Hogshooter History

(former names were Truskett and Jordan)

There are actually three different town sites in this area dating to 1900, 1917, and 1920. The residents moved with the various petroleum operations in the surrounding Hogshooter gas field, reportedly named after a Cherokee family and/or local Indians who once shot wild hogs along Hogshooter Creek. The Hogshooter gas field opened in 1907 and was the first significant discovery of "dry" gas in Oklahoma. Dry gas is that which is not produced in association with crude oil, while "wet" gas generally is found with oil.

Jim Truskett was here in 1894 and built a school which operated in various buildings until it was merged with the one in Oglesby in 1958. Jordan's grocery store was here by 1917. Nearby were several natural gasoline plants.

The Hogshooter field is still in production today.

The preceding stolen from Granger Meador’s Web Site.

Education in early day Oklahoma and Indian territories was limited to the availability of subscription, mission, and tribal schools. Generally, American Indian children had accessibility to all three, while blacks and whites could attend subscription and mission schools. Occasionally, tuition-paying white students attended tribal schools. Subscription schools were funded by a monthly tuition fee paid by the parents to the teachers. In turn, the teachers were responsible for securing a place of study and for paying the rent from their earnings. It was not uncommon for classes to be conducted in a tent, dugout, home, or church. Because of the low pay, many teachers were women, and they typically received one dollar per pupil per month. Attendance usually lasted a few months, because children were needed to help with harvesting and other farm chores.

In the early 1890s Charles B. Rhodes (later a U.S. marshal) taught a subscription school in Indian Territory known as Hogshooter, near Hogshooter Creek in present Washington County. Among his diverse group were Indian women and young men who were fugitives from the law. White as well as Cherokee, Delaware, and Quapaw pupils also attended the school. Rhodes accepted cash as well as produce, which he bartered for other items that he needed. Students sat on pine planks, and pine boards painted with lampblack served as a blackboard. With plentiful wildlife in the area, mischievous boys hung dead opossums on the school walls, much to Rhodes’s annoyance.

Anyone with any other information on the history of Hogshooter I would welcome your input.