| The town of McLoud first started on the north side of the river by
a few homesteaders who made the second run in the county, the Kickapoo
Run of May 23, 1895. It was called "Shacktown", where there was one
store and some whiskey peddlers. Chief "Walpakoka" was the Kickapoo
Chief near here in 1894. The spring flood then moved them to higher
ground on the south side of the river near present McLoud. The official
evidence of the town's beginning happened only 29 days after the Kickapoo
Run for homesteads, when on June 21, 1895, the deed was filed from E.J.
Kelly, then owner of the land to the McLoud Townsite, and the survey made
by J.S. Wilkinson was filed on record the next day. The land had
originally been a part of the homestead of Shade Vanhoozer who received
the patent from the U.S.A. W. P. Vanhoozer (1828 - Virg. to Missouri,
then here in 1891.
Leander G. Pitman (1853 - Illinois) an '89er at Oklahoma City, a lawyer
and graduate of Vanderbilt, was at Wichita Falls, Texas when he heard about
the "Oklahoma Run", went to Purcell where he boarded a crowded Santa Fe
train, got off at Oklahoma Station, and ran on foot and staked a claim
at the present 50th & Pennsylvania Station in Oklahoma City.
Pitman was later one of the McLoud Townsite promoters, came here to live
in 1895 before he moved to Tecumseh in 1896. The town was named for
John W. McLoud, railroad attorney for the Choctaw, Okla. & Gulf RR,
which had their opening run on July 4, 1895, only 13 days after the deed
to the townsite was filed. The first Post Office was established
June 21, 1895, and was erroneously spelled "McCloud", and remained that
way for 4 months and 3 days, when on October 24, 1895 it was changed correctly
to "McLoud." Mattie C. Rose was the first Postmaster. Those
remembered to have made the run in the Kickapoo reservation in 1895 were:
B.S. Shaw, Douglas Kerr, Walter Franklin, Dr. J. Mooney, W.L. "Bill" Russell
(1856 - Mississippi), J.L. Roughton, Joseph A. Brown, Hank Walsh and Grim
Marlatte.
Other early day landowners in and near the McLoud area, some before
McLoud began were: John M. Howard, Charles Martell, Elmira Wilson,
Mary A. Baldwin, Rufas A. Randels, J.C. Arnall, Wright Christian, J.W.
Moyle, Israel Martel, James M. Baldwin, Thomas Wharry, John A. Jackson,
Weston Barnett, Daniel Butler, Joseph Mosler, N.A. Bateman, J.M. Bradford,
J.L. Nation, Charles E. Wright, J.E. Whitted, Frank McConel, Ennis Munger,
C.M. Webb, T.E. Beck, H.A. Hood, T. Bendis, J.S. Lyle and T.J. Wilhelm.
Edgar Ellsworth (1891 - Kansas) came to McLoud with his parents that
year, and many years later was a Deputy Sheriff of the County after the
Saloons were closed. Hoe W. Hatfield (1866 - Tenn.) arrived in 1899
was Master of the Masonic Lodge in 1901 and was a licensed undertaker.
J.S. Lyle (1848 - Georgia) had the first cotton gin in McLoud, formerly
had a gin near Dale where he ginned 300 bales in 1896, coming to
McLoud in 1897. In 1906 he ginned 2854 bales of cotton that season.
The gin was later the Seikel-Lyle Round Bale gin.
Max Sexton came here in 1903 as a young Christian preacher, and many
years later was the founder of the "Rainbow Girls" at McAlester.
Dr. Mooney bought out the Lyon Drug Store where Fred Kohler (1876 - Ala.)
was half owner, and consolidated it with his other drug store in 1903.
Mike Seikel, father of John, MIke and Leo Seikel, came to the Dale area
in 1892, and was a large raiser of hogs. He opened a Feed Store here,
bought the Rudhuff Wagon Yard. John Seikel came to McLoud and ran
the business for his father in 1903. In 1905 John started his General
store in a building formerly where Craddock & Allen had a store.
The first gasoline was sold in McLoud from a barrel with a hand pump in
the top, and was located in front of the Mooney-Cox Drug Store. McLoud
had a population in 1900 of 498, and in 1907 had 783, and was the third
largest town in the county both times, and in 1970 is still the third largest
town in the county.
Excerpts from: "Localized History of Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma
to 1907" by Charles W. Mooney
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