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Transcription
In episode 32 of the Curious Cousins podcast, Jess and Tiff announce the winner of their first giveaway and discuss the launch of their Patreon page. They also mention their cousin Miranda's birthday and express their condolences for the victims of a recent shooting at the University of Oklahoma. They then talk about the tragic Babs Switch fire in Oklahoma in 1924, which was the sixth deadliest fire in US history. They recount the details of the fire, including the lack of escape routes and the efforts to save the victims. They also mention the positive changes that came about as a result of the fire, such as the implementation of fire safety requirements for schools. Hi, I'm Jess and I'm Tiff and we're your Curious Cousins, where we talk about everything kooky and spooky in the state of Oklahoma. Welcome to episode 32. Welcome. How are you today? I'm good, we just kind of got some news. I know, we literally just did something really awesome and fun. We did. The world shot us down. Exactly. So first, we just did our first giveaway. We did. Congratulations Amanda Prawner for winning our drawing. So we are ordering your book and we'll get it to our house and then sign up for you and then send it on your way. I wish that I could hand it to you in person because I'm actually going to be in her hometown. Yeah and so we were trying to brainstorm a way to get it and I don't know that we'll be able to before I leave tomorrow. Yeah, I mean it would help if it wasn't like 10 o'clock at Friday night. Exactly. So my bad, I'm sorry, but it will be there soon. Yes. So look out for more giveaways. Yes. Second, our Patreon page launched today. It did. And so it'll be a week old by the time you guys hear this part, but it did launch today. We only have one tier, it's $5. Don't feel pressured to join, but you know if you want to. It's there. It's there and we're just really looking into doing more and kind of, you know, thanking fans in a different way. Sure. So and just because we do an episode on Patreon doesn't mean that it won't ever be available. Yeah, that's on our regular platform. Very true. Yeah. Yeah. Other than that. Well, our cousin Miranda has a birthday today. So happy birthday, Miranda. I hope it was a great day. I hope you had a fantastic day. We love you. We do love you so much. If you don't know our cousin Miranda, if you don't remember, she was the one who wrote in a listener tale and it was so fabulous and then it turned out to be so untrue and fake and hoax. Exactly. And we both got got. Yeah. Got good. We did. She also owns and manages and runs the Red Hill Fainting Goat out of Fairview. She does. And they just had some little baby. Aww. So yeah. So hopefully she got to play with some little baby goats today. Yeah. But yeah. Other than that, this week we are gonna dive into a little bit of dark history. We're gonna avoid the bad news, I think, that we just heard because I don't want to bring. No, let's not avoid it. We'll just edit that part out right there. The bad news that we just heard was literally as we're getting ready to start recording this, we got notifications that there was an active shooter on the University of Oklahoma Norman campus and we were both discussing how, of course, we're going to send out our thoughts and prayers to those people. Right now, as of right now, there's only been one confirmed dead and any loss of life, in my opinion, is a tragedy. It is. And but we were both discussing how thoughts and prayers are very important but action is also very important and something has to be done. I don't know what the solution is. Yeah, I don't either. It's just that this is happening way too much. We can't continue to live like this and it's not that Jess and I are getting political by any means. I think loss of life should be bipartisan. Like everybody on either side of the aisle needs to agree that loss of life, the amount of losses of lives that we have been enduring is not acceptable anymore. Especially how close things are. Like we just, the Nashville shooting just happened not that long ago. Right, I mean barely a week ago. And now this. So just, I don't know. I don't know. Talk to y'all's legislators. Talk to your family. You know, we're big proponents of mental health since we've both been touched by mental health in our personal families. We've seen how it can affect people who don't address it. Yeah. And so please just reach out to your loved one. Make sure that they're okay and you know be supportive and be okay if they're not okay. Right. Because it's okay to not be okay everybody. Right. It really is okay to not be okay. So other than that let's get on with some Oklahoma history. What do you think? That's all we're gonna say about it. Right. Let's do it. Here we go. So this week I am going to be talking about the Babs switch fire. And I'm so excited to hear about this. I needed something a little bit lighter after the deep, deep hole that I dug myself into with the Jamison family. Oh and I wanted to thank Ava again for coming on the show. So I'm really excited. Thanks Ava. We really enjoyed having you on. That was a lot of fun. Yeah. So I thought that this would be a little bit lighter for me. I was wrong. Oh no. I had a lot of diving more that went into it and then I just got I just I kept getting more and more and so here we go. I hope you guys enjoy it. Yeah let's enjoy it. I hope you enjoy it. Well I've never heard of it. Okay. So I'm really excited. I haven't either. And then you told me like your topic. You know we've talked about this before like we tell each other what our topics are but we don't necessarily discuss it. Right. And I had never heard of it. And then like this week I just happened to be listening to the Sirens podcast and like the next episode was literally this episode. I was like I have to skip it. I have to hear it first. Well thank you. I appreciate that. So anyway I really just you guys want to see how professional we are. I googled Oklahoma dark history. I literally googled that and they came up. So yeah. So my sources are the Daily Oklahoman newspaper several issues from 1924 one from 1999 the Tulsa World. I had an issue from 2006 genealogy trails dot com and then I checked a lot of Wikipedia sources when I was looking through Wikipedia. So in a lot of them actually referenced many of these newspaper articles that I was looking at. Oh nice. The Babs Switch fire. Let's start off with some statistics. It was the sixth or it is the sixth most deadliest fire in U.S. history. Oh wow. Happened right here in Oklahoma. Interesting. Babs it was formerly named Babs Switch but it now currently goes by Babs is a community in Kiowa County Oklahoma. It was named for Edith Babs Babcock Babcock Babs is six miles south southwest of Hobart Oklahoma and which is approximately west of Oklahoma City south of Clinton if you were to go down 540. On Christmas Eve which is of course December 24th 1921 the one room schoolhouse there in Babs Switch was having a Christmas program. 