FOOD FOR THE TABLE
Tahlequah Farmers’ Market, named best in state, continues its mission, page 8
MORE INSIDE: Tahlequah vs. Fort Smith
A jurisdictional tale of two cities, with a massacre in the middle Page 12
Centennial chronicles
What a difference a century makes in Cherokee County Page 16
Resting in peace
View from a cemetery offers surprising revelations Page 18
FOOD FOR THE TABLE
Tahlequah Farmers’ Market, named best in state, continues its mission
By Pam Moore
TAHLEQUAH VS. FORT SMITH
A jurisdictional tale of two cities, with a massacre in the middle
By Eddie Glenn
CENTENNIAL CHRONICLES
What a difference a century makes in Cherokee County
By Nancy Garber
RESTING IN PEACE
View from a cemetery offers surprising revelations
By Greg Combs
Native Americans have final resting places in Italy
By Brian D. King
CONTENTS
IEditor’s Note
t’s here – autumn, my favorite time of the year. And in Cherokee County, we can count on certain things to happen.
The leaves along Highway 10 transform into hues from deep gold to bright red. Days and nights turn cooler, ushering in a crispness in the air that I call “football weather.” Although the Sooners and the Pokes are now in different conferences, the Bedlam game will still occur – on Dec. 14.
Fall is also the spooky season, when witches, ghouls and goblins shamble out of closets to bring on Halloween. Then comes Thanksgiving, when we share our bounty with others. Not far behind is Christmas, a time to embrace the notion of “peace on Earth, and goodwill to all people.”
But first, we bring to you our seventh edition of the reimagined Tahlequah Grapevine Magazine. We launched it in the first quarter of 2023, and it has come to be a source of anticipation for readers. The writers are some of the best whose work has graced our pages.
The digital edition will appear first on our website; the printed version may not arrive until early October. It’s somewhat of a coincidence, but the features are nostalgic, historical, and important.
Kim Poindexter
Executive Editor kpoindexter@tahlequahdailypress.com
Heather Ruotolo
Publisher hruotolo@tahlequahdailypress.com
Abby Bigaouette
Graphic Designer abigaouette@tahlequahdailypress.com
Alicia McDowell
Cover Photography
Contributing Writers
Pam Moore
Eddie Glenn
Nancy Garber
Greg Combs
Brian D. King
© 2024 Tahlequah Daily Press
Tahlequah Grapevine is a quarterly magazine published by the Tahlequah Daily Press. The contents of this magazine are fully protected by copyright and cannot be reproduced without express permission from CNHI, LLC.
Tahlequah
G rapevine
Our cover story, by Help In Crisis founding Executive Director Pam Moore, is on Tahlequah Farmers’ Market, one of the most successful of its kind in the country. Former district attorney and retired NSU educator Greg Combs checks the view from the city cemetery.
Nancy Garber, who served TDP in several capacities before retiring as NSU public relations director, looks back at the past century of life here and makes some interesting connections. And speaking of connections, Eddie Glenn – a 14-year TDP veteran who now teaches at the University of Arkansas – explains the thread that binds Tahlequah with Fort Smith, Arkansas.
New this time is Brian D. King, a TDP copy editor who became a reporter for the Norman Transcript and is now teaching at OU. He was recently in Italy, where he and his wife, Farina – an OU professor – located graves of Natives from Oklahoma. We hope you enjoy reading Grapevine as much as we enjoyed producing it!
- Kim Poindexter, Executive Editor
Meet the Editor
Kim Poindexter has been a member of the TDP news team since 1985. She is in the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame and received the 2022 Oklahoma Press Association Beachy Musselman Award. She has won more than 200 journalism awards on the national and state levels, both individually and as part of the team for TDP, which has been named CNHI’s Best Newspaper for five consecutive years. For her work in 2023, she was named OPA Editorial Writer of the Year, and by CNHI, Columnist of the Year. She and her husband, Chris, a facilities engineer, have an adult son, Cole, and a daughter-in-law, Dani.
Fence Installation
Gate Installation
Commercial Projects
Food for the table
Tahlequah
Farmers’ Market,
named best in state, continues its mission
By Pamela Moore
Kudos and congratulations are in order for our very own Tahlequah Farmers’ Market!
The TFM was recently named awarded best farmers market in the state of Oklahoma by the American Farmland Trust. Results of the online voting were announced in advance of the 2024 National Farmers’ Market Week, July 31, 2024.
TFM Board President Marla Saeger was ecstatic about the news.
“We could not have gotten this
honor without the loyal support of customers who took the time to vote online; much thanks to all,” she said.
“This is a big deal, people!”
The Trust (https://www.farmland.org), is a nationwide nonprofit whose mission is to protect the nation’s farmlands, promote environmentally sound farming practices, and keep our country’s farmers on their land. A program of the Trust –National Farmers Market Week, Aug. 4-10 this year – recognizes the key role of farmers markets to connect local growers with customers seeking local, healthy food. While bragging rights are the main prize, the winner also receives $100 in cash and swag from sponsors of the Farmland Trust.
