160 acres
We're homesteaders now. The run was so much fun. Grant was so excited to run that he started running as soon as he got out of the car, and failed to see a fence that met him on his right eye. But he quickly recovered.
The event organizer had put markers on the ground to signal each available homestead - some included small bottles of water to signify there was water on the land. Other land had oil.
Giles' charge was to find us one with water and he stopped at the first one ... Grant kept running! But we got him back. Lydia and Grant paid the $14 for our claim (the land was free but the paperwork wasn't) while Giles guarded the place against claim jumpers. But it was a pretty friendly crowd.
Some of the other houses and businesses were very creative. We had a church, several general mercantiles, a post office, an outhouse (charged 10 cents), a toy store, a blacksmith, a newspaper, a feed store and other farmers like us.
The kids earned snacks to feed their families by answering land run trivia questions. The prizes were sunflower seeds or Cracker jack. I thought we were going to starve when Giles answered Theodore Roosevelt on the question of who the president was in 1889 ... I couldn't believe he couldn't remember Benjamin Harrison (who?). But he came through for us when he correctly named the Redbud as our state tree.
A few of the swaps we came home with: nails from the blacksmith, a quilt square, pea shooters, home made soap, bread from the baker, a newspaper and seeds for carrots and lettuce.
Posted in: on Thursday, April 19, 2007 at at 1:07 PM
