Land Hunger

The restless land hunger that drew thousands of men into the Boomer Movement to open the "Oklahoma" district of Indian Territory to settlement is a phenomon of power and human determination. The movement was best expressed in the character of David L. Payne, an Oklahoma Boomer and border adventurer in the mold of Sam Houston or Buffalo Bill Cody. Payne was not content to settle down to the tedium of a sedentary life. He was a border leader, searching for places where a restless spirit could meet the challenges of a hazardous life. American Indians of the "Five Civilized Tribes," cattlemen, and the federal government offered strong opposition to opening the territory, but that only made Payne work with greater effort to force the opening of the unassigned lands to white settlement. Land Hunger is more than a biography, because David Payne's life from 1879 to 1884 was so dedicated to the Boomer cause. His story also portrays one of the most bizarre and exciting episodes of the frontier-the opening of the last lands in America available for free settlement-leading ultimately to the great land run of 1889 and the formation of the State of Oklahoma. Payne's death in 1884 inspired W. L. Couch and other Boomer leaders to carry on. Carl Coke Roster enlightens the role of Payne and other Boomers against the background of a raw and cruelly exacting frontier. Carl Coke Rister was the author of a many notable books on Southwestern history, including Southern Plainsmen, Border Captives, Robert E. Lee in Texas, No Man's Land, and Oil! Titan of the Southwest. He was professor of history at the University of Oklahoma for more than two decades.