I hope you had a memorable and safe 250th celebration of the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Last week, we reprinted T.B. Ferguson’s account of the 1894 Independence Day celebration in Watonga. I found this photo from Oklahoma History of the 1907 Celebration in Watonga Watonga Independence Day 1907.
Independence Day, yesteryear as today, is an important event. One of the goals of T.B. Ferguson was to help Oklahoma become a state. He had promoted the Oklahoma Territory exhibit in the 1903 St. Louis World’s Fair to show the world Oklahoma was ready for statehood. The 1905 Sequoyah Constitutional Convention was later used as the basis Oklahoma State constitution. The Enabling Act of 1906 allowed Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory to become a single state. Oklahoma Constitution.
The state constitutional convention with 115 delegates had been held Nov. 1906 through March 15, 1907, just months before this picture was taken. Shortly after this picture, in September 1907, citizens of Oklahoma and Indian Territories ratified the constitution by popular vote. The United States Congress approved Oklahoma’s admission as a state in Nov. 1907 and Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Oklahoma a state Nov. 17, 1907.