But more accolades came when the Tahlequah Area Chamber of Commerce selected TFM as the Best Nonprofit for the Fourth Quarter of 2024. This award acknowledges valuable member contributions, such as positive business and personal community engagement. The selection, made and voted on by Chamber board members, puts TFM in the running for Nonprofit of the Year. The Chamber will announce the winner at its upcoming annual banquet.
The TFM board includes, front, Marla Saeger. Back row from left: Dean Bailey, Jack Ritchie, Randy Hutchins, Tahatha Hibbs, and Carol Choate.
Customers mingle at the Tahlequah Farmers’ Market.
The recognition fueled a remarkably busy Market on Saturday, Aug. 10.The crowd, enjoying the mild weather, was enthusiastically shopping – always a good thing for the 36 vendors offering veggies, fruits, meat, eggs, bread, soaps, tamales, and the most colorful flowers ever. At the end of the day, the final count showed the market had its highest attendance of the 2024 season. Some 1,145 visitors came to celebrate the “Best in Oklahoma” Farmers Market.
Marla and her resolute band of diligent workers attend and work the Market each Saturday beginning in April and closing in October. That is 30 sale days per season, with only one Saturday off for the Red Fern Festival. Each Market has Linda Johnson and Randy Hutchins working alongside Dean Bailey, the Market manager. Also helping are Board members Samantha Christie White and Tabatha Hibbs.
“I could not do it without my dedicated working team,” Marla said.
Saeger herself is no slacker. Working with the Market since 2010, when it moved to Norris Park from the Lutheran Church parking lot, she compiles statistics for the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture; serves
as accountant and general business manager; keeps track of vendors; and oversees special programs.
In 2019, the Oklahoma Secretary of Agriculture selected Marla as a Significant Woman in Agriculture, representing Cherokee County. Also, the Smithsonian invited her to take part in a video (https://festival.si.edu/ event/women-leaders-in-plantknowledge) about Women Leaders in Plant Knowledge as part of the National Folklife Festival. Recently, she has helped other developing markets in Oklahoma, including those in Hulbert, Norman, and Checotah.
The search for sustainable markets for local producers and health-conscious consumers began in the late ‘70s, with a Community Share cooperative program partnered with the Ozark Natural Food Cooperative in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Co-op volunteers bought and delivered food to co-op members, who paid a monthly fee for seasonal selections. Cherokee Nation helped by offering the old Prison Building, at the corner of Water and Keetoowah, for storage and distribution of shared food. But with 100 or so members, the co-op eventually closed due to waning interest, coupled with rising costs.
Then, in the early 2000s, Kathy Tibbits, working with the Cherokee Nation Small Farm project – which
included Saeger and Bob Waldrop –organized the Oklahoma Food Co-op.
“While the Farm Project’s purpose was to create markets for Cherokee farmers, it was the sustainable biodiversity of cleaner air, water, and food, which unexpectedly benefitted everyone,” Kathy recalled.
The co-op, through online orders, served more than 100K customers statewide. Volunteers from each community drove to Oklahoma City to pick up orders and deliver them back to members. The program continued until around 2012, when fuel prices and volunteer shortages brought the program to an end.
In 2007, a new group – supported by a mission of the First Lutheran Church – began to organize and planned to hold a local market in the parking lot of the church. The group included Lisa Turner, Lorretta Merritt, Johnnye Morton, Jane Corbin, Stephanie Miller, and Dale Hutchins. Julie Gahn, market liaison from the Community Garden Project, offered education and technical aid to help with market startup.
“The purpose of the Garden Project was to create entrepreneurial opportunities for gardeners who could strengthen food security in the community,” Julie said. “It was a perfect fit with the Market Project.”
In spring 2008, the group had its
Marsha Taylor, with her twins, Alex and Amelia, owns Greenbriar Farm, which specializes in cookies, sweet breads, lemonade, baked goods, and canned goods.
Mike Allen plays for the TFM.
first season as the Tahlequah Farmers’ Market Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit serving vendors and customers, eventually creating a loyal following of local “foodies.”
In 2010, Saeger joined the Market board as secretary, and members soon elected her as president. In 2011, the Market moved to Norris Park, increasing its popularity with open public bathrooms and more parking, as well as improved walkability, and being conveniently located near the downtown corridor. Moving to Norris Park accelerated the growth and impact of the Market, which continues its success with expanded programs and increasing sales.
Downtown businesses soon discovered improved sales and customer interest on Saturdays, attributing the activity to Market-generated cus-
tomer traffic. In fact, according to Market records, 2014 had gross sales of $44,000 while almost 10 years later, the 2023 numbers show gross sales of $289,000.
Key components include nutrition education and support offered by the Market. Most notable is the Farm to School Program, entering its 11th year, offering Veggie Bucks to third-graders in the Tahlequah
Public Schools System. The Market bought a trailer to deliver fresh vegetables to Cherokee, Greenwood, and Heritage elementary schools at least once a season. Each child receives $12 to buy fresh veggies to share with their families. Introducing children to fresh vegetables is key to improving health outcomes for the entire community.
Other programs are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which allows eligible families to buy fresh food, while the Double Up Oklahoma allows SNAP recipients up to an added $20 per week in extra food. The Cherokee Nation has enabled its WIC recipients to spend benefits at the Market as well. Elders may sign up for the Senior Farmers Market Program, which offers $50 per season in fresh foods. These programs, while vital for recipients, also increase sales for vendors who would have no other way to reach these customers.
