Scipio

As told by Joe Barlow 1906-1998 As I try to write this true story about Scipio, and the surrounding area, as I have known it for 75 years. I was born in Whiskey Bottom, February 3, 1906, in a one room log house on the South Canadian River in Indian Territory. My Daddy, Ernie Barlow, came here from Boonville, Arkansas in 1898. My Mothers parents brought her here from Texas when she was 2 years old, behind a yoke of oxen. Her name was Louella Tomlin. They were married in Indianola in 1900. They moved to Whiskey Bottom in 1905, and he worked for P.M. Melton, another farmer, for $1 a day. After working for Melton for two years he decided to farm for himself. Mr. Melton sold him two old horses for $25 each and he decided to put in his crop. After two weeks of work one of the horses died, so he decided to try it with one horse. A month later the other horse died, so back to Mr. Melton. He went to work for $1 a day for two dead horses. After two more years, he got two more old mules, one partially crippled, and moved his family to the mouth of Choctaw Creek, to form for himself. We lived there three or four more years and then moved to the old Battles place on the top of the mountain. By this time my Daddy had 75 or 80 head of cattle and 100 hogs, and was doing well financially. The country was a paradise at that time, the grass was waist high, wild game was plentiful, and the streams were clear and unpolluted. If you desired you could almost live off the land. The government owned all the mountain land it could be bought for 50 cents an acre. My Mother urged my Daddy to buy some of the land, but he thought it would always be there, so he refused. The cattle and hogs ran out in the open range year round, acorns were plentiful for the hogs. We had rail fences, and the rails were 50 cents a hundred. A real good day you could make $1 a day. Think how many rails it takes to make a fence, to fence a farm. We left this place in 1912, and moved to the Sanfield place on the river. To go to Scipio or McAlester, there were no fences, and it took all day in a wagon to go from home on the mouth of Choctaw Creek to Scipio and back. Sometimes we stayed all night at Bob Hesketts house. While we lived there nearly every weekend the Creek Indians would ride single file from across the river on their spotted ponies across the field. My brother and I were scared of them and we would hide and watch them ride past the house and go over into Red Oak Flat. There they dug up roots called Devils Shoestring. They beat these roots to a pulp and put them in the river. This poisoned the water so the fish would float to the top and they would catch them. (1)

This effect on the fish only lasted four or five minutes and then the fish would go back down. This was their way to catch fish. Most people do not know what Devils Shoestring is; it is a weed that grew on the flats. During the time that we lived at the Sanfield place, a man named Wade Robinson moved directly across the river from us. One day while plowing on the river bottom, he plowed up a skeleton of a man. He came to us to see what my Daddy knew of this. No one knew anything about it, so he suggested we go see an old Creek Indian woman who lived up the Wood-Ker-Gee Canyon, who spoke a little bit of English. She had lived there for years and years. So, the two of them went to see her to try to find out about the skeleton. She said Um huh, me know, long time ago snake bite him, he die, we bury him just a little. During this time horse thieves were always a threat. If a stranger rode up to your house and asked to spend the night you took him in and fed him and his horse, and no questions asked, neither did he volunteer any information. He could have been a horse thief, outlaw or murderer, but he would stay for the night, next morning he would give my Mother a dollar or dollar fifty and go on his way. In 1912, my father joined AH an Ta (Anti Horse Thief Association). I remember well, Daddy had to go someplace west to bring in a horse thief named Weehunt. He was gone tow or three days and he brought him back to Scipio and our neighbor General Mayes was there. Daddy told him to watch his prisoner while he went in the store for some Granger Twist tobacco. When he came out his prisoner was high tailing it over the hill to the east. It was late in the day and Daddy and his horse were both tired, so he let him go. A few days later he heard where he was and went east after him again, and this time he took him straight to Muskogee to the Federal jail. There is a canyon west of Cliff Myers old place that still bears the name of Horse Thief Canyon. There was a water hole there and hardly anyone knew this canyon existed. I started to school in 1912, at a school called Pleasant Valley, built in 1911, it is now called Byington. I walked about two miles barefoot