Indian Pioner Papers -      Perry Lanham
                               

Submitted by  Brenda Choate  bcchoate@yahoo.com 
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                    Garvin County Indian Pioneer Papers
                                      
Perry Lanham



Interview #4610

Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson

Date: June 22, 1937

Name: Mr. Perry Lanham

Residence: Wynnewood, Oklahoma

Date of Birth: 1865

Place of Birth: Texas

Father: P.G. Lanham

Mother: Manda Anderson





I was born in Texas in 1865.  I came from Texas to the Indian Territory 

in 1882, and settled at Tishomingo in the Chickasaw Nation.  I went to 

work for Mr. Fisher; he owned a supply house, where he sold nearly 

everything you wanted to buy or trade for.  I worked and saved my money 

so that I could start a ranch and in 1888, I had saved up enough money, 

I thought, to start a small ranch, so I went over on Spring Brook Creek to 

a place called Cross Roads. There was no store there at that time I built 

a log house, and by the last of 1889 I owned about three hundred head of 

cattle and a few horses.



A Mr. McGee put in a gin there in 1889, and later built a store and 

named it McGee. I helped Mr. McGee establish a post office and by 1895 

we had everything going along fine.  I had at that time six sections of 

land fenced and about three thousand head of cattle.  Of course, I had 

been selling a few along to make money to buy others with, and also to 

make money enough to live on.  I would buy every cow I could get money 

enough to pay for and in this way I raised most of my cattle.  There were 

lots of wild horses on Rock Creek below where Sulphur now stands.



I have paid two to three dollars a head for those wild horses which were 

broken to lead.  There were several men who made a living by catching 

wild horses and breaking them to lead.  I have bought several horses 

for five dollars a head and they were broken in to ride, this way I 

got my horses very cheap.  I would break them to work to a wagon or plow.



Before I sold my lease and cattle, I had twenty men working for me.  

 

I sold out in 1899 and moved to Wynnewood, where I have lived since.