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1540
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 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado leads Mexico's invasion of
the north with an expeditionary force of 300 conquistadors and
more than one thousand Indian "allies." When they reach Cibola,
they find not the promised metropolis but "a little, crowded
village, looking as if it had been crumpled all up together."
This is the Zuni Pueblo of Hawikuh, whose warriors answer with
arrows when Coronado demands that they swear loyalty to his
King. Within an hour, the Spaniards have overrun the pueblo, and
over the next few weeks, they conquer the other Zunis in the
region.
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1542
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Traveling by compass north across the Texas and Oklahoma,
Coronado and his men explore the region for a month, ranging as
far north as the Smoky Hill River in central Kansas. In late
August Coronado begins the long trek back to his camp on the
upper Rio Grande, where he will spend the winter. Passing
through the area that will eventually become Grandfield, a padre
in the expedition dies. His grave is marked with a diamond
shaped tombstone which reads "Don Juan Valerez, El Padre,
Madrid Senor de la Bonito Senorito. 1542.
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1650
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Horses stolen from the ranches of New Mexico begin to transform
the culture of the Plains, enabling Native Americans to hunt
buffalo more efficiently and to range farther in battle with
their enemies. Within another generation the horse will spread
from New Mexico through the region west of the Rocky Mountains
to the tribes of the Northwest.
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1824
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The U.S. army establishes outposts in present-day Oklahoma, at
Fort Towson on the Red River and at Fort Gibson on the Arkansas
River, in preparation for the removal of the Cherokee and
Choctaw tribes from the Southeast to the newly designated Indian
Territory. |
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1836
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The Holland Coffee company builds a trading post on the Red River in
present day Tillman County. The successful post did a great deal
of trading with the Comanche Indians. In addition, the trading
post was able to trade wares for the lives of white captives who
fell to raids in the Texas Republic between 1836 and 1843.
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1867
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 The first cattle drive from Texas up the Chisholm Trail arrives
at the rail yards of Abilene, Kansas. This cattle trail crosses
through the big pasture area for the next several years. |
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1867
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The United States and representatives of the Comanche, Kiowa,
Cheyenne, Arapaho and other southern Plains tribes sign the
Medicine Lodge Treaty, intended to remove Indians from the path
of white settlement. The treaty marks the end of the era in
which federal policymakers saw the Plains as "one big
reservation" to be divided up among various tribes. Instead, the
treaty establishes reservations for each tribe in the western
part of present-day Oklahoma and requires them to give up their
traditional lands elsewhere. In exchange, the government pledges
to establish reservation schools and to provide resident farmers
who will teach the Indians agriculture. This same principle of
restricting the Plains tribes to reservations will help shape
the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. In both cases, the tribes'
refusal to give up their free-ranging traditions and remain
confined within the territory assigned to them leads to
devastating warfare.
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1870
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Buffalo hunters begin moving onto the plains, brought there by
the expanding railroads and the growing market for hides and
meat back east. In little more than a decade, they reduce the
once numberless herd to an endangered species. |
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1871
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 As buffalo herds are decimated by white thrill seekers, Native
American tribes begin raiding white communities and ranches
along the Red River in search of food. To help stop the attacks,
the U.S. army establishes Camp Auger southwest of present day
Grandfield. The camp, named after Brigadier General C.C. Augur,
was occupied by the Tenth Calvary (buffalo soldiers) and
frequently attacked by Indians, however only one death was ever
recorded.
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1883
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Buffalo hunters gather on the northern Plains for the last large
buffalo kill, among them a Harvard-educated New York assemblyman
named Theodore Roosevelt, who hopes to bag a trophy before the
species disappears. Hunters have already destroyed the southern
herd, and by 1884, except for small domestic herds kept by
sentimental ranchers, there are only scattered remnants of the
animal that more than any other symbolizes the American West.
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1883
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A group of clergymen, government officials and social reformers
calling itself �The Friends of the Indian� meets in upstate New
York to develop a strategy for bringing Native Americans into
the mainstream of American life. Their decisions set the course
for U.S. policy toward Native Americans over the next generation
and result in the near destruction of Native American culture.
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1884
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 Large cattle barons use their influence to rent desirable land
from the Comanche and Kiowa Indians. Most of the Big Pasture
area was rented by W.T. Waggoner in the 1880's and 1890's.
Because Indians would not accept paper money, cattlemen would
load wagons with either gold or silver and travel to Fort Sill
or Anadarko to pay their rent.
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1885
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President Grover Cleveland warns so-called "Boomers" to stay off
Indian Territory lands in present-day Oklahoma. |
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1890
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Congress establishes the Oklahoma Territory on unoccupied lands
in the Indian Territory, breaking a 60-year-old pledge to
preserve this area exclusively for Native Americans forced from
their lands in the east. |
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1893
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Experts estimate that fewer that 2,000 buffalo remain of the
more than 20 million that once roamed the Western plains. |
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1901
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Thousands of pioneers flock to southwest Oklahoma as Indian
grazing lands are opened to settlement. Over 100,000 bids were
received for land parcels in the Big Pasture area. Those awarded
land had to live and improve upon the land for five years. |
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1907
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Oklahoma entered the Union as the forty-sixth state on
November 16, 1907. Derived from the Choctaw Indian words "okla,"
meaning people, and "humma," meaning red, Oklahoma was
designated Indian Territory in 1828. By 1880, sixty tribes,
forced by European immigration and the U.S. government to
relocate, had moved to Oklahoma. |
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1908
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Kell becomes a more promising place to locate as the new
railroad runs through the town. Infuriated the railroad would
not build a depot in their town as planned, the residents
of Eschiti begin legal actions against the illegally established
Kell. Kell, on the other hand, was furious because the
government refused to establish a post office to an illegal town
site.
Disturbed by the two feuding communities, Rev. A.J. Tant,
whose farm settlement bordered Kell to the south, offered free
lots to anyone who was willing to move their business to his
town site. Many residents and businesses from both Kell and
Eschiti quickly moved to the new town. However, the town was
still called Kell (much to the chagrin of relocated Eschiti
residents) and had no post office.
One moonless night In October of 1908, a few residents of the
new town stole the Eschiti post off building and moved it to the
new town site. They worked so stealthily that the sleeping
postal clerk inside the building did not know it had been moved
nearly two miles until the next day when he awoke. The post
office remained in the new town only one day, however as two
U.S. deputy marshals began asking question about who was
involved in the move. The post office reappeared in Eschiti the
next night as quickly as it had disappeared.
Without a post office and a name for their town, a committee
of residents approached the U.S. government for assistance. With
the considerable help from the Third Assistant Post Master
General, C.P. Grandfield, the new town was awarded their post
office in November. In recognition of Grandfield's help, the
city also had a new name.
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Oil boom
kicks off in the Big Pasture near Grandfield.