[Vickie McDonough] What Was the Oklahoma Land Run?

I was recently on a Facebook party promoting my Land Rush Dreams series, and I was surprised to learn how many people had never heard of the Oklahoma land runs. So, let me enlighten you, in case you haven’t heard of them either.

There were seven land runs in Oklahoma, but by far, the most well-known were the 1889 and the 1893 runs. The first occurred on April 22nd, 1889, which led to the settling of the Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties in Oklahoma. Nearly two million acres of Unassigned Indian Lands were claimed in a single day. The terms “Boomer,” “Eighty-Niners” and “Sooner” were birthed during the days before this run. Now you know where the Oklahoma Sooners from the University of Oklahoma got their name. #BoomerSooner.

The Land Run of September 16, 1893, was known as the Cherokee Strip Land Run. It opened 8,144,682.91 acres to settlement. The land was purchased from the Cherokees. It was the largest land run in U.S. history, four times larger than the Land Rush of 1889.

That’s a very brief overview. The land runs proved to be too chaotic, so the government they switched over to land lotteries to settle the final Unassigned Indian Lands. In my Land Rush Dreams series, I feature both of the land runs mentioned above and the land lottery. I always enjoy mixing real-life history with fictional stories.