I remember one nice day in Oklahoma 75 years ago when I volunteering to drive my grandfather, Will W. Armstrong, down to Wister for a visit with his daughter. I was the only one handy that day and besides, being a teenager with a new driver’s license, I looked forward to the trip. I asked my grandpa a lot of questions that day. We were pretty close buddies anyway and many items he mentioned that day I still remember. Born in 1872 he knew a lot about early Oklahoma history. In fact, he lived a lot of it. Driving through Gowan on US270 and down Gowan Mountain into the vast Gowen Prairie, I asked him if he remembered how this part of the state looked in his “day.”

He peered through the windshield of Dad’s ‘51 Chevy and said “this big valley was grown over with the tallest grass I ever saw. One day,” he went on, “I was with a group of mounted deputy U. S. Marshalls and we were going to McAlester to transfer a prisoner to Fort Smith. Before we would enter a valley like this when the grass was dry and dead we would carefully survey the land for smoke. I was the best tree climber,” he said, “and I would climb a good tall tree and look long and hard for smoke and fire.” I asked him why so much concern and he told me that on a breezy day, grass would reach a horse’s belly — and you might not be able to out-race a prairie fire.

He then told me about a lot of historic places and homes which since then have mostly been torn down or vanished. Of much interest to me was the so called “Cross Timbers.” The Cross Timbers were a band of heavy growth trees that had grown up and intertwined in such a manner you simply couldn’t ride a horse through it. This band of “Ironwood” brush was anywhere from 5 to 40 miles wide and you needed to find a trail or bring your ax to get past it. These iron fences ran from Kansas down through Oklahoma to the Fort Worth, Texas area. As a reference point, let me point out that Hughes, Seminole and Pontotoc counties were in this belt of difficult woods. I was struggling to not only believe grandpa, but also to visualize the area.

The trees in this strip, what writer Washington Irving called a cast iron fence in 1835, were called Shin Oak, Oak, Elm, Cedar, Hickory and Walnut. Grandpa said it also contained the dreaded Bois D’ Arc (Bo Dark) tree, too. It’s geography lay along what we call the “Dry Line” these days — a line that separates the humid air from the Gulf of Mexico from the dry air of the Llano Estacado or Texas Panhandle. Frequent fires that raged unchecked on the great prairies kept the timbers fairly small and over the eons of time the surviving trees were small, tough and mean, making passage very difficult. You could hardly walk or just ride a horse through it. Much less drive a wagon. Grandpa Will said the U S Government sent army troops to clear roads through this “Iron fence.”

One important trail passed over the South Canadian River (near Allen) and afforded a way through this “fence.” This trail site is marked by a historical Marker on SHWY-1 near Allen. There used to be a marker on SHWY 48 near Lake Holdenville which identifies Fort Holmes a site of a very important early day trading post. This trail gave good passage across the river as well as through the Cross Timbers for those headed West. Settlements on this side of the river in the 1800s were the beginnings of the town of Allen — the area where the presentday artesian wells (the Francis turnoff) are, provided an easy and ready source of drinking water. The south bank of the Canadian also had many cold springs, and gave Allen its first name, “Cold Springs, I.T.” However, there were two Cold Springs settlements in Oklahoma so our postmaster later on changed the name to Allen, after his son Allen McCall.

I got a lot of good stories about the “olden days” from Grandpa Will that beautiful day in April 1951 and wish I had written more of them down. Of course, being a teenager, I didn’t. Except in my mind.

Meanwhile, I hope you have a good weekend, remember to go to church and do your best not to text while driving. I know my grandpa never did.

Wayne Bullard, DPh cwaynebullard@gmail.com