Back to Index

CHEROKEE STRIP COWBOYS BARE CHISHOLM TRAIL FACTS

STATE HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT URGED TO PLACE CHISHOLM TRAIL MARKERS ALONG U. S. HIGHWAY 81

September 11, 1930—Enid Eagle--Men who carved and rode the early day trials across Oklahoma, and marked them with the graves of their comrades---the cowboys—have added a most illustrious chapter to the recent controversy over where the Chisholm Trail crosses Oklahoma.

            Members of the Old Timers Cherokee Strip Cow Punchers association, assembling at the 101 ranch near Ponca City Labor day, appeared to thousands of new comers to the state as being just an aggregation of old timers who assembled to tell yearns and live over bygone days.  But in reality this association she the most light on the Chisholm Trail controversy yet uncovered.

            Moreover the members gave the most plausible, and what those who lived then and know to be true, reason for the controversy over the location of the Chisholm Tail.

            The Chisholm Trail, the trail across Oklahoma from near Nocona, Texas, to Caldwell, Kansas, founded by Jesse Chisholm, Indian, is the real Chisholm Trail across Oklahoma.

            Yet, there was another trail across Oklahoma, leading north from Vernon, Texas, through Hobart, to Woodward and thence north to the Kansas lie, also known occasionally as the Chisholm Trail.

            John Chisholm founded this trail. He was a cowman and he mapped out the trail to drive herds from his large Texas ranches north to market.

            Bu few of the cowboys of the early days ever referred to this trail as the Chisholm Trail.  In fact most of the members of the Cow Punchers association, who remember the trail, believe this Chisholm spelled his name differently from Jesse Chisholm, but they do not recall the difference.

            The trail was known to most of the early day cowpunchers as the Jingle Bob trail, getting its name from the peculiar brand of Chisholm’s cattle.  The Chisholm who was a rancher and cowman, cut the ears of his cattle so that a portion of them dropped down and this portion bobbed up and down when the cattle moved like a jingle bob, thus giving the popular name to the trail.

            The Jingle Bob trail also was occasionally referred to as the Star Trail, but not any of the members of the association could recall how the trail got this name.

            Men who lived through and remember well the sentiment so aptly expressed today in the verse:

“Out where the handclasp’s a little stronger,

Out where the smile dwells a little longer.

Here’s where the west begins.”

Took pencils in hand at the Labor Day meeting and marked out the two trails that have brought on a controversy in northwest Oklahoma.

            John I. Miller, of Enid, J. W. Durst, of Goodnight, C. C. Smith, of Loyal, John McBrain, of Eddy, Frank Eaton of Perkins and G. N. Avery, of Cedar Grove, N. J., all in Oklahoma long before it was Opened for settlement, riding mustangs when it was not the safest occupation in the world, marked out the trails.

            These men and scores of others who rode the lines in the land—

“Where there’s more singing and less sighing.

Where there’s more giving and les buying,

And a man makes friends without half trying—

Here’s where the west beings,”

Remember the trails as strips four miles wide across the sate, where cattle, were ranged and kept moving ever northward; where chuck wagons often got lost or stuck and where cap fires were welcome sights.

            Most residents today picture the Chisholm Trail, which closely parallels he Meridian or U. S. highway 81, across Oklahoma, as a narrow road where cattle were driven in the days before the country was opened for settlement.  But it was farm from that.

            According to the route marked out by the former cow punchers, the Jesse Chisholm Trail entered Oklahoma just east o where the bridge now spans the Red river near Terrel, swung a little west to miss here Waurika now stands, following Beaver creek to a point just west of Marlow, thence north to Chickasha and almost north to El Reno, Kingfisher, Hennessey, Bison, Waukomis and Enid and on to Jefferson, thence veering east to Caldwell.

            Mr. Millwee recalls that the stage station was the located at Jefferson and the said the Cow Punchers association took official action to see if the graves of two cowboys and an Indian killed near where Jefferson now stands can be located and the graves either marked or the bodies disinterred and buried in some cemetery

            “The graves are now worked over, I am sure,” Mr. Miller said. “In Fact we could most likely maker the entire Chisholm Trail across the state by locating the graves of the boys who got killed or died while driving herds across the state.”

            The Jingle Bob rail, the one founded by John Chisholm, the cattleman, entered Oklahoma at Doans, ran straight north to Hobart and Butler, thence veering northwest to Camargo, Sharron, Woodward, Supply and Buffalo and on into Kansas.

            With between 130 and 150 members of The Cow Punchers association present at Ponca City, the body unanimously passed resolutions defining the Chisholm Trail as marked out, and they also passed a resolution requesting the state highway department to place suitable markers along U. S. Highway 81 along the Jesse Chisholm Trial.

            Many of the members recalled the happy days on the prairies of what is now Oklahoma as far back as 1879. In fact Frank Eaton of Perkins said he was over the Jingle Bob trail three times, once in 1879, again in 1886 and again in 1889.  C. C. Smith also said   he had been over the southern part of the trail and others recalled being at Doans often, the southern end of the trail.

            Discussion of the old trails brought many a sigh from the former cowpuncher:

Wish that we could live the old days over,

Just once more.

I wish that we could hit the trail together.

Just once more

Say Pal, the years are slipping by

With many a dream and many a sigh—

“Let’s chum together, you ad I,

Just once more.

            The association is dedicated to the cow-workers and those who were pioneers of the cattle industry of the Cherokee Strip from 1874 to 1893, when every man was a law unto himself, but no yellow was tolerated, where a man had to be a man in every sense and a shirker is nothing.

 G. N. Avery, who rode he trails in he early days, later remaining for the development of the country, has moved back to Cedar Grove, N. J.  but he motored all the way to Ponca City Labor day to attend the reunion of the cow punchers.

            J.W. Durst of Goodnight, moved to Chicago several years ago.  He became so lonesome for Oklahoma that he wrote a song, “Sunny Oklahoma,” which is sung at the meetings of the association.

            The resolutions and discussions of the association are to be sent to the state historical society, it being t first time the controversy over the two Chisholm Trails has ever been cleared up with any degree of satisfaction—and done so by the men for whom the traill were laid out and who used them—Enid Eagle.