1916 Facts about…
Frederick and Tillman County
(reprinted from July 21, 1916, industrial edition of the Frederick Daily Leader)
FACTS ABOUT FREDERICK (1916)
Population in 1910: 3,026. Estimated population in 1916: 4,000.
Is a city of the first class, with all the advantages accruing to such a charter.
It has a fine city hall, with two stories and a good basement.
Is the county seat of Tillman County, the best agricultural county in the state.
Has many beautiful homes.
Many miles of cement sidewalks and crossings.
A municipal government run on the most economical basis of any city of the first class in Oklahoma.
Has an opera house.
Altitude 1,293 feet.
There are no saloons and no pool or billiard halls.
Good hotel accommodations.
The city owns its own waterworks system built at a cost of $35,000, with a system of deep wells giving plenty of water at all times.
A paid fire department, equipped with a motor fire truck affording ample protection to property at all times.
Has an abundant supply of pure water.
An electric light plant with both day and night service.
There is an ice plant, which does business in many other cities.
There are two newspapers.
A large and busy broom factory.
A cotton oil mill, employing many hands.
Four cotton gins, bringing business from many miles around.
A public library, built at a cost of $10,000, and equipped for 12,000 books.
Two national banks and one state bank.
Bank capital and surplus of $200,000. Bank deposits of $1,000,000.
Has a Chamber of Commerce.
The streets are wide and well kept.
The champion Knight Templar degree team in the State of Oklahoma.
Fraternal organizations of all kinds.
Social life in its highest development.
Numerous women’s clubs, with a high class of literary and social activities.
Free delivery of mails in the city and four motor mail routes for rural delivery.
Has three grain elevators.
Assessed valuation of $1,500,000.
Four modern brick school buildings, erected at a cost of $70,000.
A modern telephone system, recently rebuilt.
One hundred business establishments.
All lines of mercantile enterprises represented and doing a prosperous business.
Five church buildings, two of them large brick structures.
The moral atmosphere of the city is of the highest character.
Near the famous Wichita mountains, with their numerous pleasure resorts.
Center of the most prosperous agricultural district in all Oklahoma.
Professional men of high character.
Department stores carrying extensive stocks and competing in prices and service with the largest stores in the big cities.
Groceries sold at reasonable prices, with plenty of home grown vegetables and fruit.
Post office receipts large and showing a steady gain.
Two railroads, giving connections with all the larger cities of the southwest.
Stability of city finances insured by the productivity of the territory contiguous to the city.
The champion baseball team of southwest Oklahoma and northwest Texas.
Three picture theaters, showing the highest grade of pictures.
The population is almost all American born, and those of the foreign born citizens are loyal and progressive.
Cost of living is moderate.
Rents are reasonable, considering the steady demand for property.
Practically no empty houses, with new residences being constantly erected.
The largest weekly newspaper in the United States, with a circulation of 3,700, under the stop-when-time-is-out plan – the Frederick Leader.
Enterprising city officials, who give the city a maximum of service and keep taxes down to the minimum.
So few crimes as to make the city’s record compare favorably with any city of its size in the state.
A business college department in connection with its public schools.
A paper with 110 country correspondents – The Frederick Leader.
A municipal baseball park and a city baseball league.
A public playground park, on the beautifying of which many hundred dollars are now being spent.
Strict enforcement of laws and a law abiding community.
TILLMAN COUNTY TRUTHS (1916)
Population, 25,000.
Land area of 535,520 acres.
Land in cultivation, 295,000 acres.
Produced wheat in 1915 which sold for $2,100,000.
A cotton crop which in ordinary years amounts to $2,000,000.
The best agricultural lands in the United States.
Corn crop in 1915 of $697,500.
Fifteen hundred farms which are farmed by their owners.
One thousand farms in the hands of outside investors, who have been quick to realize the worth of Tillman county land.
Annual oat crop of $200,000.
One of the few places in the world where wheat and oats grow side by side successfully.
Farming advantages over northern and eastern communities because of greater variety of crops.
Short and mild winters, with winter pastures for stock.
Many herds of Jerseys and beef cattle.
Forage crops which make crop failures an impossibility even in the driest of years.
Sub irrigated lands which exceed in practical value any artificially irrigated lands in the world.
Five consolidated school districts, the largest number in any county in the state.
Good markets, afforded by wide-a-wake cities and towns.
A school enrollment of nearly 6,000 pupils.
An average daily attendance of more than 4,000 pupils in its schools.
An ideal poultry raising section, with a county poultry association which has set $1,000,000 annually as its mark for the county’s poultry products.
A country and climate peculiarly adapted to dairying, on account of winter pastures and mild climate. The dairying business is in its infancy now, but is rapidly developing and making its followers prosperous.
Splendid conditions for successful cheese making.
Telephone systems extending over the entire county.
One city of the first class and four incorporated towns.
Eighty-eight schoolhouses in the county.
School property worth $193,200, with a majority of the school districts out of debt.
One hundred and forty-six school teachers.
Six newspapers.
Alfalfa crop last year valued at $197,000.
Forage crops last year worth $348,000.
Mild salubrious climate the year round, with low death rate.
Numerous churches throughout the county, with moral tone of community very high.
Oil prospects are promising, with several wells now in process of construction.
The schools of the county have carried off the banner for attendance at the meeting of the Southwest Oklahoma Teachers’ association every year since the association was organized.
More school teachers attending state normals than any other county in the state.
A low record of crime and a moral sentiment which gives support to vigorous enforcement of laws.
Two railroads traversing the entire length of the county.
So few paupers that there is no poor house and no poor farm.
The largest body of fine farming land anywhere in the United States.
A low county tax rate.
Country roads good the year round.
News from every community reported in the official county paper, The Frederick Daily Leader, thus making a spirit of neighborliness which adds greatly to the pleasure of living in this country.
Placer mining is now being done for gold along Deep Red river, in the northeast part of the county.
A barley crop which in 1916 was valued at $50,000.
Assessed valuation of $13,326,950.
There were 7,300 horses in the county last year, valued at $460,000.
Mules and asses last year in Tillman County numbered 5,000, and were worth $320,000.
The county has 4,100 milk cows, which are worth $123,000.
Beef cattle reach a valuation of $175,000.