So, join in for the weekly celebration of food and fun that is Oklahoma’s best farmers market community! Shopping with Market vendors keeps local dollars local, and you get a new friend with every purchase.
Meet the Author
Pam Moore was the first executive director of Help In Crisis Inc., beginning in July 1982 and serving nearly a decade. She then worked eight years as victim-witness coordinator for the 27th Prosecutorial District. Moore also served as subject matter expert for the Office on Violence Against Women and the Office for Victims of Crime until her retirement in 2016.
Veggies on display at the Tahlequah Farmers’ Market.
Tahlequah vs. Fort Smith
A
jurisdictional tale of two cities, with a massacre in the middle
By Eddie Glenn
Even before the 2020 Supreme Court decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, law enforcement jurisdictional issues vexed the Cherokee Nation.
While the McGirt decision involved a Seminole tribal member who committed sexual abuse against a Muscogee Creek child within the boundaries of the Muscogee Creek Nation, the ruling applied to the Seminole, Muscogee Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee Nations alike. In essence the Court determined certain “major crimes” committed by tribal members against other tribal members – regardless of their tribal affiliations – would fall under federal, not state, criminal jurisdiction.
McGirt ended long-standing disagreements between tribal and the Oklahoma state government over which entity should prosecute which cases. Yet, even before an Oklahoma state government existed, there were jurisdictional disputes between tribes and the federal government. Most of the well-known instances of such disputes, in fact, involved the Cherokee Nation.
In summer 2024, I moved from Tahlequah, where I had spent most of my adult life, to Fort Smith, Arkansas, to teach at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. Being a bit of a history buff, I was struck by how many of the stories about historical events I had heard and read about –and even written about during my time as a staff writer for the Tahle-
A mural of an American Indian archer on a wall, in downtown Fort Smith, demonstrates an artistic iteration of the Frontier Complex, the common American social phenomenon that views indigeneity as a noble, yet doomed, effort to stop Manifest Destiny. As the mural is surrounded by restaurants and a Ferris wheel, it’s a fitting representation of how the Frontier Complex is still a source of entertainment in American culture.
quah Daily Press – were viewed very differently in Fort Smith than they were in Tahlequah. What I discovered was that, interestingly, Tahlequah and Fort Smith depend heavily on one another for both their current identities, and for those identities’ relationships to history. Many of the historical individuals viewed in Tahlequah as heroes of tribal sovereignty are, in Fort Smith, seen as murderous outlaws.
Before Oklahoma statehood, the entire Indian Territory – all five of the aforementioned tribal jurisdictions –fell under the law enforcement oversight of the federal court in the western district of Arkansas, located in Fort Smith. However – and this is an important “however” – each of the tribes also had its own set of laws and courts. While it’s easy to say tribal laws should apply to tribal members and federal laws should pertain to non-tribal members living in or traveling through Indian Territory, the reality of the situation was quite often much more complicated
than that. One such complication is presented by the 1872 Goingsnake Massacre, which took place in what is now Adair County.
Ezekiel “Zeke” Proctor was a member of the traditional Keetoowah Nighthawk Society, and as such, didn’t care much for the intermarrying of Cherokees and whites. A Cherokee woman named Polly Beck, with whom Proctor may or may not have been involved romantically (stories differ, of course), had married Jim Kesterson, a white man.
Proctor, a Civil War veteran who had fought for the Union, was known to be something of a troublemaker, getting inebriated and into fights in both the Cherokee Nation and Arkansas, but was also known to acknowledge his wrongdoings, and accept whatever punishment the law saw fit. However, when he and Kesterson got into a disagreement one day – just west of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, but within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation – guns were drawn. When the smoke had settled,
Polly Beck had been shot dead, and Kesterson was wounded in or about the head.
Proctor turned himself in to Cherokee authorities, maintaining Beck had put herself between him and Kesterson, and that he, Proctor, had been responsible for her accidental death. Kesterson, as one might imagine, saw things differently. He went to Fort Smith, and reported Proctor had killed his Cherokee wife, and wounded him in an attempt to kill him. A posse of U.S. Marshals and members of Beck’s family assembled in Fort Smith, with the intention of retrieving Proctor from the courthouse where his trial was to be held, and transporting him back to Fort Smith, where he was to be tried in federal court for assaulting Kesterson.
Receiving warning of what the U.S. Marshals were planning, the court assembled for Proctor’s trial moved to a nearby schoolhouse. The federally authorized posse, however, discovered the switch, and arrived at the new location as the trial was underway. The posse included 15 men. Inside the courthouse were 15 more, taking part in, or observing, Zeke Proctor’s Cherokee trial. About 30 more Cherokees, many of whom were family members of Polly Beck, were surrounding the ad hoc courthouse, awaiting the verdict. Allegedly, Polly Beck’s nephew, Surry Eaton “White Sut” Buck, attempted to enter the courthouse, through either a door or window. He pointed a shotgun into the courthouse, in an alleged attempt to kill Proctor. Proctor’s brother, Johnson, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and pushed it aside, causing it to fire.
