This Day

On January 30, 1885 the Secretary of the Interior, Henry M Teller, recommended the opening of Indian lands in the Indian Territory to homesteaders.  Since 1880 homesteaders, known as ‘boomers’ and led by David L Payen and William L Couch, had been crossing into Indian Territory from Kansas and Arkansas and settling on what is known as the ‘Unassigned Lands’ in the center of Indian Territory.