200 people although I did have sources that said that the number was anywhere from 150 to 250. So I thought 200 might be a good number were crammed into this one room schoolhouse building to witness the Christmas program. It must have been a somewhat big schoolhouse then to get that many people. I mean not like crammed in. Not like big big but I mean it would still have to be a little. Yeah. I mean more decent size. It doesn't really it didn't really go into the dimensions of the building but we'll get into it like it probably had to be a good size. The community was very proud of their schoolhouse. It had recently been freshly painted. They had these new steel grates that had been installed over the windows to prevent the windows from breaking because they'd had so many recent windstorms. Also there were a few vandals and they were just really proud of it. It was just decorated to the nines of course because it was the Christmas season. There was a beautiful Christmas tree. It was trimmed in red and green tallow candles. Beautiful children made paper decorations all over the tree. There was snow outside. Curtains hanging from a stage. Just you know just that perfect picturesque Christmas vibe going on. Yeah. The evening went as planned with the children singing and celebrating the holiday. Babs which resident Dowell Boulding. He was dressed as Santa. He's actually 16 but was dressed as Santa and he appeared so that he could give each child a little present that was underneath the tree. But while Santa was bending down to retrieve a gift he accidentally bumped into one of the burning candles. Oh no. The tree was a live evergreen but it hadn't been stored in water. So we all know I mean now hindsight of course is 2020. We all know if you're going to have a live Christmas tree you got to have water. Right. And of course it was dry. That's a virtual tinderbox right there. The tree ignited essentially. There's these paper I mean they're paper. Yeah I mean I can only imagine. There's candles all over it. It went up quickly. Oh yeah. Well and the schoolhouse I'm sure was made of all wood. We'll get there yeah. People knocked the tree over in an attempt to smother the fire. This unfortunately just spread the fire faster. Yeah. The curtains on the stage area just ignited. Yeah. And of course panic ensued. Well I mean it sounds like it happened pretty quickly too. Unfortunately the schoolhouse had only one entrance and exit. In addition the one door they had opened inward. Oh no. Meaning I don't think you could bust it off its hinges because of the way it opened and people would get clogged into it because it can't open. Right well if they're crammed in there. Right. It would instantly clog with people who were attempting to flee the fire. Now like I mentioned there were several windows in the school building but like I said again they had recently been covered with these grates to prevent them from breaking and windstorms. People started pulling at the grates in an attempt to exit the building burning. They actually busted the windows out because the windows were on the inside. However they were unsuccessful in removing the grates from the outside. It's like one nightmare after another. Oh it gets worse. So not only were people suffering from the smoke and fire inside they were also being trampled. People who were unable or people who were able to escape were instantly trying to pull victims out of the doorway that were stuck. Oh man. Cars started to approach the scene. I mean it's a small fire. It's a small town. There are huge flames so people started coming but they would drain their radiators before because they had this fear that the flames would get hot enough to catch their cars on fire. Oh wow. So these cars of like independent you know just citizens were transporting victims to the hospital but it was so slow going because their radiators were drained. At Christmas morning dawns 32 people were confirmed dead. One person was confirmed missing and at least 37 were injured. More than half the victims were children. Oh no. A city building in Hobart which was the nearest city with a hospital served as a morgue. Four people would later die in the hospital due to their injuries. Graves were dug at Hobart's Rose Cemetery as best they could. The ground was frozen. There was winter I mean it was winter there was snow on the ground. They did the best they could. 20 of the victims did have to be buried in a mass grave because they just simply weren't able to you know make 20 individual graves. The remaining ones were able to be transferred to family plots. Many news reports covered this story all over the nation. They had several interviews from victims and families. Mrs. W.G. Boland she was a mother of three who were burned to death reported that she was helping give out presents when a candle lit the tree on fire. So three of her children? Yeah died like whole families died. Oh she tried to beat it out using a paper a paper stack a stack of paper she had but that didn't help at all. Yeah I'm sure it just made it worse. Yeah she claimed that she claimed that the crowd had laughed at the flames in the beginning joking that Santa was about to catch on fire. Her son was the one who was acting as Santa. He he was also the one passing out gifts and he stopped when he noticed the flames. So he pulled a curtain down and tried to smother the fire. The curtain immediately caught on fire and so did the Santa suit and he passed because of oh that makes me want to cry. Mrs. Boland grabbed her youngest son he was a six-year-old named Eugene and headed for the door but was tripped and trampled in the panic. Her eight-year-old son Edward was ran ran back into the fire to retrieve the toy that Santa had just given him and was never seen alive again. The flames had spread to the ceiling before most of the crowd even realized they were in danger. Mrs. Boland pulled a 70-year-old J rebel out of a window that had been kicked out by Aubrey Coffey. The teen was stuck in the window due to the grate. Once Mrs. Boland was able to escape she returned to the door assisting in the efforts to pull people from the building. The victims were fighting one another and all tangled up in the doorway. Heavy black smoke poured from the school. Mrs. Boland along with the others trying to help pull it pulled as many people from the door as they could until literally the smoke and the fire just became too much and it simply overtook the people and they weren't able to help anymore. They literally had to watch a child who was halfway in the doorway and halfway out just burn. I've changed my mind I don't want to hear anymore. Vesta Jackson was seen at the window hoping her brother Andrew would be able to remove the grating from the outside. She stood at the window and he was trying I mean he tore at the windows literally until his fingers bled punching at the screens trying to get his sister out. She ended up dying in her boyfriend Aubrey Coffey's arms surrounded by the rest of his family and they passed as well. Orville Peck perished trying to smother the burning Christmas tree with a coat or a blanket. I'm literally crying. It's a hard story. Many survivors reported the flames being like a swirling vortex inside the school. It was so hot and fueled by that the flames were able to shoot three feet away from the building. Oh my gosh. This I think would be one of the absolutely worst parts. Cries were heard outside. People could do nothing. They could hear people inside yelling don't crowd and let the children and women go first. I'm sure they felt hopeless. Exactly. Gladys Clements and Claude Boulding were supposed to be married on Christmas Day. They tried to exit the fire together however they were forced apart and Gladys was transposed. Claude survived. Gladys' relatives had come for her wedding and were also victims of the fire because some of Gladys' siblings were in the Christmas program. One of her relatives died with their three-year-olds in their arms and they ended up making one casket of the mother and the three-year-old. They were shared the same casket and they're