all walks of life and many states came to Seminole. Young college graduates from the East, hardworking drillers, roustabouts, engineers—all were brought to Seminole by the magic word, oil. But along with the hard-working people, there came people such as bootleggers, gamblers, and dance hall operators. They made Seminole just as colorful as any of the frontier towns of the Old West.

The people were amazed by such a sudden change in their town. After they had time to realize what was happening, they began to adjust their lives for living in a boom town. They tried to meet the problems of their new city.

The town built to accommodate a thousand people was trying its best to take care of 35,000. The shortage of water was one big problem. It was very hard to get water for drinking and cooking purposes, but it was even harder to get water for other uses.

Another big problem that faced the people that came to Seminole was finding places to live. Tents and shacks could be seen everywhere. The prices were outrageous for a room, but a person considered himself lucky just to have a bed to sleep in. Beds were even rented out in shifts to two men every eight hours, making six men sleep in one bed every twenty-four hours. There were cot houses filled with cots that could be rented day or night. Barns, garages, and every other available space was put to use.

These crowded living conditions created a health hazard. One disease was smallpox, and in one day seventeen hundred people crowded the Rock Island Depot, trying to leave the city as a result of a smallpox scare.

During this time, the rain seemed to flow as freely from the clouds as the oil did under the earth. The continual fall of rain made Seminole’s streets literally rivers of mud. The wagon and mule teams which pulled the heavy oil equipment kept the mud ever present. A person could nearly always expect the mud to be knee-deep in the streets and sometimes deeper. Cars were always getting stuck in the mud and sometimes had to be left for days. It took will power back in 1927 for a lady to venture out into that sticky mud. The mud was not only a nuisance, but it was a danger. It was reported at one time that on Main Street a team of mules fell in a mud hole, and one was drowned before they could be rescued.

Even though the mud was slowing down the cars, it was not slowing down the growth of Seminole. The old residents had never dreamed that their town could reach such heights. Where at one time a person could walk right up to the post office and get waited on the right away, now he had to stand in line for hours to get his mail. Some people hired boys or girls to stand in

line for them.

In the first quarter of 1927, the post office set a world record for money orders with $258,927, only to pass that mark in the second quarter with $361,308. The Rock Island Railroad of Seminole was also setting records. It became the second station in volume on the Rock Island by handling more than a million dollars of freight charges a month, exceeded only by Chicago. One month Seminole did exceed Chicago by reaching a high of $606,900. This small farming community had become, in a very short period of time, the industrial capital of the oil industry.

Money was flowing freely in Seminole. The oil field payroll in June 1928 was over $600,000 a week and was expected to reach the million dollar mark before the end of the year.

As always when there is so much money around, there were people waiting to take it from the working men. The north end of Seminole became the center of the dance halls and saloons. One of the most notorious criminals associated with the north end Bishop Alley District was “Pretty Boy” Floyd. There were many other shady characters, both men and women, that came to Seminole’s Bishop Alley.

Women and children of the town were afraid to go out after dark. Even some of the men walked in the middle of the streets to keep from being hijacked going around the corners. Eventually the respectable element outnumbered the rough and shady side. Churches and schools were built, and life began to settle down to a more normal existence.

And so the Seminole Boom became a legend in the oil industry. It belongs to the past and can never happen again. Out of it came a settled, thriving city of twelve thousand people which is the Seminole of today.