to school through the rattlesnakes and sand burrs. In those days they had three months of summer school. The teacher was an old man named Dickens. He lived where Howard Ragan now lives, about two miles across the foot of signal mountain, and he walked to school every day to teach eighty pupils of all ages, from six years to twenty one, first through the eighth grade, then you knew something, and were qualified as a teacher. The pay was $80 a month. When my older brother, Homer, started school he went to a little one room log cabin just east of where Stud Grantham lives now and Simon Byington was the teacher. Seven or eight kids attended this school. This was during the years we lived at the mouth of Choctaw Creek. It was three and one-half miles to school and Homer and one of Daddys younger brothers both rode one old mule to school. (2)

Some people named Weatherford came here from Arkansas to pick cotton, and moved in the house with us. They had three boys, all too mean to go to school and these boys would hide in the brush and scare the mule on their way home from school. The mule would throw them off and go on to the house and the kids would have to walk the rest of the way home. Jess Blevins told me he went to school there. During these years a neighbor, Dave Anderson, and Indian man shipped a load of cattle to Fort Worth. He got $3000 for his cattle, and when he got back to to McAlester he got drunk. My daddy was with him and he went to his hotel room and found him laid out across the bed, so he took his money, and left him $5 in his pocket. There were some rough characters hanging around the hotel and Daddy just rolled him over and took his money for safekeeping. Two days later Dave sobered up enough to come home and he missed his money. He called Daddy on the phone, Barlow, you got money? Money all gone. Daddy said, Well, come on over and we will talk about it. Barlow you got money Ill be there in five minutes. And he was. He came riding his horse as fast as the nag would go, and he was one happy Indian to get his money back. Come on; lets have a hog killing feast. So they killed one hog and a goat, caught two thirty-five pound fish and celebrated for three days and fed eighty-seven people for dinner at one time. We ate at Jim Davenports saw mill and they made a table out of lumber over fifty feet long. People came from Ulan and everywhere. Dave was so proud to get back his $3000 he paid for the whole feast. Some of the people who attended were: John Gordon & family-Ulan, Sandy Grantham & family, Lon Bowen & family, Avan Walters & family, Monroe Justice & family, Ferrell Justice & family, Albert Willingham & family, And many more. If I dont leave the River Ill never get to Scipio. The old Scipio was not in the same site it is today. It was located where Cecil Medleys pasture is. My wife was born in old Scipio in 1907. She was Bob Medleys daughter. He daddy worked on a cattle ranch for Dick Colman. There was a cotton gin on the creek and a couple of stores. The foundation of the old gin is still there today. Clarke and Brown built a hardware store on the site of the new Scipio. They sold wagons, harness and farm implements. Jack Weddle took the store over later and put in a grocery store, dry good and shoes. After he died Bob and Virgil Weddle took it over and then it was handed down to Cecil Weddle, Bobs son. Jim Williams put in a grocery store, Wayne Bickle put in a grocery store. Doc Schlicht put in a drug store. Gilliam Motley put in a pool hall. There were two restaurants. Hornbacks and Van Horns cotton gin was at the east end of town by the creek. (3)

Scipio State Bank- Mr. Lott was president. He came in 1903 from Alabama. Masonic Temple stood where Tux Bowens house is now. It was later moved to the main street of Scipio. There was a grocery store on the first floor and the Masonic Hall was upstairs. The blacksmith shop stood on the south side of the street across from the Masonic Temple. Bob Smith owned the blacksmith shop. There was a garage owned by Claude Euria. He also had two airplanes and the airstrip was in Coops pasture. He would take anyone who wanted to go up for a ride in the evenings. They were practicing their flying, and never charged a fee. One of Clauds sons, Tige, became a stunt flyer and was later killed. Claud Euria put in the first electric lights in Scipio. He had a little generator and put lights in his own house, and Bob Weddles house, and Louis Wilsons. The cost was $1.50 a month and only three families were able to afford them. There was a barber shop, run by Rufus Landers, a grist mill owned by Van Horn. The post office was across the street from the drug store. Louis Wilsons daughter was postmistress. There were hitching racks up and down both sides of the street, and on Saturday evenings you were lucky to find a place to tie up