There weren’t any visitors this week at the museum. I guess everyone was taking advantage of the cooler weather to get caught up on other stuff.
We have a picture of the Watonga band, I assume it’s the school band and it’s all men. I couldn’t find a date so we could know what year. They all had on white pants, shirts, and hats with a dark neck tie. They had white shoes except for one sitting on the floor with his legs crossed and it looks like he has one white and one brown shoe on. Here are the names I can make out: Lloyd Homer, Allen Falcenstine, Fuller Canburge?, Dewey ?, Mc Kiddy, ? Pettitt, ? Jergenson, Lyle Christy, Joe Christy, Gifford Mc Bride, Gene Blakinley, Gail Beckwith, and Cleman Kelley. The names with ? indicate it was too hard to read the hand writing so I guessed at the spelling or it’s not legible due to the age of the paper. Mrs. Ferguson’s book,
Mrs. Ferguson’s book, They Carried the Torch, talks about John H. Seger and his wife working among the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians seventeen years before Oklahoma was opened to white settlers. Seger had been superintendent of the Darlington school. In 1886 there was a colony with five hundred Cheyenne and Arapahoe on Cook Creek near the Washita River, about 50 miles southwest of the agency
She explains how the Politian’s would put the items they wanted printed in the paper that was associated with their party. Blaine County was a Republican county so the Watonga Republican was the official paper. D. J. Martin started the Watonga Rustler. You could tell there was a lot of completion between the Rustler and Republican by reading the editorials. At one time there were four newspapers in Watonga with a population of twelvehundred. The Watonga Republican is the only one still being printed.
We have cancelled the Tea for now. We may have it at another date.
Anyone that wants to volunteer or become a member of Friends of Ferguson Home is welcome.