Caddo County, Oklahoma Biography - Phineas B. Walter -------------------------------------------------------------------------- USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ Submitted by: Sandy Miller ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CACHE SCHOOL (Dist #61) AND COMMUNITY By Phineas B. Walter. Printed by the Southwestern Oklahoma Historical Society in 'Prairie Lore', vol. 8 no. 3, January 1972, pages 172-175. The Cache School located twelve and one half miles south of Carnegie, Oklahoma was the community center around which all neighborhood activities operated. Our family moved from Nebraska to Old Oklahoma, settling near Oklahoma City, in 1898. In 1901 my father registered for land in the land drawing in the Comanche-Kiowa-Apache reservation, but drew too high in number to get land. We moved to Kiowa County and into the Cache Commuity in 1911. Cache School District Number 61 was in Caddo County. We leased land from a Kiowa Indian, CECIL HORSE, one of the sons of the famous Kiowa scout, HUNTING HORSE. This land was in Kiowa County and we were actually in the Dixie School District of Kiowa County. However, we considered ourselves a part of the Cache Community which was separated from us only by a section line, county road. My father was PHINEAS B. WALTER, Sr., my mother was EFFIE (White) WALTER, and my brothers were LOGAN, JOHN, CHARLIE, EARL and LOGUE. I had two sisters, GOLDIE and CLARA. There were many large families in the Cache omunity, and we enoyed many good times together at school, Sunday School, and picnics. As I recall, the first school board at Cache Number 61 was Line Moore, Mr. Vinson and Bill Smith. I have been told the first teacher was MR. RUSHTON. Other teachers at the Cache School were JOE HOGUE, CATHERINE FALLOM, DUTE ROBINSON, MISS HEFNER, FLOSSIE DAWES, BETH LEECH, BETTY AMOS, IMEZ HUGHES, EDNA MERCER, and the least teacher at the school was MABLE MECKLEY. I remember a humorous happening of the early days in the Cache Community. A mile east of the school building was the site of an early-day wagon train camp. This was on a well-traveled trail made many years before this country opened. Land seekers coming into the area in 1901, looking for locations to claim if they drew a lucky number, camped quite often at this site. It was a common practice of these land seekers, some of whom carried large sums of money, to bury their money in the ground, while they were camped. A legend grew from this practice to the effect that a band of Indians scared away a large group of land seekers, who departed in such a hurry that they failed to dig up the buried money. Consequently in later years, much to the annoyance of land owners, strangers quite often came and dug all around the old camp site, trying to find the supposedly buried money. Most of the digging was during the night. One evening a large group of fortune hunters were at the old camp site about dark and some of our neighbors got together after dark with their shotguns, slipped up near where the digging was going on, and all fired their guns into the air, giving off terrific yells at the same tiem. The fortune seekers were so scared they ran through a barbed wire fence, one of their number becoming so entangled that he left his pants hanging on the fence. A Union Sunday School was organized and met in the Cache School building for many years. Some of those who were Sunday School Superintendents were LEM JONES, Mrs. ROBINSON, ANNA PERCHBACKER and MAY GRANGER. For many years there were 50 or more in attendance at the Cache Sunday School. However, during the depression days, 1932-1933, many people left the community and Sunday School attendance dropped to about 12 or 15. The Cache School was closed about 1946 when the district voted to unite with Carnegie and Alden school districts. After the school closed, the school building was used for community meetings, Sunday School and religious services. In 1954 the building burned. Today (1966) only the old cellar, foundation of the building and heaps of molten glass from the windows remain at the site of this former community center. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~