your horse. There was a baseball diamond down under the hill east of Scipio, near the old cotton gin. The telephone systems were put in a little before the electric lights. The lines were strung up on trees and pieces of inner tubes were used as insulators. If the line went North all the people living in that direction were on it, as a party line, the same South, East, and West. Everyone listened in to each others conversations and nobody kept any secrets. P. C. Ratledge ran the central phone office, later it was taken over by Bob Medley. His daughters and his wife ran the phone office, and all the calls not on your line went through the central operator, and she knew everybodys business. Horse racing, horse shoes, baseball and marble games were the sports. Ike Justice was the champion marble player and we played very Saturday evening. Myself and Cecil Weddle, were second best. There were three sets of race tracks, one in Billy Myers field; one was where D. L. McAffees field is now, at Hulow, and the other in Coops pasture, just south of the Bald Knob. They were all straight away tracks. An old cast iron wash pot would be turned upside down and dragged over the track until it was clean and smooth. My daddy owned a race horse, and he ran him at Dustin, Scipio and Mill Creek in Johnston County. Everyone bet on their horses. There were two doctors in Scipio, Doc Schlicht and Doc Bell. Doc Schlicht was a very good doctor and he would put his saddle bags with his pill bags inside and ride seven (4)

or eight miles to the river on sick calls, for $3 night or day, rain or shine, he would always go. Since there were no telephones then someone would have to ride to town after the doctor. It cost $25 to deliver a baby at home. There were no hospitals in Scipio, but there was one in McAlester on Carl Albert called All Saints Hospital. Doc Bell did not have much practice, but he would go if the other doctor was on a call. Folks called him a horse doctor and he dispensed capsules about an inch long. He drove two horses hitched to a buggy, on one horse pulled it all while the other just trotted along. One was a Democrat and the other was a Socialist. The Democrat was willing to pull it all, and the Socialist was willing to let him do it. If corn was ready to pick he would steal enough to feed his horses for a week. He took as much as he could get in his buggy. Virgil Weddle and Rufus Landers thought he was stealing their wood so they took an auger and drilled holes in the end of sticks of wood and filled these holes with black powder. They left these sticks out handy for him to get to, and hid and watched what happened. After dark Doc got some of the wood and fired up his heating stove and it blew up the stove and set his house on fire. They had to go in and help him put out the fire. We always had some kind of excitement to pass away the time. Bunyard Beard and Raymond Davenport had been picking cotton and on the way back to Scipio they got drunk, and they had a big long cotton sack with them, every time someone came along they would both crawl inside this cotton sack and ask if you wanted to see them fight to see who came out first. They fought every time anyone came along, and beat one another to a pulp. Raymond was due to play baseball that Sunday, but he was so beat up he couldnt play. This happened right below where J. E. Weeks lives now. In those days almost everybody in those mountains made whiskey. There were two preachers one named Fowler living on Choctaw, and Preacher Sherwood lived up on the mountain. Fowler was a Baptist, and Sherwood was a Church of Christ, and they were both making whiskey. One was cutting in on the others business too much so they got mad at each other, and had a public debate over their religion. Almost everyone in Scipio came to listen and this lasted every night for a week. People drove in their wagons and brought their families to listen. I was about fifteen years old when we moved to Scipio, and I attended the Scipio school. There were about 100 pupils, and two teachers. It was a tough school and you had to fight to survive. Every day there were two or three fights either recess, noon or after school. There were the Heskitt boys, Fred and J. D. White, the Cockran boys, Elliot boys, Ford boys, Buck Smith, Winehand boys, the Hunt boys, Bradshaw, Weddles, Boyd Wright, Tom Shelton and we two Barlow boys, Homer and myself. We didnt do very well the first year, but we done better the next year. It was either fight or else. It was the toughest school I ever saw. They had a place cleaned off where Bethel Cantrells house now stands, and this is where they fought. (5)