buried together in Hobart. I'm really mad at you right now. I'm so sorry. Prior to the fire the school had a population of 33 students. After the fire only 18 remained alive. The teacher also perished in the blaze. The teacher saved a few of the smaller children but soon was overcome by the fire and the chaos inside. The teachers have been heroes for a long time. Yeah. Contrary to what Oklahoma City had stated in news reports there was no Red Cross help. Only Kiowa County residents. Many other state communities unasked for stepped in to help because they needed money for a new school building. They needed money for medical expenses. They needed money to help these displaced people. Right. Children who are now parentless. Orphaned. Yes. Here's a very spooky fact though. Maybe this will get your blood boiling. One of the major contributors to help fund relief work in Bapswich was the KKK. Oh gosh. It honestly is more proof, not that we needed any more proof, but here's more proof that they purposely posed as a charitable organization to manipulate people into believing that they were good. Maybe they really did feel like they had a heart to help this community but to, I don't know, it's just one of those things you're just like, nice you did one good thing. Taking advantage of a tragic situation. To manipulate people. Yeah. I think for sure. Some good did come from this tragedy. The fire established fire codes prohibiting candles on trees. Oklahoma was the first state to outlaw that. Oh wow. All other states followed suit afterwards. Wow. That's interesting. The fire investigation determined that the candles paired with the dry Christmas tree plus the other Christmas decorations and the fresh paint, which was believed to have been incorporated with turpentine, thinner, which of course is extremely flammable, was the ultimate cause. The schoolhouse was also made of light wood. Gas lamps lit the room. It was reported that there may have been a second door in the schoolhouse, yet it opened up to a coal bin, which had been added after the school was built. That wouldn't have been any help at all. That would have just exasperated the problem. Exactly. There was no firefighting equipment located in the schoolhouse. In addition, there was no running water anywhere near the building. So it was literally the perfect storm. It was a fire trap. I mean, it literally was a fire trap. Yeah. So here's a quote from Wikipedia that I found that I kind of liked. It said, in the years prior to the fire, the Oklahoma State Fire Marshal had attempted, due to their known safety risks, to identify all the one-room, one-door schoolhouses in Oklahoma. I'm assuming that must have been the norm when schoolhouses first came to Oklahoma. But county superintendents had not been forthcoming with that information. The fire galvanized school officials and concerned citizens who voluntarily requested safety inspections for their schools. By February 1925, the fire happened in December of 1924, the fire marshal's office had received over 400 requests for inspections, and over 150 schools had already been inspected and had made the safety improvements recommended by the fire marshal. In response to the fire, the state of Oklahoma passed the Fox Bill, which increased fire safety requirements for schools. This law required all schools to have a minimum of two doors, and all school doors were required to open outward. Any window screens had to be removable from the inside, and schools had to keep fire extinguishers on the premises. Copies of the law were sent to every school official in the state, so no one could claim ignorance of the new standards. In July 1926, John Carroll, Assistant Fire Marshal, stated that since the time of the fire, school officials had willingly implemented the safety improvements recommended to them by the Office of the State Fire Marshal. He stated, schoolhouses of Oklahoma were virtually all in excellent shape now. Oh, wow. This is, with that quote you just said, I don't know if this is kind of ignorant of me, but I didn't even realize that they really had fire extinguishers in the 1920s. I didn't either. I didn't either, and so that would be interesting facts to look up. I wonder if they were just those simple water tanks, maybe, that you see in old-timey movies, or if they actually had some sort of powder in them like they do today. I don't know. That's a good question. I didn't realize it either. A new schoolhouse was built in 1925 on the same site. The school was closed in 1943 when Baz Switch's district was annexed into the Hobart and Roosevelt districts. I have to rehydrate after that. Sorry. I wasn't expecting to get so emotional. Are you ready for a kooky fact? Is it going to make me cry? No, probably not, but you knew it wouldn't be a tip story without some controversy, right? Right. Thirty-seven people were reported dead. However, there were only 36 bodies among the fire. Thus, one person was reported missing, Little Miss Mary Elizabeth Edens, age three. Little Mary was attending a program with her family, sitting on the lap of her aunt, Alice Noah. She had siblings who were performing. There are two accounts on what happened once the fire started. One, when the fire broke out, Mary's Aunt Alice was able to pry a corner of one of the window grates off and thrust the child out the window. Someone grabbed the child, obviously a helper of some sort, and then placed her with the other displaced people. Mm-hmm. After that, the child was never seen again. Or, there was also this account, that Alice Noah, who escaped from the building but died several days later, said that she vividly recalled carrying Mary out of the building and handing her to someone she did not know, probably someone she assumed was assisting. Many people simply believe the child did end up dying in the fire, but her body was probably just too charred or couldn't be found among the rubble. Even the newspapers reported Mary had died in the fire. Others, mostly family, like her parents, held out hope that she was still alive and was probably kidnapped. So, let's fast forward to 1956. Okay. The Daily Oklahoman published a story titled, Is Mary Edens Still Living? It accounted for the details reported from the surviving family members and what Alice Noah had stated before she passed. A California accountant and Lions Club member, Elmont Place, read the newspaper, read the article, and it caught his eye. So, he responded by writing to Wayne Fite, president of the Hobart Lions Club, and this is what his letter said, quote, I have, among my clientele, a prominent young businesswoman who does not know who her father and mother were, nor has she been able to find out anything as to possible relatives. Her name was Grace Reynolds. This, of course, was a very delicate situation. The family, especially Mary's parents, they had spent years and gobs of money directed towards PIs and blood tests looking for Mary because many people were like, oh, we saw her. Oh, this is her. And this was going on 1956, he says? Yes. Okay. So, they never got any straight good answers from the years that they had been doing this. Fite discreetly asked ladies that he knew for information about Mary. It was reported that she loved bacon rinds as a child, so much so that Mary's Aunt Bertha had commented that they often had to take the rinds away from Mary. And then it was also reported there was a scar that Mary had on her foot. This woman, Grace, also had that scar. Interesting. Pictures were sent back and forth to the two, and it seemed to confirm her identity. So, she was