Transition 1866-1901

Transition 1866-1901. . The sound was distant but distinct - so faint, at first, that many among the dispersed families of the Lochoapoka Tallasi did not know if they even heard it. Over days, it grew louder - the 'chink' and 'clang' of metal-on-metal, forcing its way among the hills and bluffs toward the fords below the bend of the Arkansas River., The incursion of the railroads into the lands of the Cherokee and Mvskoke (Creek) Nations planted a terminus railhead a mile east of the Arkansas in 1882 and extended to a second, in 1883, just half a mile northeast from the location of this marker, and named it Red Fork. Tent towns of traders, merchants, pioneers took root on these rights-of-way, strips of railroad land reclaimed by Federal action from the ownership of the Mvskoke (Creek) Nation. , Through inter-marriage and negotiated leasing, mixed-blood 'Creeks' and ambitious cattle ranchers laid claim to grazing rights on thousands of acres in the area for fattening the trail drive cattle for shipment to Mid-western markets. A single shipment of 4,500 head left the Red Fork - Tulsa yards in 1891., Pressure grew to dismantle the unitary ownership of vast lands granted to the relocated Southern Mvskoke Creeks and citizenship rolls and land surveys were undertaken to move toward individual allotment and transfer of ownership of tens of thousands of land parcels. , With the 'official' beginning of the 20th Century on January 1, 1901, there had come the dawn of a definitely new and different Century in the Indian Territory.