In 1889, soon after taking office, Harrison signed an Indian appropriation bill declaring “Oklahoma”—located on the 98th meridian surrounding present-day Oklahoma City—part of the public domain and open for homesteading. To distribute the land, the government sanctioned one of the silliest ideas ever to pass an American Congress: on April 22, 1889, roughly fifty thousand people seeking land lined up on the borders of Oklahoma and raced to stake their claims.