Every now and then the circus would come to town and set up their tent on the baseball diamond. Everyone from miles around would come to the circus, and they had one of the biggest elephants I ever saw, his name was Jumbo. They claimed he was the largest elephant in the world. One of the circus people led a monkey up to town on a leash. The monkey bit Claud Eurias baby on the arm and Claud tried to kill the monkey and ran them both off. The circus stayed two days and then moved on. Sherman Lott told me there was a circus come from across the river and camped there at his dads spring with all their animals, this would have been about 1905 or 1906. This spring is still there today. I remember standing with some other boys on the drug store porch when a stranger rode by on a fine horse, wearing boots and spurs and a ten-gallon hat. One of he boys said I wonder who that drug store cowboy is? And he heard him, he turned his horse and rode right up to the porch and asked, Who said that? Nobody answered, and it became so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The stranger finally turned and rode off. As more families started moving into the area they began having country dances at various houses. One thing not acceptable was to dance with your hat on. When you entered the door, the man of the house asked you to take off your hat. If you tried to dance with it on, he would knock you out from under it and kick your hat off in a corner. You could come nearer dancing with your gun on than your hat on. Once in a while some drunk would try it. Big Tom Owens became a law officer in Scipio and started chasing drunks, gamblers and whiskey makers. The fellows who shot dice went over on a hill east of town where Holts pasture is now, and cleaned off a spot to shoot dice and play poker, and they could see him coming. They would have plenty of time to get away and he never did catch them. He went down on Choctaw and caught George Ann Wheat and his son Bill making whiskey. He started back with a half gallon for evidence, caught Bill but the old man got away and he told Big Tom You wont never get out of here with Bill. George went on home and got his shotgun and went to the foot of the mountains and hid behind two big oak trees growing together and when Big Tom came by he shot him right in the face from a distance of about forty steps, and Big Tom never even fell down, just hung on to the whiskey and kept going with his prisoner. Later he arrested George Ann and he served three years in jail. The drinking element tantalized Big Tom by putting a bottle of water in their back pocket, and he would run them down and catch them, then shake the dickens out of them because they had water instead of whiskey. Big Tom had lots of fights before he became the law. I could name ten men whom he beat up, but I would prefer not to name names, as some of these families are still living in the area. (6)

My daddy lived one-fourth mile from him and never did have any trouble with him. When he whipped one man, my daddy was constable at the time, and he had to go over and arrest Big Tom and take him to Doug Winters, who was Justice of the Peace. He fined him five dollars. The fellow making the complaint said something, and Big Tom pulled his hat off and hit him in the face saying, Thats a lie. The Justice of the Peace fined him another five dollars. The first man I remember being killed was on Choctaw. His name was Henry Payton; he was killed by Tom Milligan, who stomped him to death at a dance. Tom Milligan was a mean man, and he left the country shortly after this. I was small at the time and I dont know what caused the fight. I remember well the second man killed was Joe Harp. He was deliberately shot through Jim Williams store door around 1912. The third man killed was Wayne Bickle. He was killed while crossing Main Street of Scipio by John Glenn, in 1915. John came to our house one Sunday morning as Daddy and I were in the wagon getting ready to leave. He rode up on his horse and asked to borrow my daddys gun. Daddy asked him what he was going to do with it. He gave him some cock and bull story, which my daddy did not believe. He said, No, John, I dont believe that is what you are going to do with it, and Im not going to let you have it. John went on, but he got a gun someplace else and he shot and killed Wayne on the street the next day. John went to prison for about four years for this killing. The next killing occurred in 1921. Tom Purnell and Riley Ford killed each other one afternoon about three oclock. This started over one accusing the other of his children having the wrong kind of blood. Tom and his wife Nell along with Guy Wilkerson were going to Scipio in a wagon. They had to travel through Rileys horse lot. Guy got out to open the gate and at that moment Riley came out of the house with a colt 45. Tom had a 30-30 rifle and shots were fired by both, and they were both hit. Riley lived about two hours, and Tom died at eleven oclock that night. Riley lived long enough to tell the