Early Dewar Was 'Boom Town'

(Information from a 1980 interview)

 

Dewar's two oldest senior citizens, Ora Lamb and Emma Dawson, can well remember the hey-days of the coal industry in and around the Dewar area. Ninety-one year old Ora Lamb came to Dewar from Muskogee in 1911 and went to work for Oklahoma Coal Company in the company store. Eighty-nine year old Emma Dawson came to Dewar from Paris, Texas, in 1914.

Ora Lamb’s Recollections

What was Dewar like in those early days? Says Mrs. Lamb, “Well, I tell you, the town was running over with houses, tents, and anything else people could find or put together to live in. We even had one elderly man that lived in Old Number 8 Mine. We had several doctors in Dewar, we had several two-story buildings and there were buildings on both sides of Main Street all the way down to the railroad tracks where the depot was. A block down, at the next crossing, was where the freight came in. From there the freight went on to Coalton, and then to Okmulgee.

At that time Henryetta had no hospital. When we had an injury at the mines, we had to put the man on the train and send him to Fort Smith. Dewar wasn't incorporated until 1915, but it was a coal industry. We had the whistles sounding from 15 or 16 mines--some were slope mines, some were shaft mines."

Coal mines and the coal industry go back about three generations for Ora Lamb. Her grandfather, Newton Wheeler from Ohio, was office manager for J. J. McAlester when he opened up McAlester. Her father, W. P. Kelley, was just eight years old at the time, and the year was about 1876.

When Ora was one month old, her family moved to Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City was just a tent and shanty town at that time. Says Ora, "We had a shanty at Seventh and Robinson. There's a big cathedral located there now." When Ora was nine years old, her family moved to a place near Krebbs, Oklahoma, and her father (who was now a civil engineer) worked in the coal mines at McAlester. The family had traveled to the location near Krebbs in a covered wagon. They lived out of the covered wagon and slept in it at night while Mr. Kelley built a log cabin. "At night, when we went to bed," says Ora, "he would tie the horses to the wagon wheels to keep horse thieves from taking them."

The family moved to Henryetta in 1905 and Mr. Kelley worked in the Coalton Mines. Each evening he would walk home with his pit clothes (mining clothes) on and wash at home. These were the days before the Union and before wash houses were installed at the mines.

In 1906, Ora finished school at Henryetta High School. There were only fourteen students in the whole high school. The teacher at the High School was named Goree. Mr. Goree later became the Superintendent of the Okmulgee County School system.

Also in 1906, Ora married a building contractor, Herbert Cross, and they moved to Muskogee. Cross, incidentally, built the old Severs Hotel in Okmulgee and at least one business building in Henryetta.

Ora's mother was a practical nurse in the old days and her younger sisters went into nurses training. Ora attended Draughn's Business College and, at one time, worked as a model for Gossard Corset Company…she was a "Perfect 36." She got her retail store training at Graham & Sikes in Muskogee.

Widowed in 1911, Ora moved to Dewar. Her father was working for Oklahoma Coal Company at Mine Number 6 and she had an opportunity to go to work at the company store. At the Company Store she was responsible for buying shoes, piece goods, notions and all soft goods. Caleb Underwood was the buyer for the grocery side of the store. On Sundays she had to ride horseback to Coalton to check the company store located there.

In 1911 there was no bank in Dewar, so Ora had to take the money and ride horseback to the bank in Henryetta. Smelter City did not yet exist, just a dusty trail to the dirt streets of Henryetta. Within the next two years a bank was established in Dewar.

In 1912 Ora met Mr. Lamb, who worked at the Number 6 Mine. Five years later Ora and Mr. Lamb were married. In 1911, Oklahoma Coal Company's company store sat across from where the scout house now stands. The pay offices were upstairs. In 1912, the company store was moved to where the Dewar Oddfellows Hall now stands.

 

Emma Dawson Remembers Early Days

Emma Dawson was born in Cooper, Texas, in the second smallest county in the state, Delta County. Her mother's folks were Mississippi farmers with slaves. When all the slaves were freed and settlement land opened up in East Texas, her grandfather and her uncles decided to settle in the new territory. They came to East Texas by covered wagon and by oxen team.

Emma went to school in Cooper and in Commerce, Texas, in Hunt County. The family moved to Paris, Texas, where she finished junior high. Her father, Albert Lee Bradbury, owned and operated a liquor store in Paris. At one time he sold out and moved to New Mexico, but in New Mexico there seemed to be a liquor store on every corner. So he moved back to Paris, Texas.

In Paris, Emma met and married Claude Dawson, a boy from the McAlester mining family. His folks wrote letters telling how all the mines were opening up, and it was good money and a great opportunity for work. Emma knew that mining was underground work so she didn't want to go. She held Claude off for about two and one­-half years while the letters kept coming in. Finally she agreed to make the move if Claude wouldn't work down in the mines. Said Claude, "There is plenty of work up on top." In 1914 they made their way to Dewar.

Emma Dawson was raised near three uncles who were preachers, all three of different faiths. She knew nothing about home-brew or chock, and certainly nothing about the rough ways of a booming coal mining town. Says Emma, "When I came to Dewar, I thought I'd gone into the back door of Hell: That's what the town seemed like to me.'

For two whole years Claude managed to keep Emma in the dark. All this time he had been working underground on the machine that cuts coal out of the vein while other miners scoop the coal into a bin to be carried up out of the earth. One day a neighbor came by the house  and said, "Claude, did you pull my room today?" Suddenly Emma realized Claude had been working underground all this time.

Claude continued to work with the machine until one day an accident claimed one of his arms. He was compensated for the loss of his arm, but not before filing suit against the coal company.

A similar accident claimed a leg from Mr. Lamb. A new mine had opened up in Heavener. It was a rich vein and a sloping vein. He was taken to the closest hospital, Fort Smith, and then later transferred to Tulsa. Very shortly thereafter, this coal company filed bankruptcy and closed out. There was no compensation for the loss of his leg.

A wide variety of nationalities migrated to Dewar during the oil boom days. Many came to work in the mines, others came to set up retail stores. Mr. Khouri, an Asyrian, opened and operated Khouri Dry Goods. One day he left Emma in charge of the store while he sent back East to get his bride. She was 16, he was 32. The marriage had been arranged by his and her parents the day the bride was born. He brought his bride back and they were married in Dewar. Says Emma, "I think every Asyrian in the whole country was here for that wedding."

Ora Lamb and Emma Dawson can easily recall a wealth of almost lost history of this small community. Through it all, the section boss of the M. 0. & G. Railroad lived and raised his family in a small house down by the freight depot, and watched as "Boom Town" came and went. This community was his namesake, he was Sam Dewar.