The Oklahoma Land Run A gunshot fired. A cannon roared. Horses
startled and wagons sprang to life. On April 22, 1889, settlers
flooded into the region of central Oklahoma known as the
Unassigned Lands. President Benjamin Harrison signed a
proclamation on March 23, 1889, opening the land and people came
from across the country to claim it. According to the Homestead
Act of 1862, if a settler could stay on the land he claimed for
five years and improve it, it would be his free and clear. Some
people were very excited about the 1889 Land Run and were ready
to try to make a new life in Oklahoma Territory. There were
people, however, who did not want new settlers to come into the
territory. This exhibit will show the 1889 Land Run from the
perspectives of five different players: David Payne, leader of
the Boomer movement; Lew Carroll, a settler who came to stake a
claim but was unsuccessful until a later Land Run; American
Indians who were placed on agencies and whose land was allotted
and taken from traditional c