story. Lee Marlow was killed in 1924 at the Hulow community Christmas tree. I was present at this killing. Lee was close friend of mine and had always been a good boy, but he started running with wild company, whiskey makers and such. He was drinking, and started shooting Roman candles into the school house. One of these candles burned a baby on the neck, and that set the wall paper on fire. Old lady Shelton started hollering and screaming, somebody do something. Carl Hudson walked up and told Lee not to do that. He said, You old bald headed S.O.B. who died and left you boss? They got into a fight and Hudson cut him across the belly with a knife. He fell to his knees by the fence and we asked him if he was hurt. Lee answered, No, I just got my guts cut out. And his intestines were hanging out of his belly. The Terry boys put him in a wagon and took him Scipio to Doc White, and he sent them to McAlester, as he could do nothing for him. At Scipio he was loaded into an old model T Ford and they started for McAlester. It was cold that night, and the car broke down, so he died before they could get him there. He was about twenty three years old. (7)

Carl Hudson had a preliminary trial and they turned him loose. He never served a day in prison for this killing. Cicero Long killed a young man by the name of Stewart in 1930. This happened in Ulan at the beginning of the depression. He intended to rob Stewart and hit him over the head with a two by four and killed him. All the boy had in his pocket was fifty cents. Big Tom Owens was killed in 1945. This was during the war when food was rationed, and Big Tom came in to Cecil Weddles store and asked for a bucket of lard. Cecil said he couldnt sell him that much, as it was rationed and you could get only so much per family. This made Big Tom mad and they got into a fuss. Bob Weddle, Cecils father, was at the store playing dominos, almost every day, and he was present during this fuss. Big Tom was mad at both of them. He told them he would be back the next morning to settle this for good. Early next morning about sunrise Cecil saw Big Tom pass his house on the way to the store. Cecil took his Browning automatic shotgun and went toward the store. As he got close he could hear Bob and Big Tom fussing inside. He cried out, You big S.O.B. come on out of there. You have run over me as long as you are going to! When Tom came to the door the shooting stared, Tom carried a 45. The store had a glass front, and J. R. Martin was inside when the shooting began, he got up to run out of harms way and Cecil shot him in the leg by mistake. Cecil fired four shots at Big Tom before he fell dead. Cecil was not hurt. Bill Alexander, the sheriff came out and made an investigation, and preliminary hearing was held. Cecil was bound over to District Court. When it came to trial, and jury was impaneled, the Judge sent the jury out to see if it was worth while to go ahead with a trial, and the said, No. So there was no trial, and Cecil went free. The people in the courtroom clapped their hand and were so pleased that the Judge had to ask for order in the Courtroom. The last killing was in 1953. This man was killed by Bryant Stevens. He was a Mexican, and was Bryant Stevenss brother-in-law. He came to Bryants house and cursed and abused him, and then left and went to Bryants brother Joes place. Bryant said later, that he followed him there as he was afraid he would harm his sister. When Bryant arrived they got into another fuss, and Bryant shot him in the belly and killed him. I do not know the Mexicans name. Bryant never served any time for this killing. So you can see that Scipio was not a Holy City, and the surrounding area was not the Holy Land. Besides the killings there were many people cut up with knives. It was not unusual for someone to get cut up with a knife at a dance. Clay Long told me once he was afraid to come to Scipio on a Saturday as it was so rough. Later he was at a dance west of Lone Grove, and got one eye cut out. He got into a fight with one of the Lyons boys, and got his eye cut out. This was in the late 1920s. (8)

A fellow by the name of Knight cut up George Winters. Those that were there at the dance said he cut him 80 times. I did not see this, I was not there, but it did happen because I knew both of them real well. He did not die, he lived to be an old man and died in Mississippi, this happened in 1913. I remember in 1925, my daddy hauled a bale of cotton to McAlester, and started back home late that afternoon. He had cottonseed in the wagon, and at that time the road went over the mountain, and came out by Coal Creek Bridge. He noticed a car sitting beside the road up on the mountain. A fellow stopped him and said he couldnt start his car and asked him to pull it. Daddy asked him if he had a chain, he replied no he had a rope. They