A BRIEF LOOK AT THE CHEROKEE STRIP COWPUNCHERS’ ASSOCIATION
The Cherokee Strip Cow Punchers’ Association was formed Labor Day weekend 1920 at the famous Miller Brother’s 101 Ranch south of Ponca City, Oklahoma. The drudgery of everyday cowboying was put aside and replaced by a rodeo Wild West show and all its accompanying activities. To help insure the success of the event and also to renew old acquaintances, Joe C. Miller, one of the owners of the 101 Ranch, had written a personal letter some week before to all the old cowboys that he knew and asked them to come, participate, and enjoy hard cider and barbecued buffalo. He received a tremendous response and by the evening of September 4th, final preparations were complete and many had arrived, all eagerly awaiting the spectacular promised for the next day.
The morning of September 5th was beautiful, but by early afternoon storm clouds had gathered, producing a genuine gully washer, thereby cutting short the whole affair. Forced under the pavilion, the only accessible protection, many of the old-timers decided to spend the night rather than risk driving home in such a storm. The existing conditions prohibited anyone from sleeping so the entire night was spent singing “the old songs of the trail and ranch days, recounting .... experiences of range and trail and the rain just kept a droppin”.
Oscar Brewster, a famous old chuck wagon cook, kept remembering a conversation between him and Joe Miller. During that conversation Miller had stated that it would be fine if we could have an organization so we could get together again.
By morning Brewster was convinced that such an organization would indeed be a great thing for all concerned and proceeded to hold an informal meeting with his comrades. He presented Miller’s idea and found everyone there in agreement.
The group immediately decided to organize and elect officers. Many of those present wanted Brewster to be president, but he declined preferring the office of secretary instead. Abe Banta was then elected president and the group decided to officially call themselves the Cherokee Strip Cowpunchers’ Association, the C. S. C. P. A.
It was decided that qualification for membership was that one had to have been a cowboy in the Cherokee Strip prior to its opening to white settlement in 1893.
The Cherokee Strip Cow Punchers’ Association had no formal structure, constitution, by laws, dues—yet was a highly organized group. An executive committee made up of the elected officers who controlled it. The committee met at least once a year, usually in the spring to discuss the up coming reunion. As with most organizations it was the executive meeting that the really important decisions of the Association were made. The officers also concerned themselves with minor items about the organization such as meeting date, place, resolutions, and a myriad of other activities. Precedent already set some of the minor items, and was in reality only mere annual formalities performed by the officers. Other business items such as resolutions and fiscal matters were different from year to year and treated accordingly.
The objective and purpose of the new Association were stated as “Sociability of those who in the distant past prior to 1893, shared in the hardships and under any and all conditions were brothers to each other and to foster that spirit of fellowship. Furthermore to remember the past with those who shared the blanket and were real brothers on the range, and to foster in memory the camp, the trail and the frontier days”.
Not to be left out, the ladies soon organized an auxiliary to the Association opening membership to the wives of the old time cowboys. Mrs. Billie Fox was elected president and Mrs. Oscar Brewster was elected secretary.
Before the group broke up, Brewster pledged to contact all the known old-time cowboys of the strip and tell them that annual reunions would be held and by the 1922 reunion, 275 names had been recorded. More than 800 members have been identified to date.
The annual meeting of the Cherokee Strip Cow Punchers’ Association was originally held in the Buffalo Pasture at the 101 Ranch. Then in 1930 the Miller Brothers gave to the Association a tract of 7.6 acres along the Salt Fork River. Dubbed “Cowboy Hill,” the land was to be used as a meeting place so long as two old-timers held a meeting.
Brewster said it best in 1937 when he wrote, “this organization has for it only purpose FRATERNITY, a feature that makes it one of the most unique in the world: In that it was never incorporated; has never had a constitution and by-laws to govern, yet none but a unanimous vote was ever case since it organized.”
Politics and religion are taboo, not discussed and only ties of love and friendship have bound us together...and will continue until all of us are called to the ‘Great Beyond’. It was that theme, above all else, which was most prevalent in any reports.
The Cherokee Strip Cow Punchers’ Association must always be remembered as one of the most unique of all fraternal organizations.