Oklahoma City Land Run April 22, 1889, We've come a long way...

[Laramie]

The "Run" or "Harrison's Horserace" was a defining moment in the history of the state of Oklahoma. A number of cities grew from the original town sites, including Oklahoma City. The area by the Santa Fe Railroad station and on the north bank of the North Canadian River drew 10,000 people on the day of the run.

April 22, is considered Oklahoma City's birthday

Happy 126th Birthday

http://www.okc.gov/landrun/1889.html

Please feel free to share anything about Oklahoma City with OKCTalk posters...

[Tritone]

When I was a kiddo fifty years ago '89er day was a big deal with reenactments at the local grade schools. Times have changed, haven't they?

[turnpup]

My kid's (private) school does it still. I volunteered to help set up for it the day before, and then assist the day of. Little did I know that they were going to ask parents to dress in period clothing.

[okatty]

Same - we welded hoops on a little red wagon and covered it with cloth to make a covered wagon!

[turnpup]

Sounds like you had it a lot harder than I did! So far, we've just had to glue some feathers onto stuff.

[okatty]

Well, hope it's fun! Stake out a good plot!!

[dankrutka]

The biggest problem with celebrating the Landrun is that the larger context of the story was the final invasion of indigenous sovereignty. Even "unassigned land" can't be ripped from that story and many schools whitewash history and don't properly explain the context. I'm not a big fan of classes reenacting historical events because they're almost always ahistorical and inaccurate (which defeats the purpose of doing it), but I could see students walking through elements of the LandRun with a wise social studies teacher who can properly explain the history. From what I've seen that's rarely the case.

[bombermwc]

We had big banners in our cafeteria and even had shirts made for the 1989 landrun at my elementary school. My kids didn't even bring anything home that mentioned it this year.