tied the rope to the car and the wagon. He pulled the car and to it started. When the stranger tried to untie the rope, he told daddy he couldnt get it, and asked Daddy to see if he could untie it. When Daddy stooped down to untie it, the man stuck a gun in his ribs. He told him to march down into the woods, away from the road, and when he did another man was sitting by a tree, supposedly tied up. Daddy knew him, his name was Bill Self. He asked him, What are you doing Bill? Bill remained silent. There was also a gallon of chock beer beside him. He tied Daddys hands behind him with new shoe laces, and crossed his feet and tied them with insulating wire. He searched Daddy for money, and found none, he had deposited his check in the bank before leaving town. Daddy had only one dime, and had spent that at the store for a twist of tobacco. He took his watch, threw his pipe and tobacco on the ground and stomped them, also slung his pocket knife into the dirt about 10 feet away. He told Daddy, You SOB, if you dont have money on you it is in that cotton seed in your wagon. He told Bill he could take a walk and two of them went to the wagon. Daddy heard them get into the wagon, and he heard them step down. When he heard the car start he began trying to get loose. He rolled over and over till he got his hands over the pocket knife and managed to cut his hands loose, and untied his feet. In the meantime this robber went toward McAlester and robbed the little store where Daddy had spent his last dime for tobacco earlier. He got $50. Daddy got the law on him, but he was never caught. I guess this gives and idea of the crimes committed during those times, and gives the younger generation a glimpse into the past. Many homes in Scipio did not have water wells, and it was decided to dig a public well, around 1912. My uncle, Dan Tomlin, helped to dig this well, and walled it up. It is located in the middle of Main Street at the east end of town , and is still in use today. There is a pump on it now, but in the early days you drew water up with a rope and a bucket. During the great drought in 1936, many people hauled water from this well. I, myself hauled drinking water at this time. On top of all this came the great Depression, starting in 1929, and lasting through 1934, when President Roosevelt took office and started some work projects, and got money into circulation, he vowed when he took office he would put rural electricity into every mans home that wanted it, before he left office, and he did. (9)

During the Depression there was no money in circulation. People could not help one another, because nobody had any money. In order to borrow $100 from the First National Bank in McAlester you had to have a lot of collateral. Ray Wilkerson borrowed on his land and started trading and buying horses and anything else he could trade on. One of the horses he had mortgaged died and Ray went into the bank to tell the banker that one of horses had died, the banker called him a liar, and they got into a fight, right inside the bank, and Ray hit him, and the banker grabbed a spittoon and threw it at him. All I ever heard this banker called was, Baldy. My wife and I lived in a three room house in 1930, and Jack was still a baby, our house caught on fire and burned to the ground and we walked off barefoot. We saved nothing. This happened in September, while we were picking cotton. We had new shoes and were walking barefoot trying to save them. I had just spent my last $20 for groceries, and they all went up in smoke. My wife, Ida, and I picked eight bales of cotton that fall and hired it hauled to Stuart and Calvin. We paid Squirrel Wood $3 a bale to haul it that distance. After our rent was paid, we had $75 to winter on, and to start another crop in the spring. The following year, at the grocery store in Scipio, I owed $35 to Richard Treece and Doc Nabors, and I could only pay $19 of this amount. I told Richard that I had five hogs, and if I could run them outside and sell them in the spring I would pay the balance. I sold these hogs to a man named Neesmith for $5 each and paid the balance of the grocery bill. This left me with $9 to start a crop that spring. In 1932 I rented more farm land and hired Joe Lavarnway, and gave him 10 acres of crop for his wages. Together we raised a crop on 100 acres. We had corn and cotton, and it was very good that year. I had an excellent corn crop, and sold corn for 15 cents a bushel. In 1933, I made a crop by myself, it was only a fair year, but I was out of debt. I started raising horses and mules, and would break the mules to work and sell them as two year olds for a profit. In 1934, I moved over to Bud Hickmans place, at the foot of the mountain. We had so much rain in the spring, I had to replant my corn. I had about the only corn crop in the area. I had 30 