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OKLAHOMA CITY
1378
OLD POINT COMFORT

ical College at Stillwater, an Agricultural and Normal University for colored students at Langton, Kingfisher College (Congregational) and the Indian School (United States) at Chilocco. The state makes the usual provision for charitable and correctional institutions as well as for mental defectives and for criminals.

History and Government. The entire area came into the possession of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. After the first third of the century had passed, most of the region was appropriated by Congress, though unorganized, for the use of the Indians (the chief tribes being the Sacs, Foxes, Creeks, Seminoles, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaws and Cheyennes), while white men were restrained by law from settling upon its lands. As the region, in the development of the far west, was tracked by pioneers and land-boomers, the latter, disregarding its reservation as an Indian country, began to stake out claims and settle upon it. This the Indians naturally resisted, though unable themselves in the rapid changes passing over the country to adapt themselves to any form of civilized government and control. Matters drifted for a while, the national troops, meantime, being now and then called in to dislodge the “boomers”. Finally, in 1885, negotiations were opened with the Creeks and Seminoles with a view to open unoccupied lands to white settlement, and this was agreed to in 1889, when extraordinary scenes were enacted in the inrush of home-seekers, the incipient city of Oklahoma in one day gaining 5,000 white inhabitants. Transfers of land from Indian Territory and Texas were made about this time, and the region was erected into a territory, the Indians being removed to newly assigned reservations. The progress and development since have been phenomenal. This has justified the recent admission of the two territories as a state, under the name and combined area of Oklahoma.

Oklahoma City, Okla., the capital and the most populous city in the state, on the North Canadian River. It is served by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé and Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf, the St. Louis and Santa Fé; Oklahoma and Western; Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma; Texas and Oklahoma; Oklahoma Terminal; Oklahoma City and N. I.; and Rock Island and Pacific railroads. Water-power is derived from the rapids of the river. Industries include a cold-storage plant, packing-houses, flour-mills, cottongins, brickyards, grain elevators, box, cracker and soap and patent-medicine factories. It has a considerable trade in lumber and agricultural products. Oklahoma City has a fine public-school system as well as a parochial one. Among the institutions of learning are Epworth University, Sisters of Mercy College for girls and Oklahoma Military Institute. Besides these there are Carnegie Library, St. Anthony's Hospital, Sacred Heart Abbey and a number of good churches. Though founded only in 1889, the city has grown so rapidly that it already has a population of 64,205.

O′laf, Saint, one of the early Norwegian kings (1015-28), was born in 996. He distinguished himself by warlike expeditions on the coast of Normandy and of England. In 1015 he wrested the throne from Eric and Svend Jarl. His efforts to exterminate paganism by fire and sword cost the favor of his subjects, who offered their allegiance to Canute, king of Denmark, when he landed in Norway in 1028. Olaf fled to Russia, where he was given a band of 4,000 men, and, returning, attacked Canute, but was defeated and slain (1030 A. D.). His body was thought to possess miraculous powers, for which reason he was proclaimed the patron saint of Norway.

Old Curiosity Shop is a novel by Charles Dickens, published in 1840. The story centers around Little Nell, the grandchild of the keeper of the shop, and her weary quest for a safe retreat for her grandfather and herself. The grandfather, in an eager desire to secure a fortune for his grandchild, became addicted to gambling. Losing all his property and still crazed with the gambler's hope of winning, he borrows from Daniel Quilp, a malignant old dwarf, and thus comes into his power. Little Nell, realizing his position, takes him and a few personal belongings and secretly steals away, and with this double burden enters upon a wandering life which ends only with death. The story is one of a quiet, lovable, little girl surrounded with wild and grotesque though not impossible companions. Little Nell is said to have been a great favorite of the author. The story incidentally is a sermon on gambling.

Old′ham, a manufacturing city in Lancashire, England, nine miles from Manchester and 38 from Liverpool. It was a small village in 1760, its growth being due to its nearness to the Lancashire coal-fields and to its cotton manufactures. It has over 300 mills, and uses one fifth of all the cotton imported. It also makes hats, velvets and cords, and has large weaving-machine works, one of which employs 7,000 hands. There are public buildings, including a town hall, lyceum, school of science and arts and public baths and a fine park. Population 140,969.

Old Point Comfort or Fortress Monroe, Va. A government military reservation, at entrance of Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay, an important coast defense. Its garrison is 10 companies of coast artillery. The artillery school for officers, submarine coast defense school for officers and the master-gunners' school are located here. Its large hotel, accommodating 1,000 guests, faces Hampton Roads. It was de-