An interesting phenomenon occurs when a gunshot goes off in a crowd of heavily armed men. The scientific term is “All Hell Breaks Loose,” and that’s exactly what happened in this instance. Shots flew into and out of the courthouse. Proctor himself was allegedly jacking so many shells through his Spencer lever-action rifle that no one knows for sure how many more people he might, or might not, have killed, in addition to Polly Beck. Both Proctor and the judge, Black-
hawk Sixkiller, were wounded, as were five others inside the courthouse. Both Proctor’s brother, Johnson, and his attorney, Moses Alberty, lost their lives. Outside the courthouse, the official leader of the posse, Deputy U.S. Marshal Jacob Owens, was wounded, and died the next day. Seven other members of the posse died as well. It was the largest loss of life in a single event the U.S. Marshal Service has ever suffered, even up to this day. The posse rode back to Fort Smith roughly half as numerous as it had been when it left.
Proctor’s trial was moved to Tahlequah, where he was acquitted of murdering Polly Beck. He quickly left town – to where, no one knows for sure. Communiques between the federal court in Fort Smith and Cherokee Chief Lewis Downing – incidentally, a relative of Zeke Proctor’s –were exchanged.
From Fort Smith, the message went something like, “We, the federal court of western Arkansas and the Indian Territory, demand that you remand into our custody Zeke Proctor and anyone else who was in the
courthouse during his Goingsnake trial, to be tried for the murders of our federal marshals” (not the exact wording).
From Tahlequah, Chief Downing’s message to the federal court in Fort Smith went something like, “Sorry, but we’re not going to do that. Proctor’s trial was for an alleged crime committed by a Cherokee against a Cherokee. Moreover, Jim Kesterson had married into the tribe, and was therefore under Cherokee jurisdiction when he was allegedly wounded by Proctor, so any complaint he had against Proctor should have been filed in Cherokee court. Therefore, your marshals weren’t even legally in Cherokee jurisdiction when they met their unfortunate ends. But, since you mentioned it, we demand that you remand the members of the Beck family – specifically those who rode with your posse into Cherokee jurisdiction –into Cherokee custody so they can stand trial in a Cherokee court for the murders of the people killed inside the courthouse to which your posse laid siege” (not the exact wording).
About a year and a half after the
It may be a national historic site, but it still looks like a jail. That’s because it was, during the late 19th century, when alleged criminals — many of whom were citizens of the Cherokee Nation — were incarcerated and tried in the federal courthouse in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
massacre, the federal court dropped its charges against Proctor and the other court trial attendees for lack of any witnesses willing to testify. In exchange, the Cherokee Nation dropped its charges against the Becks, and all was, if not forgiven, at least set aside.
The Goingsnake Massacre is one example of bloodshed resulting from jurisdictional disputes between the Cherokee Nation and the federal court of Fort Smith. Another is the story of Ned Christie, the subject of a current Cherokee National Prison Museum exhibit, “Ned Christie: The Man from Wauhillau,” which runs through Nov. 1, 2025, so any interested readers still have more than a year to visit it.
Modern-day visitors to the Fort Smith Federal Historic Site that houses both the courtroom and jail where numerous Cherokees were incarcer-
ated and tried during the late 19th century will see stories about Cherokees who murdered U.S. Marshals, and – when not behind the federal iron bars that still exist at that historic site – hid out in and around Tahlequah. As one might imagine, the story isn’t much different right down the road at the U.S. Marshals Museum.
In his 2016 book, “Mythic Frontiers: Remembering, Forgetting, and Profiting with Cultural Heritage Tourism,” University of Arkansas-Fort Smith history professor Daniel Maher argues such sites often serve to promulgate what he calls the “frontier complex.” To understand the concept of the frontier complex, we must consider the word “complex” in two different ways. First, a complex can be a psychological, or as is the case here, a sociological structure. The “frontier complex” exists in the collective consciousness of the United States, and even many foreign observers thereof, and overdetermines how we think of historical events and the people who took part in them. Having been around since the Wild West pulp fiction novels of the 18th and 19th centuries, the frontier complex then emerged in traveling Wild West shows, then in cinema, television, video games, and all sorts of media. The frontier complex presents the story of the settling (or unsettling, depending on one’s perspective) of the United States as one of “good guys” – almost always of Euro-American descent – preserving some lauded way of life from the “bad guys,” who, quite often, were Indigenous. This frontier complex is often simply thought of in the simplistic terms of “Cowboys and Indians.”
But the word “complex” can also mean an actual physical location.
As Maher writes in his book, “[i]n addition to being created in fiction, the frontier complex takes material forms that are visited by millions of domestic and foreign tourists each year. They view the frontier complex in places ranging from the fantastical at Disneyland’s Frontierland on the Pacific coast to the campy Frontier Town Campground near Ocean City, Maryland; from the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona to the reconstructed Front Street of the quintessential cowboy town of Dodge City, Kansas; and from Deadwood, South Dakota to the infamous Hanging Judge Isaac Parker’s reconstructed gallows in Fort Smith, Arkansas.”
