Posts
from the Lincoln County Republican
3 Dec. 1958
TO: Mr. Franklin Reynolds
Pedigree, Bloodlines and Research for American Quarter Horse Association
P. O. Box 98
Canyon Texas
I have your letter addressed to Mrs. Esther Perrin, Tryon, Oklahoma, dated October 16, 1958, with a pen and ink notation from her, relative to your kind inquiry about the early history of the town of Carney, Oklahoma. This seems to be in connection with some research concerning earlier Oklahoma horses. You wanted to know just when Carney could first have been considered to have become a town, that is, just when there were two or three stores, a blacksmith shop, and some six or seven residences.
You mentioned that C. E. Cook, curator of the Oklahoma Historical Society suggested that you write Mrs. Perrin, who in turn has asked me to write to you. You understood that a Carney Staples established a store there in 1891 and that a newspaper was there about 1902. This period between these dates seems to be of interest to you.
I must have come to this territory about 1891 but I did not see the light of day until the next May 16, 1892, and since I seemed to have been the first child born in the newly established territory my father proceeded to name me Carney Oklahoma Dean. However my mother had received a letter from my grandmother on her side written just about a week after my birth in which she had suggested James Oliver Dean. So, I carry the cognomen of Carney Oliver Dean, a name no nickname could replace.
Only last week I was in Watanga, Oklahoma, and visited Robert Ragland, the methodist minister there, who was minister here in Chandler for five years. This man knows more about early Lincoln county than any other person of my acquaintance. [Ragland is the author of “Some Firsts in Lincoln County,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma 29 (Winter 1951-52)]. He is a historian by virtue of much research and I sincerely ask you to make his acquaintance. He tells me that Carney was first named Cold Water Springs, a fact that I did not know. He said also that before territorial days four ranchers occupied Lincoln county and he knows three of the ranch house sites.
I met a cousin of Staples in Edmond at the college about ten years ago. He said that Carney Staples had laid out the townsite of Perkins after the 1889 run, also Watonga, Oklahoma, and after leaving Carney had gone back to business and later committed suicide. In my 66 years I have met but one man with a given name of Carney. He lives in Sallisaw, Oklahoma.
At an early age my father returned with his family to Iowa but in the summer of 1902 he and a brother loaded a stock car with household equipment and eight nice Iowa horses, the like of which was not very common, and came back to Oklahoma. These he sold in the community, at least a few of them. Later he and a cousin purchased 8 or 10 mustangs from western Oklahoma for resale. The earliest horses of my knowledge were Dick and Daisy who belonged to the renter who lived in the log house in which most of us children were born when we moved into the new frame house. It was Git up Dick, Git up Daisy, Git up Dick, cluck-cluck, Get up Daisy, cluck-cluck, all up and down the cotton rows while Mr. Kates rode the riding cultivator. They were spotted Indian ponies, which we later owned.
The Carney Enterprise was published around 1902 as you mentioned. H. H. Herbert was editor at one time. Harry Jolly, a young man, left Carney about 1906 after helping set type and moved with his family to Carnegie, Oklahoma, where he and his brothers have been newspaper men since that time.
My recollections of Carney start with 1902 at which time there were lots of stores and many residences as I recall. Of course there was the blacksmith shop and livery stable.
It is very interesting to have a Texan inquire about a town after which I was named. This used to embarrass me but I love it now. Please put me on your mailing list,
Cordially yours,
Carney O. Dean
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