Boomers and Sooners

Like most Nebraska sports fans, I have been generally pleased with the Huskers aligning themselves with the Big 10 Athletic Conference.

Yet, I'm sure that I am not alone in missing the "Love/Hate" relationships that we enjoyed with the schools of the old Big 8 Conference, especially the University of Oklahoma -- relationships that stemmed back to the old Missouri Valley Conference, which began in 1907 -- then to the Big 6, Big 7 and finally the Big 8. For many of the years Nebraska and Oklahoma dominated those conferences, and it must be said, that for a long time Oklahoma was "King of the Hill," especially in football. Indeed, in one period, after World War II Oklahoma, under the leadership of Bud Wilkinson, the football team went 47 games without a defeat, and won 13 straight conference championships. Those were the days when sports pundits referred to the Big 8 as, "Oklahoma and the 7 Dwarfs."

Unfortunately, those days, after World War II, were also the days when I attended the University of Nebraska, and on too many of those epic battles with Oklahoma, the Huskers ended up on the short end of the score. At those games, Oklahoma brought along a little covered wagon, drawn by a matched set of ponies, and after every touchdown that wagon, the "Sooner Schooner" would tear around the track to the hated sounds of the Oklahoma fight song -- salt in an open wound. We never really understood the difference between a Boomer and a Sooner. The Oklahoma Pep Club seemed to use the terms interchangeably, and had named their fight song, "Boomer-Sooner."

In the spring of 2014, Oklahoma is observing the 125th Anniversary of the opening up of Indian Territory to white settlers, in 1889. There have been numerous stories in the papers regarding that giant land grab, stories which have cleared up the terms "Boomer" and "Sooner." It is interesting to take a look at this event -- which occurred at a time when McCook was in a midst of a "Boom time" of its own.

In the 1820s, long before the Civil War, the U.S. government decided to take care of its Indian problem, in the East at least, by shipping all its Indians to a land "West of the Mississippi, and outside the boundaries of Louisiana, Missouri, and Arkansas Territory" -- a sizeable tract of land, generally considered not suitable for farming, land unwanted by most whites (before the discovery of oil on this land and predating irrigation by many decades.).

Some of the Indians removed, from the Southeast U.S., were members of the Five Civilized Indian Nations -- Chickasaws, Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles.

They were referred to as "Civilized" because they were most like the White Man and were different from the Plains Indians. They practiced farming as their major source of income, but lived mainly in villages and towns, which they developed along the lines of Southern Whites. They had a written language of their native tongue.

They adopted a written Constitution, a well-developed Judicial System, had two chambers of government for their elected officials. They had quite a well-developed Social System, modeled along the lines of the Southern Aristocracy, with a few rich folks and many who were not so well off. Again, taking their cue from the Southern culture, many of the wealthy members of the "Civilized" tribes had slaves, and large plantations.

By the 1870s, these relocated Eastern Indian tribes were well settled and while hardly prospering, were doing quite well in their new surroundings in "Indian Territory," which constituted much of present day State of Oklahoma. With the opening of the first Transcontinental Railroad, in 1879 there was renewed interest in all Western land.

It was noted that there was one large tract of land in Indian Territory -- some 3000 acres -- much of it having been ceded back to the US Government by the Creeks and Seminoles, which had not been assigned to any particular Indian group, and was referred to as "Unassigned Lands." A number of prominent political and business figures, newspapers, and railroads began to campaign hard in Washington for the right to open these lands to white settlement. Groups of these folks, desiring to settle those Unassigned Acres, were referred to as "Boomers."

For 10 years after 1879 some of the Boomers, defying armed military units, conducted raids into the Unassigned Lands to plot out future cities. Some even went so far as to plant crops and build houses on some of this disputed land. When President Benjamin Harrison finally decided to open up the Indian Territories to white settlement, with the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889, "Squatters' Rights" of those Boomers were not recognized by the US Government.

Claims on the new land were to be available to all, on an equal basis, in the form of a huge "Land Run" on April 22, 1889.

For some time, before the April date, would-be settlers began staking out their claims for land in the Indian Territory, "Sooner" than was allowed. This practice was illegal, of course, and frowned upon by the general populous as well as being opposed by military units, and for a long time the term "Sooner" meant "Cheater," and carried a bad association with it.

By April 22, 1889, tens of thousands of people, potential settlers, speculators, and adventurers had gathered at the border crossing, awaiting the start of the Great Oklahoma Land Rush. Cities sprang up overnight. At noon on the 22nd, military men at various crossing points fired pistols, sounded bugles, or shot off canon to signal the start of the great Land Race.

"An avalanche of horses, wagons, even people on foot surged across the border, all at once. It was estimated that 50,000 people vied to stake their claim on the 160 acres of Free Land (formerly "Indian Territory." At that moment Boomers and Sooners joined settlers in a common goal -- together they became known as "89ers." Even today, descendants of those first settlers keep alive that memory, with much pride, as members of the 89ers Society, with annual reunions.

The event of the Great Land Race was marred, the night before, by a large number of "Sooners" who sneaked across the line, escaping detection by military units who were guarding the border. They made their way to land that they had marked out, hid in the ditches, and when the land run began, they miraculously popped up, looking for all the world that they had merely beaten their rivals to their favored spot. Naturally, this led to numerous disputes -- some settled by the courts, and some settled on the spot with 6-shooters.

Gradually, the term, "Sooner" lost its unfavorable connotation, and when the Oklahoma University football team adopted the knick-name, "Sooner," in 1908, the entire state accepted the term as a badge of pride, which continues to the present time. It is kept alive and well, much to the chagrin of football opponents, who still must endure those painful jaunts by that pesky Sooner Schooner after every touchdown, to the dreaded strains of Boomer/Sooner.

Source: U. of OK Football history, Forgotten American History, Boomers, Sooners and 89ers