So, as promulgators of the frontier complex, are the Fort Smith historic sites full of lies and misinformation? Not necessarily. But they do present the jurisdictional disputes between the Cherokee Nation and the federal government in overly simplistic terms. So when you visit those historic sites, remember that the folks being discussed as characters in a seemingly black-and-white story were living, breathing, bleeding, colorful individuals who were, in fact –no pun intended – very complex, in and of themselves.
So, an astute reader may ask, whatever happened to Zeke Proctor? I’m glad you asked, because the answer is one of the great ironies of the tension between the histories of Tahlequah and Fort Smith. He later became a Cherokee council member, a sheriff in the Flint District, and a Deputy U.S. Marshal, riding under the authority of the infamous “hanging judge” of Fort Smith — Isaac C. Parker, who had taken office about three years after the Goingsnake Massacre.
Meet the Author
R.E. “Eddie” Glenn was TDP’s last “official” photographer and was on the news team 14 years. He is the author of two books: “Bigfoot Comes to Town: Theory, Myth and Alleged Truths About Eastern Oklahoma’s Most Wanted,” and “The Sovereign, The Tribe,” both of which are available through Amazon. He and his wife, Jennifer, recently moved to Fort Smith, where he is teaching at the University of Arkansas.
A statue of Federal Judge Isaac C. Parker greets drivers as they enter the historic downtown district of Fort Smith, Arkansas.
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Centennial chronicles
What a difference a century makes in
Cherokee County
By Nancy Garber
Footage from outside the theater where the 1920s Charlie Chaplin movie “The Circus” was opening shows the passing image of a lone person holding an unidentifiable object to an ear, and the person appeared to be talking.
The Irish filmmaker who discovered the scene suggested tongue-in-cheek that the moviegoer was a lost traveler from the future, frustrated at the lack of cellphone service. The object was most likely an ear horn, an early form of hearing aid. But I’ll confess to being among the curious who looked it up, and secretly wondered. …
Imagine a time traveler from 1924 landing in downtown Tahlequah today. Unpaved streets are now busy fourlanes, the new high school has been replaced by an even newer one, modern homes are today’s historic sites, and special cellphone apps lead visitors on a downtown tour. More has changed in a century than remains recognizable, though three iconic buildings – Carnegie Library, Cherokee Capitol on the Square, and Seminary Hall at Northeastern State University – still define the town’s history.
One hundred years ago, a nation recovering from World War I and the Spanish flu epidemic was caught up in the economic prosperity and cultural change of the Roaring ‘20s. The 19th amendment, passed in 1920, had granted women the right to vote. Native Americans who called Tahlequah home were declared U.S. citizens through the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. Radios, movies, and automobiles were common in everyday life – antiques, com-
Known as “The
pared to streaming devices and electric vehicles in 2024.
West of town, passengers could board a train at Depot Hill by paying “reduced fares to summer playgrounds,” as advertised by Frisco Lines in weekly issues of the Tahlequah Arrow-Democrat, a predecessor to TDP. Many were discovering the joy and independence of automobile travel. Approximately 123,000 motor cars were sold throughout the U.S. in December 1923. Locally, the Ford Touring car sold for $295; fancier, more expensive models were also available through the Tahlequah dealership. Those who could afford it could hardly resist the vehicle certain to be a “welcome member of the family,” and appreciated its ability to “speed up the day’s work and leave more time for recreation.” Motorists could enjoy a leisurely drive up the Illinois River road, designated by Oklahoma as State Highway 10 in 1924, and paved a few years later. Newspapers across the state were calling Tahlequah, population 3,023, “Oklahoma’s leading resort city.”
Much has changed, and some things
have gotten better – including three first-time endeavors launched in 1924 that still benefit Tahlequonians today.
Flash back to 1919, when the American Legion formed as a national wartime organization. Tahlequah veterans of World War I gathered as the “Rhodes-Pritchett American Legion Post,” named for two Cherokee County youth killed in France during the war. They submitted paperwork to request a charter from the national headquarters, and in four years received official notification; no explanation why the process took so long. On July 30, 1924, Post 50 was officially established. To honor its founding, current Post 50 members and their families commemorated a century of service to the community’s wartime veteran at the Legion Hut on Brookside Avenue with a display of artifacts, photos, and historical documents. A commemorative coin is available as a centennial fundraiser.
The excessive summer heat compelled Commander Danny Gross to open the Post’s doors and offer a daily cooling station for locally displaced in-
Hut,” the American Legion Post 50 has been a popular gathering spot for many groups through the years, and proudly displays the date of its official founding.
dividuals. As he put it: “There were people in the park in the hot sun, needing water and a place to sit down for a few minutes. Those people were right outside our door, and some of them are veterans.”
Another local service organization chartered at the start of 1924 was the Tahlequah chapter of Kiwanis International, organized by M.P. Hammond, president of Northeastern State Teachers College, and Jack Paden, a Northeastern alumnus, among other businessmen. The club pledged support for the college, hosting 1,700 students, faculty and staff in the “natural amphitheatre just south of the main building” on campus (today’s Beta Field). Ice cream and lemonade were served. Entertainment included a sing-along, a stomp dance, and a square dance with “real Arkansas music.”
