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HARD COUNTRY
Before statehood in 1907, the Indian Territory was no place for a tenderfoot. There's a story that illustrates this, about a man who fled the Indian Territory in 1903 and didn't stop until he got to St. Louis. The man made quite a stir there, because he was driving a buckboard which was hitched to four mountain lions. The grizzly pioneer carried a Sharps buffalo rifle, wore two Navy colts strapped around his middle, and had a razor-sharp Bowie knife stuck under his belt. And sitting with him on the buckboard was his partner, a man who was even bigger, uglier and meaner than he was.
As they got down from the buckboard and started toward the saloon, someone asked where they were from. "Indian Territory," growled the larger man. "Things are gettin' so bad down there that all of us sissies are having to get out."
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