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Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date:  [none given]
Name: Mr. J. F. Carpenter
Post Office: Duncan, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 1868
Place of Birth: Duncan County, Texas
Father: 
Place of Birth: 
Information on father:
Mother: 
Place of birth: 
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Warren D. Morse

When I came here there was only one brick building just west of where the Wade hotel now stands.  Balance was all shacks.   R.J. Allen had a grocery store here (1894).  I use to run a grocery store and drygoods.  A cyclone came in 1898 and blowed the dammed town away.

Jim Newland brought water around to us in water barrels.  That was our water system.

We had a bank run by John Prentice.  A man named James established the First National Bank.

The Duncan Banner and Eagle were started in 1893.

When the Comanche country opened up Duncan took a boom.  A squawman, named Duncan, held selling of lots on permits.  The federal government came in and auctioned the lots and gave clear title.  If lots had a foundation started they were sold on assessed value.

I married a Miss Mounts.  Bob Frensley was at my wedding.

I helped build the standpipe and when we started pumping water, it took fifteen days to fill this pipe.  Jim Newland lost out when the stand pipe was built.

I and four or five others started the line saloon one night.  A United States Marshall Stevens layed out all night waiting for us, and we went north and came back from the other side and was in bed.  He never did catch us.

We had to go to Ryan to court, that was nearest to us.

The first telephone ran from the bank to the depot.  The bank was in a shack, where the city hall now is.

At that time the Comanche and Kiowa Indians would come over and camp south of town and believe me when they were here you had to keep everything out of their reach or they would steal everything.

All north of the high school was pasture.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Brenda Choate, August 2001.