In fall 1924, Kiwanis sponsored the NSTC football team, “getting behind them with their moral support and help to make the boys winners.” Kiwanians closed their downtown businesses and held a parade before the game against
page from the 1925
Southeastern to encourage attendance. On Nov. 21, members cheered Northeastern to a 10-0 victory over Kansas City University in the school’s first Homecoming game. The local newspaper editor later wrote, “Cooperation of the businessmen is greatly appreciated by the team and faculty. With such support, Northeastern is bound to succeed.”
Homecoming Day began with a “student mass meeting” (today’s pep rally) led by coaches and the school’s two cheer squads, Pepettes and Peppers. Homecoming queen, Miss Margaret Sims, led the parade down Muskogee Avenue. President Hammond officially declared the event a “decided success.”
That same year, a future Northeastern athletic director and basketball coach was making history. Guy “Ducky” Lookabaugh placed seventh in the freestyle welterweight event at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. An all-round accomplished athlete, Lookabaugh was a Northeastern administrator from 1929 to 1936.
On Oct. 25-26, 2024, the university marked a century of successful Homecomings with the theme, “Forever Green,” a nod to the school color.
This summer, Kiwanis of Tahlequah marked its century of service to youth by hosting the 106th convention of the Texas-Oklahoma District of Kiwanis International. The group’s mission has grown extensively in its quest to “improve the world one child and one community at a time.”
“Over the past 100 years, the Kiwanis Club of Tahlequah has raised funds and provided volunteers to assist with a variety of child-focused activities and organizations,” said Denise Deason-Toyne, the district’s lieutenant governor for Division 31.
These include BUG (Bringing Up Grades program), TPS Gold Card Program, TPS Outreach Center, Sopho-
The first enterprise by the Kiwanis Club of Tahlequah, founded in 1924, was the Thompson Hotel, located across the street to the north of Cherokee Square.
more of the Year, Court Appointed Special Advocates of Cherokee Country, DHS and ICW Child Welfare, Help In Crisis Inc., Dr. Charles Carroll Disaster Relief Backpack program, Feed My Sheep, NSU Foundation Scholarship, Felts Park, Mission Park, and the CARE Food Pantry.
Tahlequah Mayor Suzanne Myers, who is also president of the NSU Alumni Association, believes centennial celebrations are “true demonstrations of success.”
“As an individual, you enjoy participating and joining in when milestones are achieved. We all enjoy that sense of success and sustainability that comes from tradition,” she said.
NSU’s annual Homecoming tradition reunites those who have shared a successful college experience.
“Homecoming celebrations are important because relationships are vital to all of us. To me, you can never gather too often or have too many opportunities to reminisce about the ‘good ol’ days’,” Myers said.
All of this prompts the question: What will our descendants reflect upon in 2124?
Meet the Author
Nancy M. Garber, a University of Florida graduate, is a lifelong journalist and photographer. A former member of the TDP editorial and advertising teams, she retired from NSU as director of Communications and Marketing and still likes to pick up the pen and camera now and then.
Photo courtesy of NSU Archives
A
Tsa-La-Gi yearbook depicts scenes from Northeastern’s first Homecoming celebration in 1924.
Resting in peace
View from a cemetery offers some surprising revelations
By Greg Combs
Imagine you are outdoors in Tahlequah on a bright, clear October afternoon. Sunshine warms you as a breeze freshens the air. The trees have about turned. It’s good to be alive. The year is unimportant, as it could be in one of three centuries.
Picture your attendance at a ceremony set at an elevated place on a hillside, surrounded by markers, obelisks and occasional trees across a lawn. A person has died. Survivors are this day gathering for a burial at a place where now multiple markers bear inscriptions of Cherokee chiefs.
You stand in Tahlequah City Cemetery. This is not a “graveyard.” The words are used interchangeably, but graveyard is incomplete; a cemetery is a freestanding place of burial, while a graveyard was traditionally a place for burial attached to a church, for members.
Cemetery attendees may include agnostics, Zoroastrians and those in between. There may be mourners, friends, family, officials, helpers, associates, obligees and obligors, atheists, suitors, creditors and some whom Mr. Burns of “The Simpsons” fame would call “slack-jawed gawkers,” to name a few. Most grieve.
Not only is it good to be alive on this day, you − as all are bound to do upon this hill while pondering such moments − fix upon a surprising, spectacular vista. You are 960 feet above the level of the sea. To the east and southeast there are mountains:
Stick Ross, Park Hill, Sugar, Bunch, Beaver, and as the scene fades to blue, stand the Boston Mountains above the Arkansas River valley, with Kentucky beyond. Here one may become lost in mindless contemplation, as is appropriate under the circumstance. Stephen Morton, Adair Countian, and I shared this panorama in early September. Many know Steve’s uncle, Northeastern’s Dr. Neil Morton and wife, Aunt Patsy, or may recall Guy Morton, Steve’s grandfather, who had the enviable job of manning the fire tower lookout on Beaver Mountain. Guy was a towerman, who watched for and located fires the old way.
