Boomers (Oklahoma settlers)
"Boomers" is the name used for a group of settlers in the Southern United States in what is now the state of Oklahoma.
They were participants in the "Boomer Movement." These participants were white settlers from 1879–1889 who believed the so-called "
The land was said to be public because it had been set aside for Indian reservations, yet the allotment for some tribes was reduced as a result of
President Grover Cleveland opened the Indian Territory to settlement by signing the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889 on March 2, 1889.[4] The result was the Land Rush of 1889. In it, rushers could be divided into two groups: the Sooners were settlers who entered the Unassigned Lands just prior to the April 22, 1889 official opening in a race to grab the best land.
After its founding in 1890, the University of Oklahoma adopted "Boomers" as the nickname of their football team, after having first tried "Rough Riders." In 1908, the name was changed to "Sooners", the current team name. Their fight song is "Boomer Sooner". The OU "mascot" is the Sooner Schooner, a Conestoga wagon that crosses the field when the University of Oklahoma football team scores. It is pulled by a pair of ponies named "Boomer" and "Sooner". There are a pair of costumed mascots also named "Boomer" and "Sooner".
References
- ^ "The State of Oklahoma". Netstate.com. Retrieved May 22, 2007.
- ^ Rister (1942).
- ^ Lovegrove, Michael W. (2009). "Couch, William Lewis (1850–1890)". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture (online ed.). Oklahoma Historical Society.
- ^ Rister, Carl Coke (1942). Land Hunger, David L. Payne and the Oklahoma Boomers. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.
External links
- Hoig, Stan (2009). "Boomer Movement". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society.
- Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory