Grandfield Oklahoma

THE LAWTON CONSTITUTION-MORNING PRESS, Sunday, Jan. 5, 1969                                                                                                  9H

‘Feud’ Between Two Rival Settlements

Gave Birth To Modern Day Grandfield

(This article was transposed from the original Lawton Constitution-Morning Press, Sunday, Jan. 5, 1969 p.9H, version, originally written by Hugh Corwin – Constitution Staff. by Rory Witt, MCS, on November 10, 2018, Grandfield Historical Preservation Committee via the hard and most honorable work in preservation of this and countless other articles of Grandfield history by Mr. James Jackson, without who much of this crucial history would have been lost. Thank you, Mr. Jackson)

        Grandfield, Capital of the “Big Pasture” was born amid the townsite strife of two early day settlements, each trying to crowd the other out. One of the settlements was Eschiti, a government townsite, planned platted and partially sold by the Department of the Interior, in 1907. It was located on the north ½ of section 3 Township 4 South, Range 14 west I.M. The Government established a post office in Eschiti, October 31, 1907, with Hiram F. Cruble (Crable, disambiguation) as postmaster. Some frame buildings were erected by the pioneers who bought the lots at auction some months before the post office was established. Cheap, frame dwellings were built as times were “hard” following the panic of 1906. The Wichita Falls and Northwestern Railroad, promoted by Frank Kell and Joe Kemp, of Wichita Falls, Tex, built north through Burkburnett and across Red River into Oklahoma, in 1907. The railroad missed the town of Eschiti by about two miles when the line was extended northwest to Frederick. Mr. Kemp and Mr. Kell, who were townsite promoters, as well as railroad builders, had secured a right-of-way from the United States Government across the Big Pasture, with an area some 500-feet wide and a half mile long about two miles west of Eschiti, for railroad switch-yards and sidings. They appear to have laid out this switch-yard into town lots and encouraged people to settle on the lots, naming the place, “Kell City”. Some business buildings were erected along with a cotton gin and cattle pens. Quite naturally a rivalry began between Eschiti and Kell City, only two miles apart, Eschiti had the post office and Kell City had the railroad.

         ACCORDING to Mrs. Letitia Belle (Tant) Sessions of Grandfield, whose father Rev. A. J. Tant bought and homesteaded the present townsite of Grandfield, Kemp and Kell refused to route their railroad through Eschiti and imported a man named Wally Smith to lead the townsite fight against Eschiti. Smith edited a small newspaper called the “The Kell City Enterprise,” which made its first appearance October 17, 1907. An editorial in that first issue said in part: “Kell City is only a small town, yet we jar the earth and strike fire from the cobblestones as we walk…Eschiti, essays to be the business of rival Kell City, but she is not making any more noise than the passing of a regiment of pussy-footed caterpillars.” “The Eschiti Banner” replied with a full-page editorial, and the battle was on. Other exchanges, more sarcastic, followed and the feud grew.

In a short time, Kell City began to spill out of the railroad yards, where it was doubtful the settlers had title to their lots. Rev. A.J. Tant, a Baptist Preacher, whose land abutted Kell City, sought to end the feud between the two towns. According to his daughter, Mrs. Sessions, he gave a building lot free of charge to anyone, from either Kell City or Eschiti, who would quit feuding and move over to his homestead. His land was the Northeast ¼ of Section S, Township 4 and range 14 west I.M. Rev. Tant, who formed the First Baptist Church in Grandfield, gave away a large part of his land, before the townsite fight was finally settled, as many accepted the offer, most of them moving from the right-of-way, called “Kell City.” It seems the people of Eschiti did not respond so readily. While they had no railroad, they did have the Post Office and were a Government town. Rev. Tant’s townsite was called “Kell” for some time. Feeling was high between the two towns that the people of Kell refused to go to Eschiti to get their mail. Instead, they built a big box in Kell, where they deposited their outgoing mail, which was carried by some of the citizens, each day to Wichita Falls. They rented a box in the Wichita Falls Post Office where mail for Kell was picked up the same way. This proved far from satisfactory.

       One Night in 1908, some persons, (no one can remember who), went to Eschiti and loaded the small, frame Post Office building onto wagons and moved it to the center of what is now Main Street, in Grandfield. A postal clerk, was asleep in the building, while it was being moved, and professed great surprise when he awoke and found himself and the Post Office in Kell. The building remained in Kell just one day. Two United States Deputy Marshals arrived in Kell and began to ask questions. Next night, quite mysteriously, according to the pioneers, the Post Office was moved back to Eschiti. Contrary to stories circulated over the years, the Army had nothing to do with moving the building back to Eschiti.

       Rev. A. J. Tant finally effected a compromise between the warring towns. The Postal Department agreed to the moving of the Post Office to Rev. Tant’s townsite and named the Post Office, “Grandfield,” in honor of an assistant postmaster general.

        IN 1909, there were few buildings on Main Street, which runs south from the railroad depot. Second Street was fast becoming the principal business street and continues as such today.

When buildings were being moved into Grandfield from Eschiti, most of them located on Main and Second Streets. The streets were of dirt, no gravel, and heavy plank sidewalks, about 10 feet wide were built some 18 inches above the ground level in front of store buildings, nearly all of which had a porch or roof over the walk in front. The settler planted large parts of their newly plowed fields to corn in 1908 and 1909. A huge crop was harvested in 1909 as it was a very wet year and the new land yielded bountifully. Corn buyers swarmed to the town and bought the corn which was piled high on Main Street, from the railroad south. Every man who wanted to work could get a job at husking and shelling corn, the shucks being thrown down anywhere. When the winter northers came, those corn shucks were blown south and soon filled the space between the boardwalks and the ground on Second Street. They got on fire one night and an entire block of frame buildings, west of Main Street west of Second, was destroyed. Prompt steps were taken to establish a fire code for the business section, and from then on the business buildings were of brick or stone or concrete blocks. The first brick building was the two-story, First National Bank Building at the southeast intersection of Second and Main.

       THE TOWN of Grandfield was incorporated in winter of 1907-1908, with J.B. Simpson as the first Mayor. Ome of the pressing town problems of the town was a water supply. Wells sunk some five miles south of town and plenty of water found. Someone sold the “City Dads” on the idea of laying a cypress wood, pipeline to carry water from the wells to town. This cypress wood pipe was wrapped with wire cable and coated with tar, according to an account. When the pumps were started to force the water over a hill and into Grandfield, the wooden pipe leaked so badly that no water ever reached town. After some delay, a four-inch cast-iron pipeline was installed, which was a success but soon found to be too small, and was replaced by an eight-inch line.

       IN 1908 THE newspaper, the Kell Enterprise, moved and changed its name to the Grandfield Enterprise. There were several successive owners until it was purchased in 1919 by the Patterson family who had owned newspapers in Manitou, Tipton, and Frederick. The name was changed to the Big Pasture News Feb. 24, 1949. About 1951, LeRoy Hines, from Lawton, bought the paper and sold it to Mr. and Mrs. Perry White, in 1954. It is published once a week.

Today, Grandfield is the center of an important cotton producing area, as well as being a huge wheat producing country. As a visitor approaches from the north, the 750,000-bushel, grain storage facilities, and elevators stand out like huge mountains against the horizon. These can be clearly seen from Chattanooga, 14 miles to the north. This grain storage plant provides the Red River Valley with an outlet for wheat and other grains.

-HUGH CORWIN (Staff Writer, Lawton Constitution (an actual photo copy of this article can be viewed below)