But on this day, from an open patch near an obelisk towering 20 feet, we sought out distant Beaver Mountain. The bright, colorful fall forest of your imagined day was still weeks away. Southeast of town rolled green woodlands and mountains as we peered through a mild haze. It
was a fine day. The prominence appeared as a slight blue bump, looming just above and beyond Bunch Mountain. At 1,630 feet, Beaver is the highest point in Cherokee County. It straddles the county’s far southeast corner. Interestingly, another bump on Beaver Mountain, at 1,581 feet, is the highest point in Sequoyah County.
We were two of many cemetery visitors who go there for both customary purposes and some exceptions. A visit must be a daytime trip. It is likely there would be visitors after dark, but history tells us some would be vandals, if you can believe that. We came to look and experience Place, as geographers should. The small cemetery on the hill is now the nominal home to nearly 6,000 souls.
“I run in the area, but walk when I get into the cemetery,” said one local retiree on condition of anonymity. “At the top of the hill, I stop and exercise.”
Folks visit cemeteries for many reasons. They may observe, officiate
Although city cemetery visitors are usually respectful, the place has experienced vandalism over the years. Closed at night, the daily traffic visits for many reasons, including a striking view.
Beside the tallest obelisk in Tahlequah, the view to the southeast from Tahlequah City Cemetery finds the tallest place in Cherokee County. Beaver Mountain can be seen 22 miles distant, even on a hazy day.
or be the guest of honor. Some intend to commune with or otherwise honor the departed or simply take a trip down memory lane, place bouquets or tokens, or gather facts such as kinships and dates, or consider a future resting place of their own.
But many lessons not as tied to mortality have been learned on this hill among the monuments and trees. Students have long found this a place to read, be at peace and stare into the mountains, and beyond. It is unlikely Dr. Amos Maxwell would have minded where his class read political science, or Dr. Brad Agnew cared where students soaked up history. And that’s not all.
Visitors leave things − mostly flowers, but also notes, personal items, painted rocks, beadwork and other tokens of love, admiration or pain, or maybe an object intended as a private message. Here one’s motives and thoughts are respected, save for those who would vandalize such a place. Indeed, polite society would always discourage sleeping, nudity, consumption of intoxicants, semi-public displays of affection, a Sooner tailgate or any disturbance of the peace in general.
The Mortons were regulars at their patriarch’s workplace. Adventures, picnics, leisure for the parents, play for the kids – at 5 years, children began climbing up, around and within the 10-story steel frame – and a later Morton family reunion marked their attachment to the place. Many visitors braved the outback to reach the tower. A few decades back, it got popular. It’s where late Judge David Harris and bride Josie were wed in 1964. The place is up off Blue Top Road, selected due to its amazing northern panorama.
“I believe this cemetery could have been seen this from the tower,” Steve said that day, referring to where we stood in a 50-acre patch of lawn, implying the use of binoculars or a spyglass. It is 22 miles between cemetery and tower, as the crow files – more, of course, for hummingbirds and bees.
“There was a wooden lookout at Rose, where a towerman watched for smoke. A third tower in Adair County
looked across the same land. When the three saw the same smoke, they would communicate by radio to triangulate and spot the fire,” Steve said. Vistas locally are not limited to fire lookouts and hillside cemeteries. Though this county is contained within 998 vertical feet (the lowest being 632 feet, the surface of Lake Tenkiller), fine viewpoints are commonplace. The views from Stick Ross Mountain are examples, as are several perches on Horseshoe Bend Road, which allow one to look not only into the Bostons in Arkansas but also the folded Ouachita Mountains to the south.
Tahlequah once had a public dump, which was shut down 30 or so years back. Despite the trash, snakes, rotting garbage, flies, rubble, aroma and potential landfill leachate of the place, there existed what many believed to be the grandest view in the county – an eastern panorama across the Springfield Plateau and likewise southeast into the mountains of Arkansas, and beyond. If there had been a State Fair award for most beautiful illegal dump site, we would have retired the trophy.
And so, back to this imaginary ritual on the sunny hill in Tahlequah. The crowd, having said their goodbyes, slowly disperses. You find your way to a surrey drawn by a team of matching Morgans. It is 1894. Tahlequah is quiet a mile below, without the city roar now heard all day. There were then no motor vehicles, medical helicopters, Jake brakes or sirens. A half century ago in Tahlequah, when folks heard a siren, they tuned to KTLQ 1350 AM to hear a sponsored announcement telling listeners what the noise was all about. The same today would require an
At 100 feet, the tower at Beaver
served as support for area fire defense, and the workplace of Towerman Guy Morton. Children in his family now confess to using the framework as a very tall jungle gym.
All-Siren channel.
Under soaring skies, floating clouds and among the season’s striking colors, your line of buggies, coaches, surries, wagons, a hearse, saddle horses, mules and a few pedestrians has traversed the hill. The people that day took part for their own reasons, and surely each gazed at the plateaus and hills, the colors, the blue history past Beaver Mountain on to the distant Bostons above the valley of the Arkansas, each having had thoughts inspired by the day, the ritual, along with their view from the cemetery, and beyond.
Meet the Author
Greg Combs is a retired educator and served as District Attorney during his career at Tahlequah. He formerly wrote for the Pictorial Press, a predecessor to this newspaper. He and his wife, Alicia, live in Tahlequah.
