ACKNOWLEDGING PAYMENT OF BALANCE DUE FOR 160 ACRES OF CHEROKEE STRIP LAND AWARDED IN ACCORDANCE WITH A BID AT THE SALE OF NOVEMBER 30, 1875, in an autograph letter signed by acting commissioner L.K. Lippincott, Dept. of Interior, General Land Office, Washington, D.C., January 29, 1876

Single sheet of letterhead stationery, 27 x 21 cm., Department of Interior, General Land Office, Washington, D.C. Partly printed, completed in manuscript. Old fold lines, toning of paper at folds, a tender copy. The document is addressed to J.B. [R.?] Lyons, Cadiz, Harrison Co., Ohio acknowledging receipt of $270, the balance due on 160 acres in the Cherokee Strip, on his bid No. 29. Signed in ink by L.K. Lippincott. Item #67527

The Cherokee Strip Land referred to in this document was the portion of land, some 2.46 miles wide and 276 miles long, lying along the Kansas - Oklahoma border between the 96th and the 100th meridians. The original grant of territory to the Cherokee who had been removed west in the 1830s marked the boundary of their land at just north of the 37th parallel. This became an issue when the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 marked the southern Kansas border at the 37th parallel. The Cherokee disputed the boundary and applied to the Secretary of the Interior for an adjustment but no action was taken. When Kansas was admitted as a state in 1861, the boundary was fixed. Following the Civil War, the federal government reached an agreement with the Cherokee and the tribe ceded the 2.46 mile section of their reservation to Kansas. On May 11, 1872, the area known as the Cherokee Strip was opened to white settlers. This sale preceded by about 20 years the land rush in the Cherokee Outlet by an estimated 100,000 "boomers" in 1889 and 1893. [see: George Rainey's "The Cherokee Strip It's History," (1925, 1953)].

Price: $150.00