October Genealogy Workshop

The October genealogy workshop begins Saturday at 9:00 am in the Muskogee Public Library at 801 W. Okmulgee. The Muskogee County Genealogical Society is conducting this workshop in cooperation with the library. It is open to those interested in learning how to trace their ancestry.

Jere Harris, long-time staff member in the library's genealogy department, leads the first session by showing attendees how to "Advance Your Research Skills." She will present ideas to outwit the census enumerator and overcome other basic research problems.

Stacy Blundell teaches the second morning session. Besides decades of research under her belt, she is vice-president of the Muskogee County Genealogical Society. Her topic is "Tracing Female Ancestors." Perplexing problems in her own research taught Stacy that locating a wife or daughter's family in not impossible. Her visual aids in teaching always evoke laughter.

I present the final morning session. The subject of this presentation is "Pre-Civil War Arkansas Research." My extensive experience in using Arkansas resources enables me to show how to use diverse sources to broaden historical and cultural understanding of the lives of your ancestors. I will focus on using tax assessment records, delinquent tax lists and other sources to trace a life. My topic is especially appropriate for Oklahoma researchers because so many ancestors passed through Arkansas on their way to Sooner-land.

"Federal Land Records" is the subject Sue Tolbert and Stacy Blundell will discuss immediately after a brown-bag lunch. Ms. Tolbert is the Executive Director of the Three Rivers Museum and is a former president of the genealogical society. Together, Stacy and Sue will present information on the wealth of family data available in records of the Bureau of Land Management. These records were generated at the time of land transfer from the Federal government to private ownership. This duo works well together in simplifying learning how informative these records are.

Nancy Calhoun winds up the workshop by talking about the problems of "Researching Common Surnames." If your ancestors were named Smith or Jones (or any of the other common surnames), Nancy will tell you how to figure out which ones are your ancestors. She is the head of the library's genealogy department.

The Muskogee Public Library is co-hosting the workshop. Workshop attendees will be able to squeeze in moments of research during the lunch hour or after the workshop ends using the extensive collections in the library's genealogy department. Library staff will be on hand during the day to answer questions and assist researchers in locating resources or using equipment.

The workshop is free to the public. Donations to offset expenses will be greatly appreciated.

Muskogee's Kit-Built Homes

Barbara Downs' interest in Muskogee buildings extends back several years. She believes there are many homes in Muskogee that arrived in railroad boxcars.

Several companies sold everything needed to build a home. Sears, Roebuck and Company became the best known because they offered so many kits. Company use of widely distributed catalogs promoted the product. Sears began selling whole homes in 1909 after selling fixtures for over a decade. Altogether, Sears sold over 100,000 homes, not counting all the $39 outhouses and more expensive farm buildings or barns.

The Sears catalog eventually offered over one hundred models for the future homeowner. Some were mere cabins with no plumbing or electrical wiring. These usually cost much less than a thousand dollars. However, the buyer could add or delete features that raised or lower the final price.


This photograph is a current illustration of a Sears kit home. This home has the address of 712 Callahan Street. Sears first offered the "Lorain" model in 1910. The company designed it as a two-story structure to house two separate families, one above the other in identical floor plans. This house is identical to the building at 718 Callahan Street that was built the next year, but is no longer standing.

The base price for this two-family "flat" was $1,238. The contractor decided to purchase a "flipped" floor plan for the building. Originally, the front bay window was on the left side. Sears offered both designs for the same price. However, the contractor added a bay window to enlarge the kitchen area. It is possible to see the bay window bulging out of the right outside wall about half way back. The contractor also opted to make the front porch stretch across the front of the whole building. These two additions to the original plans elevated the purchase cost to about $1,500.

When the kit arrived in Muskogee, the builder hauled it from the freight depot to the construction site where he had the foundation already built. The kit included 750 pounds of nails and all of the hardware to doors and windows. Each piece had a number stamped on it to coordinate with numbers on the building plans.

The framing, flooring and all interior wood was pine. Cypress siding covered the outside walls. The original roof was of cedar shingling. There was enough paint for applying two coats both inside and out. The buyer got to choose the colors.

The price quoted above did not include a heater or hot water heater. Nor was the cost of electrical wiring included. Sears offered these as extras.

Sears began offering mortgages in 1911. The mortgages were one-page documents. These mortgages were Sears's first venture into providing financial services. This service helped Sears to become the sales leader for kit homes.

