EMMA RILEY SUTTON

                                 TULSA

Some time between 1828 and 1836, the Lockapoka Creek Indians settled in an area that is now Tulsa after being removed from Alabama by the federal government. Their new home was abandoned during a Civil War battle when the Lockapoka Creek Indians took refuge in Kansas in 1861. They returned after the battle to find their settlement and their homes destroyed. The Indians rebuilt and began their lives there once again.

Lewis Perryman, a Creek rancher, started a cattle ranch near the Indian settlement. Perryman died in Kansas, but his son George came back and continued his father’s work on the ranch. In the early spring of 1878, a mail station was started at the Perryman store, designating the community Tulsa.

The Frisco Railroad came to Tulsa in 1882. H.C. Hall and J.M. Hall, two brothers, opened a railroad company store. Seeing they were the first white settlers to open a business in Tulsa they have been given credit for founding Tulsa. At this time, Tulsa was a “cow town.” Cattle ranchers brought their herds to the stockyards in Tulsa to be shipped to the northeast. Tulsa was officially incorporated on January 18, 1898.

The Tulsa oil boom started in 1901 in Red Fork. The largest oil strike of its time, 1905, was in Glen Pool. Four years later, in 1909, the city directory of Tulsa listed over 126 oil companies in Tulsa. The title “Oil Capital of the World” was given to Tulsa in 1920.

The city of Tulsa was forever changed on June 1, 1921. Violence against African-Americans erupted north of downtown. Black businesses and homes were burned down. Greenwood Avenue, known as “The Black Wall Street” was also burned. There were 35 blocks of Tulsa lost during this riot. Many people were killed, blacks and whites alike; the exact number of lives lost is still unknown.