hogs, so I used all the corn myself. Herbert Heskett came to my house looking for hogs to buy for meat. I had some big barrows and asked him how many he wanted. He said he needed three. When He asked how much I wanted for each, I told him $3 a piece. He said Hell no, do you think I would give that much? and he went off and left them. Cliff Myers took a load of fat hogs to Oklahoma City in a pickup with a stake body, when he got his check after yardage and commission had been paid, he had a check for $5. I was at his home a couple of days after this and he showed me the check. This was not as bad as Jake Woods said it was. He said he took a load of hogs to the City and he had to give them a case of eggs to get them to take the hogs. Ha. (10)

If anybody has any doubt about this, Cliff Myers is still living tow miles west of Scipio, and this can be easily checked. After this, Cliff loaded hogs and drove around the Indianlola area and peddled them, for $1 or $2 each. These were choice fed hogs. They couldnt sell the old sows, so they killed them, because they didnt want to feed them. The cattle market was not better. In 1934, I sold big cows for $12 each and calves for $4. The government had lots of cattle killed, just to bring the price up. We gave this meat to anybody that wanted it, and lots of people came for it. My daddy and Roy Knaves and Bob Medley started a three man cattle company during this time, while cattle were real cheap. They paid from $2 to $8 a head, and an $8 yearling had to be a pretty big one. They had some pasture leased, besides their own. They would go into McIntosh county, around Vernon and Hanna and would put fifty or sixty head of yearlings together and drive them back across the river, bring them home to pasture and start looking for more. They would be gone two weeks at a time. And I was left in charge of things at home. These cattle were bought in the spring and pastured on grass till late fall, and sold at that time, for a small profit, $2 or $3 a head. Bill Cox was a trader and he would usually buy them. He was from Hanna. This cattle company lasted for about three years. In 1936, we had the great drought. It did not rain from April to mid-September, and no one took a wagon into the field. The crops were a complete failure, and I drove cattle two miles every day to water, from the public well in Scipio. Many other farmers did the same thing. It finally started raining the fifteenth of September and rained most of the time till Christmas. During this great drought many people left Oklahoma with their families and went to California looking for work. Some of my friends are still out there, and they have done very well. Things started getting a little better in 1938, crops improved some, and livestock prices went up a bit. By 1940 good cows would bring $45 to $50 apiece. In 1942, I sold enough cattle to buy 190 acres of land and pay cash for it, but I still had to build a house, barn, chicken house, corrals, etc. There was an old house on the land which we lived in until I could get something built. In 1944, I bought thirty acres up at Lonegrove and in 1964 I added eighty acres more. It was called the old Shelton place, and my son J. B. lives there now. I had this all paid for and in 1968, due to my wifes poor health, I sold all of this and moved to McAlester. There are only three of the old-timers still living at Scipio. They are Allen Duckworth, Cliff Myers, and B. M. Cantrell. Scipio is not the thriving farm community that it once was. The land became depleted and as thirty years previous I had predicted it would have to revert back to cattle country, which it now is. There are only three farmers left in the area, D. L. McAffee, Cecil Medley, and Delbert Stacey. (11)

A new and younger generation now lives in Scipio, and they either work in McAlester or Tulsa. Forty years ago everybody farmed, and about all they raised was corn and cotton. All available land was under cultivation. Most all the farm land was owned and rented out by the loan companies; very few people owned their own farms. Today most everyone owns their own land, but there are few productive farms, and peanuts is their main crop. I was a natural born tiller of the soil, and I lived and farmed at one place thirty-five years. This is not the place where Bob Kelley lives. My Daddy lived on this farm from 1919 until 1928, I bought it in 1942 from A. B. Ringland, and lived there until I move to McAlester in 1968. Scipio is not what it used to be. There is only one grocery store and gas station and it is hard to visualize it as a once thriving community. These are true facts which I have recounted for the benefit of the younger generation. To the best of my ability, I have recounted these facts. I want to thank my good friend Geanie Murray for transcribing these facts. Signed: Joe Barlow