quickly reunited with her family after 32 years. So, it really was her then? Mary Edens Grosnickle later wrote a book about her experience called Mary, A Child of Tragedy. Apparently, on the night of the fire, Mary was handed to a vagabond couple. Remember, there were people in town for a wedding, and there was frenzy. People probably didn't care who was out there that were appearing to help. They were just handing them things, right? The couple immediately took her to several nomadic camps in Arkansas and Kansas, and then eventually to California, where she was abandoned. Oh, my gosh. Mary worked for room and board, but was eventually adopted at age 15. Her adopted mother wasn't able to find anything out about her background. Mary said that she had vivid memories about one family, then suddenly having another. She also claimed to have never felt at home with her family, and often wondered if she was from another. Interesting. You think I can end the story there? No, I'm sure you're not. I mean, it sounds beautiful, right? She was reunited, and everyone lived happily ever after. The end. No, I don't believe that one minute. This is tiff, right? It's not the end. Let's fast forward to December 24th, 1999. The Daily Oklahoman, again, printed an article telling the tale of the real truth behind this story. Now, I'm going to tell you, this story was believed for a long time by most people. Hobart's town newspaper, the Hobart Democrat Chief, said that they had kept this secret for over 42 years. Joe Hancock, son of the original newspaper owner, Ransom Hancock, which I just think Ransom is a cool name, said he had honored his father's request to keep the secret, but now it was time to come clean. Mary's parents were both deceased by this time, and her two living sisters already knew the truth of this. Remember when I had mentioned the blood testing that they had done? I did not know that this could be done in the 1950s, but it could. Blood tests could be submitted, and it can not tell if you're related, but I guess if you, or it can tell if you're related or not. I guess it can say, yes, you're related, but not how you're related, but that you're related. Grace, this Grace Reynolds, aka Mary, her blood was submitted on February 2nd, 1957, by this Grace slash Mary person, and Mary's actual sisters. The testing proved that they were not related. However, there was still that scar on Grace slash Mary's book, the one that Mary was wearing, Grace slash Mary's book, the one that Mary, the real Mary had. Thus, on February 9th, 1957, the Edens were reunited with, quote, Mary. The family even appeared on the TV show, it was Art Link Letters House Party. I'd never heard of that before. No, I haven't either. However, back in California, when this was happening, someone knew something, and they were calling the Hobart paper, because nobody, it was still believed that this was Mary. They were just going to ignore whatever the blood test had come back, because, I mean, I guess in the 1950s, you could have said, well, you know, there could be errors, you know. I don't know how accurate it was. Well, why didn't they just go ahead and do another one in 1998, or whatever it was? Oh, okay, sorry. Editor A.J. Adams received a telegram stating this. This is the Hobart editor. Okay. Confidential. Have information. Grave Reynolds, Grace Reynolds, representing self as daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L.F. Edens, your city, may be imposter. Believe her to be daughter of Mrs. Goldie Thomas and former husband, Tom Gaither. Please give additional details, means of identification, financial circumstances of Edens. We will exchange our information for anything more you can provide on this case. My throat's drowsing. Hang on, I need to, I need to smack in this. No. I don't know how to open it. Okay, we'll just, we'll just go with it. So, what had happened was the whole nation was just enthralled in this reuniting story. A Dorothy Link had contacted a Stockton, California, newspaper claiming to be Grace's actual sister and stating that Grace was indeed not Mary Edens. The Stockton record received a notarized statement from Goldie Thomas stating she was indeed Grace Reynolds, née Gaither's, mother, born July 11th, 1923 on a cotton farm near Cotton Plant, Woodruff County, Arkansas. Grace was born at her aunt's home and Goldie was assisted by a midwife named Mary Manuel. Grace reportedly had three sisters, one who had been married to an Alfred R. Reynolds. Now things get uber kooky. Dorothy, the sister, divorced Alfred and six years later, Grace married him. What? Thus, it is believed that anger from this happening is what prompted Dorothy to contact the newspaper in addition to Mary's claims that made her mother sound like a kidnapper. So, it was both the fact that, well, this is my sister who married my ex-husband and she's trying to make our mom out to be a kidnapper. Wow. The same sister claimed that 10 years prior to this, Grace had started telling people she had no family. When asked about this, the sisters confronted her and were like, what the heck is up with this? She, not a direct quote, but you know, she simply said it was because she was looking to work at a department store and she felt she wouldn't be hired to work there if they knew she came from a quote, poor family. Grace was confronted to this revelation and her reply was telegrammed to the Hobart paper. Wow. So, they came at her. They came at her and she said. How did she even hear about Mary? I wonder if it was because that accountant, she had said this, you know, set that whole story about how, you know, she had no family. So, she had this accountant and he was like, well, I have a client that has no family. This is strange. And so, that's, I think that's how she came into it. I don't think the accountant meant anything by it, but I think she took advantage of his. Ignorance. Ignorance, yeah. And this is the telegram that Grace sent, Grace slash Mary sent to the Hobart paper. Grace Reynolds reached her Barstow, California dress shop, advised of notarized statement, said plans consult attorney before making statement. It's really hard to read telegrams because I know they can only put so many letters in. Yeah. I can't make any sort of statement at the present time. That was quoted in the telegram. She said, asked whether she persists in claim she's Eden's daughter replied, I'm not claiming nothing as yet. Hold story until Wednesday, May hear from her tomorrow. Interesting. So, both newspapers were doing a little bit of investigative reporting and they worked together and were close to publishing the story, like calling her out about it. They had agreed to break the story the same day, Wednesday, May 22nd, 1957. But the Democrat chief of Hobart didn't go through with it. And of course, if it was printed in California, people in Oklahoma probably aren't going to see it. Right. Ransom Hancock felt honor bound to confront Louis Eden's, Mary's father with this news. And so Joe, he was, I'm assuming he's the current owner still, he recounted this day to the Daily Oklahoman in that news article that I'm referencing, he remembers how it went down. Joe said that his father was very upset with having to deliver this type of news. And of course, the Edens were going to be super upset receiving it. Obviously, yeah. In the end, he only talked to Louis Eden and Louis himself asked that this news be kept a secret. He wanted it kept out of the newspaper. He stated that his wife truly believed that this Grace woman was their daughter. And he asked that it be kept out of the