sanitation facilities and no law enforcement. Unfouled drinking water was in short supply, and the stench of a garbage dump slowly settled over the land. By late that night scores of drunken men lay where they had fallen, brought down by the effects of cheap pop-skull whiskey. Yet there were better than ten thousand delirious souls squatted on their claims, and drunk or sober, they were in an exultant mood. They had themselves a town.
Tilghman thought it the greatest circus ever to hit the plains.
CHAPTER 3
There were never enough hours in the day. Tilghman had four projects in various states of completion, and his workday generally stretched from sunrise to well after dark. He often felt like a juggler with one too many balls in the air.
The intersection of Oklahoma Avenue and Second Street, just as he’d surmised that first day, had become the hub of downtown Guthrie. City Hall was taking shape on the southeast corner, and opposite that the post office was under construction. He and Sutton, their claims duly filed, owned the other two corners.
A sawmill as well as a brick kiln were now in operation on the outskirts of town. To meet building demand, the Santa Fe continued to haul in carloads of finished lumber and fixtures from Kansas. Along with the supplies a regiment of carpenters, bricklayers, and stonemasons had arrived in Guthrie. Their services, in the boomtown growth, went to the highest bidder. Others joined a long waiting list.
Tilghman’s bankroll, though not inexhaustible, was larger than most. The funds from the sale of his Kansas ranch allowed him to purchase a carload of lumber and secure the services of a half dozen carpenters. On his lots, the sports book (dubbed the Turf Exchange) and a mercantile store, already rented, were nearing completion. Across the way, Sutton was building the Alpha Saloon and a storefront leased to a hardware dealer.
Some blocks north of downtown Tilghman had bought a lot from the original claimant. There, with yet another crew of carpenters, he was building a frame house. A modest affair, the house would have five rooms with a roofed porch. Tired of bunking in a tent, he had already ordered furniture, including a cushy bed, for delivery from Kansas. Sutton, who preferred to be closer to his work, was building living quarters over the saloon.
Hustling back and forth between projects, Tilghman rarely had a moment to spare. Yet his dawn-to-dark workday seemed somehow normal amidst the hectic sawing and hammering along every
