animals or of snakes, for the stampede of the previous day had probably
driven every living thing miles away, with the solitary exception of
ants, which, in armies ten thousand strong, attacked the trespassers. By
morning several houses had been erected, and the arrival of freight
trains loaded with provisions not only enabled thoughtful caterers to
make small fortunes, but also relieved the newcomers of much of the
distress they had been suffering. Within a week the streets were well
defined, and houses were being built in every direction, and within six
months there were several brick buildings erected and occupied for
business and banking purposes.

The process of building up was one of the quickest on record, and
Guthrie, like its neighbor on the south, Oklahoma City, is to-day a
large, substantial business and financial center. Those of our readers
who crossed Oklahoma by rail, even as lately as the winter of 1888, will
remember that they saw nothing but open prairie, with occasional belts
of timber. There was not so much as a post to mark the location of
either of these two large cities, nor was there a plow line to define
their limits.

In no other country in the world could results such as these have been
accomplished. The amount of courage required to invest time and money in
a prospective town in a country hitherto closed against white citizens
is enormous, and it takes an American, born and bred, to make the
venture. The Oklahoma cities are not boom towns, laid out on paper and
advertised as future railroad and business centers; from the first
moment of their existence they have been practical, useful trading
centers, and every particle of growth they have made has been of a
permanent and lasting character.