This information is offered FREE and taken from http://www.okgenweb.net/~okcaddo/ If you have arrived here using a pay site please know that this information has been donated by volunteers in a joint effort to provide FREE genealogy material online. Caddo Co. OK - Newspaper The Minco Minstrel Submitted by Nancy Charlton ============================================================================== MINCO, CHICKASAW NATION I.T. Friday Jan. 26, 1894 An old Timer W.G. Williiams was up today from the south Indian country, consulting his attorney, W.H. Criley, on business matters. He is one of the prominent stockman of the lower country, he has a fine stock ranch on the Washita river, ten miles below Anadarko. "Bill" as he is everywhere known, is now 54 years of age, and has been 33 years with the Caddo Indians. He left Kentucky in 1859 and went to Texas on foot. Here he worked on a ranch at $15 per month for awhile, and afterward gathered stray cattle in the Wichita Mountains among the hostile Indians, where no white man would go and received a consideration of one third of the cattle he recovered. In this way he made his first "stake". During the war he was contractor to furnish beef to the Osage, Caddo and Comanche Indians, and at the close of the war received $18,000 in Confederate currency, which being worthless caused his bankruptcy. He soon recovered from his discouragement,, however, and soon began to accumulate, and he now has on his ranch 2,500 cattle, 350 horses, and 300 hogs. His horses are extra fine American blooded horses, the result of thirteen years of careful breeding, and the half-moon brand if horses are in demand wherever known, Williams has 2,000 acres of land under fence and in cultivation, and has besides a pasture one mile square, fenced with wire. As a result of his prosperity, a large elegant frame residence is completed at the ranch, which cost $3,000. Williams is married to a Caddo woman and has eight children. During all the time he has been among the Indians he has only been in one Indian fight-El Reno Herald. ============================================================================== 1894 MINCO MINSTREL 24 August 1894 Rough Fun Last Tuesday night John Martin and his son, Cliff, and Jake Horn got into a frivolous dispute about something of no consequence and, as usual, it grew into something much more serious. During the racket Jake was cut in several places with a pocketknife, Cliff was knocked off his feet, and John Martin was the only one that was not hurt in any way. All parties are good friends and it seems there was no malice before nor after the melee. Tit was simply an unfortunate scuffle growing out of a useless quarrel. The grocery and notion store of W.H. Gillum was broken into by petty thieves on Wednesday night of this week. About five dollars worth of goods were taken, consisting of tobacco, cigars, oysters and such things. An entrance was made by removing the slats and screen from a rear window. Mr. Gillum is satisfied as to the identity of the guilty parties and will probably give the case over to the marshal. Will A. Handy, now of Dallas, Texas, but a Missouri raised boy, is in Minco on a visit to Lewis N. Hornbeck and family. Mr. Handy thinks we have a great county up here and only regrets that the reservations are not opened to settlement and business so that he could turn himself loose in this locality. Build the Road There is quite an agitation going on now between Minco and the farming locality about Union City, north of the Canadian river, in reference to building a good and more direct road from the country to Minco. We have investigated the subject pretty thoroughly, and the MINSTEL is in favor of building the proposed road, though the route most spoken of will necessarily have to be abandoned. It is talked generally that the old road between Minco and Union, along the west side of the railroad track, could be easily re-opened. That is a mistake. Since the railroad was completed the big fill near the bluff had dammed up the string of lakes lying west of the track until that route is out of the question. A road on that route would be obliged to veer off west from the track about one-half a mile, which would throw it out in the middle of the Campbell farm, and cost more than it would be worth to the people who pay for it. And beside the necessary cost to the people, Mr. Campbell refused to have his farm cut up in that shape under any consideration. So that settles the old route, and we may well dismiss that part of it. But the road can be made along the eastern side of the track, following that along till near the bridge when a crossing can be made over the railroad track so as to cross the river over the bridge, on the western side, Mr. Campbell is willing to make the necessary concessions on right of way along this route, ad as a consequence it would cost much less and still be as effectual as the other route. There will be not water of any consequence on the east side of the track, and the principal cost would be the making of a lane of posts and wire from Minco to the river, and the digging down of the bluff on the south side of the Canadian valley. The cost of the road is yet problematical of course, but a conservative and fair estimate so far as the cost can be know, places the price to our people at about $250. This is for wire and posts, digging down embankments, setting the fences and the crossing over the railroad near the Canadian bridge. On the other side of the river the people will take the matter in hand, and work with us in order to get to a better and steadier market for their produce of all kinds. As the people on the Oklahoma side are anxious for the road to be built it will pay Minco to look after the matter and see that they can get here on the shortest and best route possible. The present roads are out of the way and much farther than is necessary to get to Minco. Rally to the subject and let us have the straightest route and the trade of the Oklahoma County. Jim Williams was taken through here one day this week on his way to the Guthrie jail for safekeeping. He failed to give satisfactory bond in the case of the United States against him for robbing the mail, and was remanded to jail to await the trial. We failed to learn exactly the status of the case against him for forging Washita county script, but have been informed that the case was held over, awaiting the final disposition of the United States case. The script business will hang over him, ready for prosecution, until the other case comes to trial. Mrs. Williams is here, but wants to go on to Guthrie to be near her husband, as a true and loyal woman should. The sympathy of the entire community is with her in this distress. Dude Canady, of Union, well known to our people, was shot and killed near McAlester one-day last week. No explanation has been made as to who did the shooting nor is any reason given for the deed. All we can learn is that he was shot and killed instantly. ============================================================================== 31 August 1894 Keno, the Mexican living a mile or two west, was arrested again last Monday by deputy marshals from El Reno and taken up there to answer for that old charge of hauling wood from the Wichita reservation. This is a wearisome subject to our people. Keno was released, of course, and told to return in November for trial. Mrs. Alice Cornett, who has been quite sick for some time, is now reported in a fair way to recovery. Dr. Johnson, of Chickasha, the former physician of the family, was called in for consultation with Dr. Means; of Minco and under their combined shill she has taken a turn for the better. The sick woman is a daughter of the widow Shirley. ==============================================================================