The Story of the Mayo family
submitted by Lora Topinka

  "A hot September sun, on the morning of the 16th in 1893, looked down upon an army, 100,000 strong, lined up at the borders of the Cherokee Strip. An army come to conquer a land - with plows and harrows and drills for armaments, and salt pork, canned tomatoes and canned beans for ammunition. It has been said that "the Strip was opened on a piece of salt pork and a can of tomatoes."

  Thus starts the saga of the Mayo family as recorded by Ethel Foresman in her book, the "The High Flame of Courage." Ida Gay Mayo Foresman, her husband Billy and her brothers Charley and Claude Mayo were among the 100,000 fighting for position in the opportunity of a lifetime, one hundred and sixty acres free, or almost so with the opening of Indian Territory to settlement.

  They came from Bluff City, Kansas the morning of the run. Others had been waiting for days and some even weeks and a few had been camping on rented ground near the border for almost two years. They had a wagon pulled by a team and packed with a small store of food, a frying pan, tea kettle, coffee pot, two iron pegs and a cross-rod to set up over a fire on which to hang the kettle and pot, a burn-out vinegar barrel that contained a precious s

  With the signal the opening of the Strip a stampede was started. Claude staked his claim near a stream fourteen and one-half miles from the Kansas state line. Billy Foresman, by a trick of fate, bought an adjoining claim from a disgusted claimant for $2.50.

  The Foresman's and Mayo's filed their claims and homesteaded near what is now Wakita, Oklahoma. Ida and Billy lived on their homestead, Ida dying in 1922 and Billy in 1938. Claude Mayo moved on to work in the lead and zinc mines in Missouri before returning to Bluff City, where he lived until his death in 1945.