paper until his wife's death. You know, they had gone through this. They had been through this so many times. And I think something had changed in his wife. She saw that scar on the foot and she was convinced that that was her child. Oh, yeah. I can't even imagine how that would feel because she already lost her daughter once. Right. And then she thinks she gets her back just to lose her again. Like, exactly. I can see why he did that. So Ransom Hancock agreed. Hancock agreed. Some years passed and Ransom, he took that input. He had like all that writing, all of the information, all of the research. He had it safely locked in his safe. He took it from his safe to the Babs fire historian. That was that person's name was Delbert Braun. And he asked them to keep the secret as well. Interesting. The secret was kept until 1999. The story was published simultaneously in not only the Hobart Democratic piece, but also in the Daily Oklahoman. Hancock said that it was time to affirm some people's belief that Grace was never Mary. The Democrat chief simply stated, quote, now 75 years after the fire with only two known survivors, it is time to set the record right. Mary Elizabeth Edens was not taken from the fire site that night at all, but was in all probably burned with 35 other good Kiowa folks. Hancock never regretted not letting the story out before then. He believed that Mrs. Edens, the mother, probably was given some sort of peace, believing Grace to be her child. And that's peace that she would have probably never had gotten in life if this news would have come out. Right. And honestly, what harm did it do? Right. At the time of this printing in 1999, Grace Reynolds, a.k.a. Mary Edens Grosnickle, as she went by, rejected Joe Hancock's conclusion. It had been 42 years since she had, quote, been reunited, and she still claimed to be the Edens' lost daughter. At that time, she was residing in Colorado. She claimed she didn't let the haters get her down. That wasn't exactly her quote, but she didn't let the doubters bother her. She claimed Betty Edens, one of her, quote, younger sisters, was simply jealous of the attention she was given when she returned to Hobart. She claimed Goldie, Grace's, quote, mother, had to be scared. So that's why she signed the notarized paper stating that she was the birth mother. Otherwise, she would, in fact, be found to be a kidnapper. Oh, good gravy. Etta Edens Henderson, another one of the younger sisters, said that her father had begun to doubt Mary's, Grace's claims. After Ransom Hancock's meeting, he even traveled to California to meet with Grace's alleged birth mother and sisters who were there. When Grace came to Oklahoma to be reunited with her family, she brought her son Lee with them. She'd ended up at one point living with the Eden parents for a while and then even moved in with Etta because Etta was still alive at the time of this printing as well. Lee, the son, actually still stayed in contact and even called her Aunt Letta still. And Etta had no beef with Lee. She was quoted as saying, though, she had no illusions about Grace. She also quoted saying, my daddy figured it out real quick, but we did not want to hurt our mother. I'm not saying she is an imposter. I wouldn't. But I am saying she is not my sister. Oh, wow. And that is the story of the Bad Witch Fight. Wow, that just took me on this roller coaster of emotion. You're welcome. Good night. Well, ready for mine? I am, I am. I don't think you'll get super emotional with mine, so that'll be good. You never know. You never know. Okay. Well, I decided to... I did the exact same thing you did. I typed... I literally typed in, like, dark or Oklahoma dark history or something like that. And this popped up. And I'm doing the secret history of the Oklahoma Panhandle. Oh. So my sources, really quick, are Outlaw Tales of Oklahoma, True Stories of the Sooner States, Most Infamous Crooks, Culprits and Cutthroats by Robert Barr Smith, Little Known Tales in Oklahoma History, The Sooner State by Alton Pryor, Ghost Towns of Oklahoma by John W. Morris, and The Secret History of the Oklahoma Panhandle by Ken Jennings from CNTraveler.com. So I'll just dive right in. What do you think... What do you think of when you think of the Oklahoma Panhandle? Like, what comes to mind? Like... Nothing. Nothing? The Black Mesa. I mean, like, there's honestly nothing out there. There's, like, it's flat. Do you know anything about the history of it? Absolutely not. Okay. I'm from Oklahoma City. Well, I mean, I'm from Tulsa, but do you know anything about it? I kind of did because I had read some of these books before. Right. No. But it's been years ago. And then I was like, oh, wait, I do kind of remember this. I'm completely ignorant. I mean, I know I'm excited to tell you about it. Diamond is there. That's... It's in Diamond? Yeah. Diamond's there. And the Black Mesa. I've never been there. Well, I'm really excited to tell you about it. It's like I've only driven through it one time in my whole life. Honestly, I don't think I've ever actually driven through the Panhandle. We were on our way to Pagosa Springs, Colorado. And we drove through it. We actually ate at McDonald's there in Diamond. I want to go to do the salt quartz crystal digging thing. I had a student who was there a couple of weekends ago, and he brought me a baggie on Friday full of the salt crystals. Yeah, I really want to go do that. I think that'll be a lot of fun. My husband's probably done it eight billion times and probably doesn't want to do it. I'll go. Okay. Well, and it's not very far from the Little Sahara, though, and I've never been there. Again, my husband doesn't seem super interested in going there either because he grew up there. Well, we should go. We'll take the boys. Yes. All right. Well, during the 1850s through about the 1880s, the Panhandle of far western Oklahoma, it was a unique place, brutal, unforgiving. The land was right along the preserve of the Comanches. It was just a long, narrow, empty, rectangle strip of land. Rarely, yeah. And it was about 5,700 square miles, or is. I say was. It is. Its fierce, unforgiving winds blasted the area and made life within the region miserable, if not unbearable. In the depths of winter, murderous blizzards howled down the Kansas and Colorado, or sorry, I'm going to re-read that because I got it wrong. In the depths of winter, murderous blizzards howled down out of Kansas and Colorado to freeze men and animals while settlers would huddle over cattle chip fires in their sod shanties to keep warm. The rest of the year, the winds ranged all the way from a gentle breeze to these shrieking gales that drove great clouds of dust out before them. And the panel was just, it was unattached to any state from 1850 to 1890. It was identified on most maps as public land, or they called it the public land strip. And out west, though, it was known as no man's land. I was going to say, I feel like on many early Indian Territory slash Texas history, and even Kansas and Colorado maps, when you see literally that strip of land, has nothing. Because Indian Territory ended right where the Texas quote panhandle kind of started, but then Kansas didn't meet up there, it ended in Colorado, you know, yeah. Oh, excuse me, good thing you already talked. The New York Sun newspaper called it God's land, but no man's land. I thought that was interesting, you know. So here's a fun fact. The best beef jerky that you will ever eat comes from Boise City, Oklahoma, located in no man's land. It's called no man's land beef jerky, and it's in the panhandle. You