Mountain Lookout
Tuscan tableau
Native Americans, others paid the ultimate price in Italy during WWII
By Brian King
Nestled along the foothills of the Apennine Mountain range in Tuscany are lines of white crosses and Stars of David that demarcate the final resting place of American soldiers who gave their all during World War II.
Shadowing the graves, a tremendous obelisk reads, “Memori e fieri delle gesta gloriose dei loro figli in riverente tribute al loro sacrifizio gli Stati Uniti d’America.”
Aside from the young Italian intern who served as a guide’s assistant, I was the only one in our group who could understand exactly what the epitaph meant. In reverent sacrifice, the Italian government carved a space for Americans to remember their fallen.
Never in a million years would I have imagined that I would be traversing Florence’s rolling hills to seek out the graves of Oklahoma Native Americans. My wife, Farina King, who serves as the Horizon Chair of Native American Ecology and Culture and associate professor of Native American Studies and interim chair at the University of Oklahoma, had her own ideas: As her personal Italian speaker and translator, she reeled me in as part of her plan teach Oklahoma students about Native Americans in Italy.
Her own relative, Nelson Haskeltsie, fought in World War II, where he gave his life for his country. He died in or near Florence. To memorialize his sacrifice, my wife’s grandmother named her daughter Florence Smith, whom I knew very well until her death in 2020.
Farina King and Emily Burns, far right, professors at the University of Oklahoma, led students to Italy, where they traveled the country to look for evidence of Native Americans in the country. Native Americans made up a majority of the 45th Infantry Division, which entered Southern Italy and fought in Anzio. The military group made its way to Rome, where it fought and took control of the city. Many members of the infantry, including Native Americans, were buried at this site at the Sicily Rome Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy.
Farina King, associate professor of Native American Studies and Horizon chair of Native American Ecology and Culture at the University of Oklahoma, stands outside a memorial at the Sicily Rome Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy. The site is the location of fallen American soldiers – including Native Americans from Oklahoma – who fell in combat between Rome and Sicily.
Students scaled a mountain near Conca Casale in the mountain wherein the 45th Infantry Division fought
The Florence American Cemetery is one of two American World War II cemeteries in Italy. The other, the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, is in Nettuno, Italy, and houses the final resting places of American soldiers who died anywhere from Sicily to Rome.
This summer, Farina taught a class about Native American soldiers in Italy at the OU Arezzo campus. Both sites guard the remains of Native Americans inside and outside of Oklahoma – including Benjamin C. Freeny, a young man from Caddo and Virgil D. Beaver from White Bread in Caddo County.
According to the guides at the two cemeteries, families were given the option to keep their loved ones in Italy or to have their remains shipped back home. The body of my wife’s relative, Nelson Haskeltsie, was repatriated and buried in Rehoboth, New Mexico.
Jack Montgomery, a Cherokee soldier, fought in the Third Battalion, 180th Infantry Regiment of the 45thInfantry Division, and was awarded the Medal of Honor, Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. He was lucky enough to have survived the war. His final resting place is in Fort Gibson, and the Veterans Health Administration Medical Center in Muskogee is named after him.
Native Americans have a special connection to Italy. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, which ran from the 1880s to the 1920s, brought prominent Native Americans, including Chief Black Elk, to Italy. Popular in Italy is the Spaghetti Western genre, which romanticizes the West and Native Americans, even if portrayals are not accurate. “Tex,” a popular Italian comic by Sergio Bonelli Editore, launched in 1948, also romanticizes Native Americans, as does France’s “Lucky Luke,” which is also popular in Italy.
As a young adult, I traveled to southern Italy, where I met Peruvians who would dance in the streets of Lecce wearing long, feathered headdresses, playing the pan flute. I pulled one of them aside and asked them why he was wearing a Lakota-looking outfit. In Italian, the Otavalo native told me, “Italians don’t care about South Americans. They give us more money if we look like North American Natives.”
I met the caretaker of the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, and he reminded the student group about the importance of the 45th Infantry, also called the Thunderbirds, as a large percentage of its soldiers identified as Native Americans.
The man said the infantry led the way to liberate Italy from fascist rule. During World War II, Italy had experienced a civil war following the death of dictator Benito Mussolini. Native American soldiers were among those who entered the country by way of the south, and slowly made their way up to the country’s capital.
With tears in his eyes, he told the American students that Italians are grateful for the sacrifice of those soldiers, including the Native Americans. My wife and I took pictures of these graves not just to remember them, but to memorialize and honor them for what they did for their country and for the world.
The deceased sacrificed their futures, their families, potential girlfriends, wives, and posterity. They sacrificed their lives so Americans can live freely. They gave their all, so Italians could also live in freedom without the influence of fascist dictators.
Freedom isn’t free, and Native Americans from Oklahoma are among those who paid for freedom in that European nation.
Meet the Author
Brian D. King is a former TDP copy editor and staff writer who later wrote for the Norman Transcript. King, who is fluent in Italian and French, lived for two years in Italy. He now teaches English at the University of Oklahoma, where his wife, Farina, is a professor. They have three children.
the Venafro area in Italy. The battle took place on top of a fought off German forces.
Students at the University of Oklahoma studied at the Arezzo campus at the University of Oklahoma.
