American bison

I am so blessed with an exceptional group of friends. I never fail to carry their warmth home, and also interesting and provcative thinking. The other day at the Grill with Joan was no excepton. The topic of the American Bison and its fate arose. With it an amazing volume of memories, many my earliest, began to flow.

During the depression a few things were free.  Picnicing in The Wichita Mountains Wildlife preserve and nearby Medicine Park were two.  Almost every spring, summer and fall weekend found us along with a group of aunts, uncles and cousins on my mother's side there. (I recall hearing on the Medicine Park P.A. system the brief call on the Joe Lous/Max Schmeling second match!)

But I digress from the topic of the bison. I was accustomed to seeing the bison in the Wildlife Preserve. My grandparents and others never tired of telling of the proud history of early Oklahoma and Lawton.  So when Joan brought them up I could tell their story, making only one error. (It was the Bronx Zoo, not the Brooklyn Zoo that donated the herd that was a beginning of an attempt to preseve a few of these wonderful animals in their natural habitat.)

Here is some more information that tells the stories better than I can write them.

History
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/W/WI003.html

http://www.americanbisonsocietyonline.org/BisonTimeline/tabid/308/Default.aspx

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A01E5DE133FE633A25754C0A9669D946296D6CF

Family
The area also includes the site of our church's annual pageant at Easter (grandparents played in)
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/H/HO018.html

More family connection is displayed in the superb Yankton Sioux Teepee in the Oklahoma Historical Society.

http://okhistory.org/community/fic/artifacts/the-house-of-mato-nonpa/

Its pictographs tell the story of a buffalo hunt with our ancestor John G. Clark whose biography is a part of our book Prairie Tree Letters

See also http://prairietree.com/narrative/page5.html

Back in the crosshairs

http://www.reidsguides.com/destinations/northamerica/sd/buffalo.html

"The government is once again encouraging the slaughter of wild buffalo."