can find it. Oh, my parents, like, order it every year. We get it in our stockings for Christmas. They sell it, yeah, they sell it at gas stations. Okay. I'm actually, I know where some is at. I'm going to bring you some, because it is my, it's my family's favorite beef jerky. So anyway, shout out to no man's land beef jerky. Anywho, this land used to belong to Spain, and it was split up into three massive land grants, and it then became part of the Mexican province of Texas. So when the U.S. actually annexed Texas in 1845, prior to statehood, this long, narrow strip of land that eventually became Oklahoma's panhandle, it was cut off to comply with the slave state, free state balance that was mandated by the Missouri Compromise. And in between the borders of Kansas, Colorado, and Texas, I mean, it was about 34 miles of space, just unassigned to anybody. And because this strip of land didn't belong to anyone, that meant it had no government, which meant there was no law enforcement. Right, right, right. So, as you can imagine. Oh, I can imagine. This small strip of land soon became a place where criminals and miscreants were free to come and go as they pleased, to hide out from the law. It became a home to many different gangs, thugs, thieves. I mean, any kind of social misfit, they were there. There wasn't a church camp. And even ones that weren't misfits, like families. Oh, gosh. Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine? I can't even imagine. No. The number one thing about this place, it was a haven or a sanctuary because the law couldn't touch them. And because there was no law, it just didn't exist. So, you basically could literally get away with murder and not be punished for it. Yikes. Yeah. This lane was first occupied mostly, it was mostly occupied by cattlemen who sought out grass and water for their herds. And it was during this time when these cattlemen began driving their herds to Kansas for shipment to market. And a man by the name of Lane, like it only said Lane, I don't know if that's his first or last name, but he opened what was called a road ranch, which was a store, saloon, camp ground operation to service the Great Drives North. So, essentially, it was just like your very first truck stop, if you think about it. I'm just trying to post on Instagram. Sorry. Let's see, I can multi. So, essentially, this was like the first truck stop, if you think about it. So, cookie fact, after the... Like a wagon stop and stuff. Yeah, exactly. Cookie fact, after the Homestead Act of 1862 passed, no man's land was surveyed and separated into townships. The boundaries were actually marked with little domes of zinc, and those were called pot lines. So, interesting little fact. The Santa Fe Trail went through no man's land, leading up from old Santa Fe into Kansas, and up through the rural head towns. This paradise sounded wonderful to land-hungry travelers, but in all reality, the land was little more than sage and windswept plains. Right, right. I visit there quite often. Right, yeah. It's very flat, very dry, very sandy, very, very windy. Like, I swear to you, there's only been maybe a max of five days that it has not been windy. I swear it's only rained there when I've been there, like, twice. And I've been going for 15 years. Yeah, I can imagine. So, no man's land was well-supplied in liquor and women. Carrie Nation and her anti-saloon league had, at this point, had pretty much dried up Kansas. And the closest place to get a drink for many was no man's land. So, cattlemen and cowboys weren't the only people inhabiting no man's land. Families also settled there, and a lot of these settlers lived hand-to-mouth, and what little cash they had was by collecting buffalo bones from, like, the thousands of carcasses of carcasses that were scattered across the plains from the, quote, quote, great hunt that had taken place. Well, yeah, because the Native wouldn't have, Native Americans wouldn't have left bones. No, they used everything. Absolutely. And so, buffalo bones lay as thick as 50 to 100 within just a few hundred yards of, you know, one after the other. And interspersed with the buffalo bones were acres of beef bones that were left with the great herds when they were decimated by the blizzard of 1886. And so, a lot of bones, they would collect these bones, and a lot of these bones brought between $8 to $10 in Dodge City. In today's money, that would be anywhere from $262 to $327. So, buffalo horns brought even more money since they were a favorite material that people used to make knife handles. Yeah. So, there were a few settlements, but they were kind of just wide, they were just like wide spots in the road. Cookie fact. I didn't know this, but any collection of more than two buildings qualified as a town in no man's land. So, Beaver City is the only town that actually reached the prestige of being a village with only about 600 people. Oh, my gosh. Wow. I thought that was kind of funny. That is funny. Okay, so, let's talk about some of the towns in no man's land. So, just bear with me a little bit. In 1888, the Santa Fe Railway extended, extended. Extended. You'll edit this part out, but you're in that part of the state where they really do talk like this. I know. In 1888, the Santa Fe Railway extended its tracks through western Kansas to a place now known as Tyrone in Texas County. At Tyrone, which was to remain head of the line for 15 years, large, sturdy corrals had been built, and liberal Kansas, located about five miles northeast of Tyrone, was also on the Santa Fe Trail, or railway, whatever. And it started about the same time. So, when these two places came into existence, Kansas, like we said, had a very rigid prohibition law. They had very, you know, because it's- Pre-prohibition, right? Yeah, but it was Cary Nation and her anti-saloon, dry county kind of stuff. So, that's kind of where they were going with that. But law enforcement in the public land strip was almost unknown. In fact, you know, there was zero law enforcement. Cowboys and cattle dealers wanted their liquor and their women after a long drive. So, after the shipping of the cattle was over, and adventuresome, quote, quote, merchants did their best to supply the product that was being demanded. So, as a result, Beer City was established south of Liberal and east of Tyrone in what is now the Oklahoma Panhandle, where both seller and buyer would be least disturbed. So, Beer City was first known as White City, and that was because it was actually a tent town. Okay. The place never had a post office, or a church, or a school, nor did it have any cattle pens or gathering pens for livestock. You didn't need it in Beer City, did you? You came there for one reason and one reason only. Literally its name. A part of the main street extended east-west, just south of the Kansas border, but there was also a north-south extension, and the whole being in a conglomeration of red lights, saloons, dance halls, that sort of thing. Guess what the primary business was? Oh, I don't know. Selling whiskey and beer. Oh, I was thinking ladies, but they were a part of it. The main thing was selling whiskey and beer, and they, of course, did that in numerous dance halls and saloons. Thus, the place was known as Beer City. Many entrepreneurs, as we'll call them, in the town of Beer City, who ran saloons such as the Elephant, the Yellow Snake, and, of course, there are many others. They literally advertised in newspapers Beer City as the only place in the civilized world where there is absolutely 100% no law. You know what I'm about to