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At noon on September 16, 1893, more than 100,000
people lined the borders of the Cherokee Outlet listening
for the pistol shots that started one of the world's
greatest races. The prize was 8,000,000 acres of land:
a quarter section or a town lot to every eligible settler
who could stake a claim. For weeks 50,000 homeseekers
and speculators from all parts of the country had been
gathering to make the run from this vicinity. Jockeying
for position as noon approached were city cabs, bicycles,
covered wagons, buggies, ox teams, Indian ponies, and race
horses. Thousands prepared to walk and other thousands
filled the cars of special railroad trains. When the
pistols were fired the mad rush began along 400 miles
of border. By nightfall the Outlet, which for centuries
had been the home of the Indian, the coyote and the
buffalo, was a settled land of townsites and homesteads.
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