Facial fire tops statehood
The New York Times has opened up some of its most historic archives to the public. TimesMachine offers a look at any New York Times edition from 1851 through 1922. I decided to see if I could find how the paper of record covered Oklahoma’s statehood. It wasn’t as easy as I had thought it would be.
First, I went back to read the front page of the Nov. 17, 1907 edition. There was nothing there about statehood, although there was a complete report on the accidental incineration of the beard of a 70-year-old man who had never shaved.
Perhaps, I thought, the Times opted to run a story on the actual day Oklahoma became a state. But I could find nothing in the Nov. 16, 1907 paper.
So I returned to the Nov. 17 edition and began to flip through the pages. Eventually, on page 8 I found a fairly brief mention of President Theodore Roosevelt’s signing of a proclamation declaring Oklahoma’s statehood. You can see it yourself by clicking here.
As the Times noted: “There was absolutely no ceremony connected with the signing of the proclamation.”
Of course, we played it bit larger in The Oklahoman. Our banner headline read:
OKLAHOMA BECOMES STATE
Scratch of Quill Pen Lets The New State Into Union;
Indian Territory and Oklahoma Are Symbolically Wed.
The Oklahoman also managed to find room on the front page for a fatal saloon shooting. Here’s the flavor of that feature:
“In a pistol duel in Ed Conley’s saloon, 116 West First Street, at 8:15 o’clock last night — a little more than three hours before the prohibition law was applied by Sheriff Garrison and the police departement — Robert Johnson, bartender, was shot three times and is now believed to be in a dying condition at St. Anthony’s hospital.” (A later bulletin noted that Johnson had died.)
Perusing century-old newspapers is endlessly fascinating, with the advertisements often as revealing of the past as the news of the day and the manner in which it was reported.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
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