do, right? I'm about to get on newspapers.com because I want to see some of those ads. I'm going to do it, and hopefully we can put it in when we post it onto our socials. If I can find any, I'm going to put it on there. That would be interesting to see. To the cowboys and others who came to Beer City, they couldn't care less that they were far from any kind of distillery, or they didn't much care what sort of booze they drank as long as they got some. With that being said, the distilling of white lightning, or moonshine, became a favorite and respectable occupation for a lot of residents of No Man's Land. At least they weren't idle. That's true. Even though there were smaller stills that produced rotgut, there were several serious distilleries as well. Rotgut is exactly what it sounds like. It's cheap or inferior liquor. It was called rotgut because it was so crudely made that it was suspected to literally rot your guts. I've heard lots and lots of stories about it, especially during Prohibition. Sorry, this is a tangent. I'm going to go on. If you don't want to hear it, fast forward. My husband and I went to Las Vegas a couple of years ago for our friend Ashley's birthday. We went to the Mob Museum. In the basement of the Mob Museum, they have a speakeasy. Oh, I think I remember you telling me that you went there. We actually took the History of Whiskey Tour. They have their own whiskey distillery there, or maybe it was moonshine. Now I can't remember. Anyway, we went there, and they told us the history about it and whatnot. They showed us what it looked like when they were making the, quote, rotgut. You want to take a drink of it? No, thank you. There were all sorts of things floating in it. Oh, I'm sure. But people did. They drank it. They were desperate enough. Absolutely. Anyway, sorry about that. No, that was fun. One of these serious distilleries was operated out of a large, well-concealed cave, shielded by a lean-to, and was adjacent to an adequate supply of fresh water and had plenty of firewood. It provided the ideal place for a still. It was located near Hog Creek, and it operated both day and night. Another still on Clearwater Creek, just south of Beaver, produced a couple of barrels of, quote, good whiskey each week. The best-known whiskey maker boasted of having an expert distiller imported from Kentucky. The product of all these stills was tax-free, and it was said to be bottled dynamite, which I find this so crazy and scary being called that because, you know, as we just talked about the rot gut, it just makes you wonder how many people actually died from alcohol poisoning because of bad liquor. Oh, I'm sure more people than was documented probably just chalked it up to something. Well, and you know, like, obviously, there was no law, so they're not going to keep track of that. Absolutely. Yeah, there's, yeah. One distiller made a fancy drink by boiling dried peaches and added the juice to his moonshine, and it gave it an amber color. So, of course, with all the alcoholic beverages floating around, there were, that were, you know, just readily available. Most places, I'm just going to read that again. Of course, with all of the alcoholic beverages that were readily available, most places had several gambling operations to partake in. Are you surprised? I'm not. There were always ladies to serve the drinks and to provide other forms of entertainment. J.R. Spears, in his story of No Man's Land, stated that Beer City was, quote, composed exclusively of disreputable houses, the only village of the sort ever heard of in America. In fact, merchants in Beer City would advertise in various newspapers, inviting folks to move to White City, the only town of its kind in a civilized world where there is absolutely no law. It became known as the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Plains. Ouch. Yeah. Ouch. When it was cattle shipping season, girls would move from Dodge City, Wichita, and other places to work at Beer City, and Tyrone, and some even went to Liberal and would commute to Beer City. Wow. The only, quote, law there was, and I use that term very loosely, was men hired as enforcers to keep con men, pickpockets, and hold up men away from those who, you know, obviously had too much to drink. Yeah. So here's a cookie fact that I don't know why it made me giggle. Many saloons had drunk pens at the back of their premises, and this is where customers would be relatively safe when they, until they could just, like, sleep it off. Right. But I guess drunk pens, it just cracked me up. That is funny. So merchants also provided wrestling and boxing matches, horse racing, and wild west shows to attract patrons or to, you know, celebrate some event. I think they would find anything and everything to have some kind of celebration for, and this was, of course, you know, free entertainment, and it advertised their place of business. So it was kind of like a win-win for everybody. Harry E. Chrisman described some of the action. He said, quote, at the end of one celebration, Pussycat Nell, the madam in charge of the house above the Yellow Snake Saloon, put a load of buckshot into the body of the town marshal, who was in turn an active wrestler. With the addition of the panhandle to Oklahoma Territory in 1890, law and order did come to the public land strip. Beer City, which had lived two exciting years, soon disappeared, and the entire area is now used for agricultural purposes. So, moving on, let's talk about some of the other towns and their stories. The worst of No Man's Land's town, no, I'm going to say that again, the worst of the No Man's Land's towns is said to be Old Sod Town. One source described it as a, quote, refuse littered dump of about a dozen sod buildings. Wow. I was like, man. Rough. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't hold anything back. No. In its heyday, it was a center for moonshine trade that was illegally transported across the Cherokee Outlet into Indian Territory. And, you know, we've talked about that before. Yeah. The town was also the headquarters for the Chitwood Gang, who, it said they stole anything with four legs until a citizen blew a hole in one of the gang members, and then vigilantes chased the rest of the gang out of the town. In most of these, quote, settlements, there was usually at least one saloon, and if there wasn't, you could always go find a drink at the store. So, a New York Sun reporter described one little town's floating population, which is a terminology used to describe a group of people who reside in a given population for a certain amount of time and for various reasons, but are not generally considered part of the official consensus count. And it said as follows, floating is scarcely the word to describe the population temporarily there. If they floated, it was on a sea of alcohol. If they sailed or flew, the breeze that wafted them was heavy with the fumes of tobacco and the smoke from gunpowder. If they drifted, they were stranded at the shortest intervals on bars, not built of sand. Well, okay. One cowboy said that the town Slapout got its name because the store owner would always say, I'm sorry, but we're slapped out of that. I thought that was funny. Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know. But it's interesting to think about where it would have gotten that name. Right. So, one story from Beaver involves a man named Dick Davis, who strolled into town one day with a couple of dance hall queens. Davis took a position at that one of the bars and began running his mouth and regaling everyone with tales of his own awesomeness. He's blathering soon, you know, his blathering soon wore thin with the cowboys. I can imagine. And I don't blame the cowboys. Nobody likes a pompous jack wagon. And, you know, it's annoying when you have to hear someone sing their own praises when they probably had nothing to do with those praises in the first place. You know what I mean? It usually means that it's not true. Anyway, someone shouted, shoot the jaw. And someone said that literally. And that's exactly what happened. A 45 slug broke Davis's jawbone into dozens of pieces and blew out all of his teeth but one. Yeah. And then he and then mumbling, I'm shot. He still had a massive understatement. Davis then collapsed. So a local doctor picked out all the fragments. About 70 of them. And Davis survived to carry on a distinguished career as a claim jumper and a horse thief. Wow. Wow. That's good thing you went second. You're really bringing. Bringing it back up after you're a downer. After I crashed and burned everyone. Yep. All right. So as I said before, since no man's land didn't belong to any government, there could be no law enforcement except for what the people managed for themselves. And that could almost be scarier than having law enforcement. Right. I mean, I think it would be actually scarier. Yeah. In Beaver City, for instance, when a drunk started to shoot up the town, endangering the families there, the citizens. So I'm just going to read that. See, I'm struggling tonight. In Beaver City, for instance, when a drunk started to shoot up the town, endangering the families there, the citizens filled the offender full of holes and buried him without any kind of ceremony. There was no formal inquest, both because there was no authority to hold one. And because, well, nobody cared. That's rough. Yeah. This is rough. Yeah. So there were other forms of relaxation that were more civilized. Really? Dances were held often and for any reason. I wouldn't want to go. And people from more than, you know, 50 miles away would attend. Why? And you dance with the wrong person, they're just going to shoot you, it sounds like. Well, these were affairs or these were orderly affairs. Partly because the only person allowed to carry a gun was the cloakroom attendant. And it was also his job to collect everybody else's hardware at the door. So AKA Back to the Future 3. Most people didn't. I don't know. I think I've maybe seen that once. What? Yeah. That movie, I've probably seen it once. Please don't click off our podcast. Don't turn it off. Please don't. I'm an old soul. I like the, like, Turner Classic movie stuff. It's a Western. I'm just saying. So this actually reminds me of the Cattle Annie and Little Britches episode that we did where they met the Dalton gang at one of these dances. But anyway. So another cookie fact. Because there were always, cookie fact. Because there were always more men than there were women, each man was issued a number at the door. And for each dance, for each dance. I know what you're going to say, but let me have it. You good? No. Yeah. No, let me have it. I want to hear it. For each dance, the male dancers' numbers were called off in strict rotation. Oh my God. That way, nobody got to dance more than anyone else. I am glad that the females had the upper, had a choice or a say in this whole thing. Wow. It didn't mention anything about the females. Just that the males would get a number at the door. No choice. Oh, well, his number was called. Sorry. He's dancing with you. Well, they were probably like, ooh. I hope. We'll get these to pick from. I hope. Because otherwise, I'd be like, what if I want to sit out for a round? Like, I'm out. That guy smells weird, and I don't want to dance with him. Smells like cow patties. Oh my gosh. Wild. The times were wild. They were. To settle land and title disputes, some of the strip's leading citizens created the To settle land and title disputes. No, that's not even right. I've been saying it wrong. Okay, here we go. To settle land title disputes, some of the strip's leading citizens created the respective claims board. The board would pass judgment on disputed land titles and abate the nuisance of the quote, road trotters, which was just a group of roadside thieves. And the board's authority depended mostly on the rifles of its own members. And in most cases, that power, or yeah, that sufficed. Like, you know, it worked. In time, residents of No Man's Land formed a provisional government, and they had a great seal made and sent petitions to Washington, D.C. seeking territorial status. They called their new territory Cimarron Territory, and their petitions did fall on deaf ears, and No Man's Land in Oklahoma remained lawless pretty much until the Oklahoma Organic Act of 1890, where it made it part of the brand new Oklahoma Territory. So lastly, here are a few fun facts. The tip of Oklahoma panhandle is the state's least populous county, Cimarron County. Cimarron is the only county in the nation that borders counties in a, hard to believe, five different states, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Exactly. It's also, like you said earlier, it's also the size of the Black Mesa, the state's highest point, and a rugged wilderness full of surprises, like dinosaur bones, ghost towns, and wagon tracks from the Santa Fe Trail. And that is the secret history of the Oklahoma panhandle. So cool. That's really cool. Good job. Thanks. A little bit more of an upper after your downer. Oh, we balanced it really well. I wish I could balance a stand and not knock it over. Oh my goodness, though. Yeah. Good episode. It was. That was a fun one. I can't wait, because I also found, like, it was another book by Robert Barsmith, and it was, like, Whiskeytown. So I thought it kind of had something to do with the panhandle. But it doesn't. It's different. So I'm like, maybe there should be a part two. Maybe. Maybe. Anyway. Well, yeah, like we stated earlier, our Patreon is live. So if you're interested in that, please check it out. As usual, if you have any questions, comments, or, you know, concerns, or just want to say, hey, you have any listener tales, anything you just want to tell Jess and I, feel free to at curiouscousins at gmail.com. You can also find us on our socials, at Curious Cousins OK on Instagram, and at Curious Cousins OK Podcast on Facebook. We also stream on all major podcast streaming platforms. Please like, review, and even follow us if you feel the need to. We would greatly appreciate that. Yes, we would. We do have our first set of merch, which have been ordered. Very, very simple. It's just a sticker. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. She gave me the look, and we're going to try to lead into that. We are looking. Yes. We are in the market for an artist. We would like an artist to render or design a potential, I don't know, t-shirt or other sticker, or mug, or something. Yes, something we could put on any of those things. Essentially saying spooky and kooky, or something. Something that would reflect our podcast without just the normal theme of our podcast. Right. So if you happen to have that ability or desire, please DM us or email us. We would love to get in contact with you. Neither one of us are artists. No, no, we're not. Other than that, I think that's it. Next week, we will be doing a little bit of spookiness. See how that was good, Jeff, this week. Yeah. Oh, good gravy. You already made me cry. Good night. Well, Jeff. Yeah. Tell them what to keep it. Keep it kooky and spooky. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
