The Osage had seen what had happened to the Cherokee Outlet, a vast prairie that was part of the Cherokees’ territory and was near the western border of the Osage reservation. After the U.S. government purchased the land from the Cherokee, it had announced that at noon on September 16, 1893, a settler would be able to claim one of the forty-two thousand parcels of land—if he or she got to the spot first!
