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IndexChelsea Reporter
D. R. GREEN, COLORFUL FIGURE OF THE OLD WEST
By J. D. Tanner
September 4, 1941—The Chelsea Reporter—Striking figure among the thousands of men who came here at the Oklahoma opening, March 23, 1889, was Col. D. R. Green better known throughout the west as “Cannon Ball” Green. This nickname was bestowed upon him during the gold rush days of Leadville, Colorado, when the prospectors declared that Green’s stagecoaches came through straight from Denver to Leadville like a cannonball.
Green, an old-time stage-coach-driver, by strict attention to business prospered and became owner of a dozen stage-coach lines that operated through Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado
“Cannon Ball” Green did not come to Oklahoma with intention of settling here. He came to carry out a contract with the Rock Island railway to haul passengers from the end of its line, in the Cherokee Strip, 20 miles south of Caldwell, Kansas.
Late in 1888 the Rock Island started to build south from its cattle chipping pens at Caldwell to Fort Worth, Texas. Points in the Cherokee Strip and adjacent to the Cheyenne Indian reservation, just south of the Strip, were its immediate objective. The Rock Island wanted to regain the cattle business that was lost to the Santa Fe railway which had been recently built from Arkansas City south across Indian Territory to Texas. Cattlemen were riving their herds to the closest Santa Fe shipp9ing pens instead of driving them over the old Chisholm Trail to Caldwell.
Prepare For Rush of Passengers
Rock Island officials, suddenly realizing the importance of the Payne boomer movement to open to settlement that area of unassigned and unoccupied lands in Indian Territory, later known as “Oklahoma,” decided to prepare for the rush of passengers seeking homes in the new west.
The proclamation by President Benjamin Harrison on March 23, 1889, declaring the Oklahoma country public domain and open to settlement found the Rick Island railway lines less than half way across the 60-miled width of the Cherokee Outlet, between Kansas and Oklahoma borders.
Seeking a way out of the dilemma, the Rock Island officials employed Colonel “Cannon Ball” Green to transport Oklahoma-bound passengers by stage-coach from the end of its line at Pond Creek to a point on the Oklahoma line just south of the present location of Bison, on Highway 61.
Colonel Green was to be paid $3 per head for hauling all Rock Island passengers, with tickets to Oklahoma, 40 miles sought from the railway’s Pond Creek terminus.
Green underestimated the number of passengers. He only brought into Oklahoma six of his Colorado and western Kansas stage-coaches, a few hacks and baggage wagons. For a few days he was able to transport all the Rock Island passengers down the line as fast as they arrived at Pond Creek. But soon realizing his equipment was too small he sent for two more stage-coaches.
Equal To The Emergency
It was rumored at Pond Creek that passenger traffic all along the Rock Island line was increasing daily and would double any previous estimate. Green was equal to the emergency and moved in more hacks and draft mules from his western Kansas lines.
Finally Rock Island headquarters sent out a frantic appeal to Green to get ready for a big rush, as more than 500 tickets had been sold for an “Oklahoma Special” coming from Chicago.
Green had brought into Pond Creek all the equipment he dared move. He was up against a tough transportation problem, but he liked tough problems. He immediately sent scouts along the border of southern Kansas with instructions to hire farmers’ and ranchers ‘light and heavy rigs and see that these rigs with drivers were at the Pond Creek depot when the Chicago Special pulled in.
Many of the passengers aboard the special left it at Caldwell and other points north, but more than 500 arrived at Pond Creek. “Cannon Ball” green and his many assistants took care of them all. His stage-coaches, hacks, buckboards, spring wagons, surreys and whatnots were lined up for a mile along the Rock Island track rain’ to go when the special rolled into Pond Creek.
Green Led The Motley Procession
Green led the motley procession for the 40-mile drive with his old-time Leadville “Cannon Ball Coach,” drawn by half a dozen mules, loaded to the guards and bedecked with streamers and flags.
Pond Creek citizens never before witnessed such a colorful procession as it moved south to the promise land that awaited the eager home seekers, who whooped and hollered an sang patriotic songs all along the way. Enough vehicles were available to haul every railway passenger, besides a few to spare for trainmen and a railway officials, who accompanied the caravan.
Several section crews had been sent out ahead to smooth down the rougher places on the dirt road and to make the creek and ravine crossings a little safer. But it was a very rough ride, on never to be forgotten by those who made. The fact that “Cannon Ball” Green made better time hauling the railway’s t00 passengers the 40 miles than the Rock Island “Flyer’ made from Caldwell to Pond Creek is a joke laughed about even to this day.
The Last Frontier
Colonel Green, who loved to be in a crowd and around where “something was always going on,” remained in Oklahoma for several months after the 1889 opening. Later he went back to Kansas to operate his stage-coach lines there. When the Cherokee Strip was opened to settlement in 1893, he settled on a claim close to Pond Creek, one he had located while operating his Rock Island feeder stage-coach line.
Prior to settling in the Cherokee Strip, Colonel Green had retired from the stage-coach business, as he found it impossible to operate stage-coaches profitably over distances less than 100 miles. There were then few places in the rapidly developing west which were 100 miles from a railway. After living on his Pond Creek claim for several years, he sold out and went with other home seekers to the opening of the Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo reservations. He finally settled at Hydro, in Caddo country.
“Cannon Ball” Green was a natural born pioneer. He loved the wide open spaces, the call of the wild. At last the country became “too settle” in western Kansas and northern and eastern Oklahoma for Colonel Green. He was more at home in a raw country, so he joined the crowd at Hydro, he served as appraiser of school lands I the south western counties of that territory, working under the supervision of Fred Wenner, secretary of the School Land Office during the administration of Governor Frank Frantz.