American Historical Ephemera and Early Photography

Rare promotional booklet issued by the Missouri Pacific Railway Company for homesteaders who were preparing to embark for the Cherokee Strip. 5 1/4 x 7 1/2 in., printed paper wrappers with cover title "Indian Territory, Oklahoma and the Cherokee Strip." Second Edition. 85pp, with advertisements and large folding map (penciled initials on top right corner of front wrapper, loss to bottom left corner of rear wrapper, light toning, pages clean). Color map adhered to interior of rear wrapper, "A Correct Map of the Oklahoma Country and Cherokee Outlet, Reached via the Missouri Pacific Railway and Iron Mountain Route." 20 3/4 x 14 1/2 in. from neat line to neat line. St. Louis, MO: Woodward & Tiernan Printing Co., likely a reissue of an 1889 map that appeared in a Missouri Pacific printed promotional pamphlet of that date.  

The 1889 Indian Appropriations Act officially opened the Unassigned Lands of Indian Territory to non-native settlers under tenets of the Homestead Act, culminating in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 and later the Land Run of 1893, or the "Cherokee Strip Land Run." This rare early promotional map of the Oklahoma Territory including the Cherokee Strip and contiguous regions, shows the routes to the Territory serviced by the Missouri Pacific Railway and Iron Mountain Routes, and contains information that would be deemed usable for potential settlers: historical background, details related to various Native American tribes, soil and crop analysis, and more. Like earlier, related imprints by the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, this publication was likely timed to coincide with the opening of the Cherokee Strip in 1893, the Oklahoma Territory's fourth and largest land run.