The first owner and resident of the home at 712 Callahan Street was a real estate agent named Charles Olentine. His wife and two children lived with him. It is impossible to say if he ordered the Sears kit home. Very likely he did. Two years ago, the former Olentine residence needed attention. The current owners are working to restore this home.

Muskogee Red, Tramp Printer

Muskogee Red was a tramp printer who passed through Muskogee. It was during the days before typesetting machines dominated publisher's back rooms. Tramp printers were an itinerant breed of workers who came into existence during the explosion of newspaper publishing following the Civil War. They traveled from town to town, often along railroad lines, stopping to work for a few days or a few months. This is the story of how Red got his name and won his place in American history.

He was born Andrew J. Redmond in South Carolina several years before the Civil War. Exactly when he was born was unknown even to Andrew. Suffice to say, his birth occurred about 1856. He grew up with an older brother named Patrick in a large orphanage in Charlestown. He was one of hundreds of other boys and girls without parents. His lack of parents made it natural for him to exhibit no attachment to place during his life.

A description of him survives. He was a slender man of short stature. His red hair only partially brought about his "Muskogee Red" nickname. He had a typically Irish face. A wag said one could see the "map of Ireland" all over it."

Tramp printers were generally competent spellers and writers who loved a good story. They usually were keen sighted and had nimble fingers. Many could quote long literary passages.

Some were sober, thrifty workers. Many tramp printers, however, spent their wages on that liquid refreshment that loosened one's tongue. Sleeping in the back room of a printer's shop was common. It was also common for a tramp printer to sleep in a jail cell or an empty railroad boxcar.

Redmond arrived in Muskogee in 1901, after having worked in Lincoln, Nebraska the previous year. Muskogee was a humming town with half a dozen printers. Picking out the largest, Redmond walked in the doors of the "Muskogee Phoenix." He found the office on West Okmulgee and Second Street, just a couple of blocks from the Katy Depot. Clarence B. Douglas was the editor and publisher.

Tramp printers were usually needed by printers for filling vacancies or for working on rush jobs. With the Dawes Commission and hordes of lawyers actively working in Muskogee, there was a lot of printing business.

Redmond's days picking out casted type out of typecase drawers ended on Friday with payment for his week's work. By Sunday, Redmond had spent at least one night in jail. His appearance before a Muskogee town judge Monday morning was predictable.

Whether it was his first appearance, or his tenth, before the judge, Redmond found himself receiving sound advice one morning from a judge who regularly dealt with drunks. One can hear the judge repeating a frequently delivered sermon about the evils of alcohol. The day Redmond stood in court, the judge must have also pointed out how physically destructive liquor was.

Redmond spotted a bottle of red ink on the judge's desk. Quickly grabbing it, he raised it to his lips and drank it all. An old time Phoenix employee recalled in 1936 that Redmond wanted to prove to the judge that he had a "cast iron stomach."

Unrepentant, Redmond soon left Muskogee for his next job down the road. Five years later, in Topeka, Kansas, Redmond wrote his obituary. Now widely known across the United States as "Muskogee Red" because of his ink drinking, Redmond predicted that he would be found dead beside some road, the victim of acute alcoholism. He predicted his permanent home thereafter would be the potter's field nearby.

Muskogee Red survived alcoholism and the many years of living precariously. The year before his death in 1936, Redmond saw his story published in the Saturday Evening Post magazine. After many years of sobriety, he died in Colorado at a home for retired print shop workers. Newspapers all across the United States paid homage to the tramp printer who made a name for himself in Muskogee.

Muskogee's First Newspaper

Today, most residents of Muskogee think of the "Muskogee Phoenix" as being its first newspaper because it has lasted for so many years. When told that it was not, old-timers recall the "Muskogee Times-Democrat" as a likely candidate as the first newspaper. Neither one has the distinction.

The newspaper title that began Muskogee's publishing history was the "Indian Progress." Its slogan, "Onward and Upward," typified a growing town less than four years old.

Elias C. Boudinot owned the newspaper in partnership with at least one other. E. Poe Harris was the working editor. Both were Masons who promoted railroad construction and assimilation with whites who wanted to move into Indian Territory. Seventeen-year-old Caleb Starr also worked there.

The editor and owner bragged that the Indian Progress was owned, edited and published by Native Americans. All of this was true up to a point. Harris hastily filed for citizenship in the Cherokee Nation because of his marriage to a member of that tribe. At that time, such marriage conveyed citizenship to the non-Indian spouse.

Boudinot and Harris knew they faced opposition when they moved their hand-cranked press into a building they erected on Muskogee's Main Street. They planned to publish the newspaper in multiple tribal languages. They hoped the support of several tribes might offset the opposition of a single tribe.

However, the Creek Nation took offense with the newspaper's position on opening up Indian Territory to settlement. In typically western fashion, the arguments grew heated. The Creek's National Council finally passed a tribal law banning the newspaper.

The Creek Council ordinance was based on Boudinot and Harris not having obtained permission to locate a business in the Creek Nation where Muskogee was located. The council gave the newspaper ten days to depart or else the tribe would confiscate the press and building.

Six days later, on October 22, 1875, the first issue of the Indian Progress came off the press. The Creek Nation did not rush to remove the newspaper. This may possibly have been in response to Boudinot's complaints to the Indian Agent. Boudinot argued that "free press" was being trampled.

The Creek Nation's opposition finally won out. In December, the press moved to Vinita in the Cherokee Nation. It continued printing articles favorable to its agenda until the following March. Then, the newspaper owners finally gave up.

During its publication in Muskogee, the Indian Progress published a weekly, four-page publication. Two columns of print appeared in each of the languages of the Five Civilized Tribes. After writing columns in Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole, he wrote the last seven in English. A yearly subscription cost one dollar.

The Indian Progress newspaper did not survive for long because it was ahead of its time editorially. Alternatively, one may argue it angered the wrong readership.

Edgar Rulison and When Soda Pop Came to Muskogee

The year was 1890. During those twelve months, Muskogee saw the arrival of carbonated soda drinks. Edgar R. Rulison got the idea of selling soft drinks in his hometown while in St. Louis buying drugstore supplies.

Rulison, of Danish origins, came to Muskogee about 1885 to be a clerk in Dr. Mason F. Williams' drugstore. He gained clerking experience in a grocery store in Burlingame, Kansas following the sudden death of his father in a sawmill accident. By the time Dr. Williams and Rulison met, Edgar had years of sales experience.

Drugstore business was successful until the fire of March 27, 1887 destroyed Dr. Williams' office and drugstore. At the same time, the fire destroyed every other building downtown except for a hotel. One merchant rebuilt his hardware store on the northeast corner of present day Main and Broadway.

A row of narrow wooden structures sprang up north of the lumberyard adjacent to the hardware store. The town post office operated out of the building next to the lumberyard. Dr. Williams' office stood next door to the post office. It was upstairs over the drug store operated by Edgar Rulison.

Early in 1890, before he started selling soft drinks, Rulison joined Muskogee's first band as its bass drummer. A few years later, he got fellow band member Ben Bellis to plumb his home. It was one of the first houses in Muskogee to have indoor plumbing.

Edgar began selling soda drinks by the glass in his drugstore in 1890. His soda fountain combined syrup with carbonated water. The concoction was a patent medicine remedy advertised for many ailments from headaches to drug addictions. Over time, the lure of a sweetened drink on a hot territorial day increased consumption for non-medical purposes.

Marshall Bragdon worked as a post office clerk and as a court clerk until failing health forced him, like Theodore Roosevelt, to take up an outdoor life on a nearby ranch. After regaining his health, he returned to Muskogee and asked Rulison to go into partnership. Rulison agreed and the two opened a drug store on South Main just a few blocks from Rulison's former location.

Following a fire on February 23, 1899 that destroyed downtown Muskogee again, Rulison set up a soda fountain at home and continued peddling carbonated drinks. The fire, however, brought about a surge in people realizing the value of insurance coverage.

At the same time, there was increasing awareness by Muskogee businessmen that the opening up of Indian Territory meant there would be greater interest in buying and selling land. Consequently, Rulison sold his soft drink company, the Muskogee Bottling Works, in 1903. He never sold merchandise over the counter again.

Edgar R. Rulison lived a long life in Muskogee. He married Ruth Myers in 1887 and had two sons. On March 8, 1888, he became the first Master of Arms for the newly instituted Phoenix Lodge #3 of the Knights of Pythias.

Soda pop was Rulison's ticket to success. By 1912, Rulison was worth an estimated $100,000. Between 1906 and 1913, he spent some of his money traveling around the world. In his travels, he visited Europe, Australia and South America.

After Rulison sold the Muskogee Bottling Works in 1903, he worked as a real estate agent. He began selling insurance about 1910, finally retiring in 1939. Edgar R. Rulison died in 1954. He rests in Memorial Park Cemetery west of town.