Cache, Oklahoma

 
Feb 2010

The last meeting was well attended and we covered a good deal of ground. The dinner with Jari Askins, Lt Governor of the state of Oklahoma, has been rescheduled for April 17 at 5:30 pm. The dinner will be held in the Cache Primary Cafetorium. Ms. Askins will be speaking on the growth of Southwest Oklahoma. All are welcome to attend. Tickets will be $20.00 and include dinner. For more information contact Beverly Martine at the Quilt N Bee 580-429-2400.

 
Scott Brown of the Chamber made a presentation on the upcoming three on three basket ball tournament scheduled for, Saturday, April 24. The basketball tournament will be held in the New Gym and will be an all day event. This is a co-ed tournament with two divisions, 9-12 grade and 18 & up. Cost per team is $70.00 with a discount of $10.00 for teams that register before April 1. For more information contact Scott Brown 580-591-2354.
Mr. Randy Batt, Cache Public Schools Superintendent, gave an excellent presentation on the upcoming bond issue and what is planned for the money that will be raised if the bond passes. Mr. Batt and the school board are looking ahead at the growth of Cache Schools and the community of Cache. For information on the school bond issue contact Mr. Randy Batt at Cache School, 429-3266.

Ernie Altic of the Cache Chamber made a presentation on the upcoming Golf Tournament schedule for April 24 at Hummingbird Golf Course. Cost will be $45.00 per person for 18 holes. Ernie is in need or some more golf carts and some volunteers to help with the golf tournament. For more information on the Golf Tournament contact Ernie at ernie.altic@conus.army.mil.

Other upcoming events that the Chamber has planned is a ‘Meet the Candidates’, in June, a watermelon back to school celebration in August and Western Days October 1 & 2. Paula Hood is working on the Christmas and holiday celebrations.

Western Days planning is in full swing. The first meeting for 2010 was February 22. Western Days will be held October 1 & 2, 2010. Some of the events planned are:

A Car Show
Parade
Bull Riding and Mini Bull Riding
Gunfight
BBQ dinner
Street Dance
Fire Lighting and War Dance contest
Vendors
Midway

More volunteers are needed and we are looking for ideas. The next meeting for Western Days is March 18 directly following the regularly scheduled Chamber meeting (March 18 at 6:00 pm). All are invited to attend both the Chamber meeting and the Western Days meeting.

A lesson that should be taught in all schools .. . and colleges!

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock , did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom.

When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks. ‘Ms. Cothren, where’re our desks?’

She replied, ‘You can’t have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.’

They thought, ‘Well, maybe it’s our grades.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s our behavior.’

She told them, ‘No, it’s not even your behavior..’

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom.

By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms.Cothren’s classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.

The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the desk less classroom, Martha Cothren said, ‘Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.’

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.

Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and

stand along side the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.

Martha said, ‘You didn’t earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it’s up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don’t ever forget it.’

By the way, this is a true story.

Please consider passing this along so others won’t forget that the freedoms we have in this great country were earned by U. S. Veterans.

ZEKE CAMPFIELD

CACHE As Friday evening slowly crept in, townspeople began hunkering down and making preparations to ride out the weekend without electricity.
With sleeping bags, board games and food grabbed from shelves, folks like Calvin and Mary Hayes began claiming a corner of the basketball court at Cache Intermediate School as the snow began to pick up again in the late afternoon.

"Several people called us and asked us to come here," Mary Hayes said. "And we were freezing to death."

Hayes and her husband are among Cache’s many senior citizens seeking refuge at the shelter and they were planning to stay at least until Monday.
"I hope we get back to the house then," she said. "This is the worst I’ve ever seen."

Her husband grabbed a medical bag filled with his twice-a-day IV treatments and bags of snacks from the back of their van.
"I came to share with others as well as do for myself," he said.

The two were about a dozen setting up camp at the center late on Friday afternoon.

Michelle Ward said she stayed at home Thursday night but she sought shelter on Friday for her 16-month-old daughter, Savannah.

"She couldn’t sleep at all," Ward said. "We finally had to bring her here today; it was just too cold."

ZEKE CAMPFIELD

CACHE Foster kids across Comanche County may soon sleep a little more peacefully thanks to the charitable efforts of Beverly Martine and quilters from across the area.

Martine, owner of the Quilt N Bee in downtown Cache, said her store will be the hub for Southwest Oklahoma’s participation in a nationwide campaign to sew pillowcases for charity.

Sponsored by American Patchwork & Quilting, the nationwide “Make a Pillowcase, Make a Difference” campaign calls on participating stores to donate pillowcases collected throughout the year to a local charity or organization.

Martine said she chose the Comanche County Department of Human Services as her target organization because she has a personal affinity for children in the state’s foster care program.

“My kids come from DHS,” Martine said, her eyes tearing up. “I have four kids adopted from the foster care system in Texas, and they didn’t do anything wrong their parents and caretakers did.”

12/31/2009 12:55:00 AM

ZEKE CAMPFIELD

CACHE The water crisis in Cache also appears to be over, Mayor Shawn Komacheet said on Wednesday.

A recommended boil order for city water customers since Monday was lifted Wednesday afternoon; the water system is full, clean and pressurized; and business will continue as usual, Komacheet said.

"After two days of testing, the lab says our water was fine both days, so we’re back to normal," he said.

ZEKE CAMPFIELD

CACHE

A precautionary boil order for Cache water customers has been extended through Wednesday.

Cache Mayor Shawn Komacheet said the state Department of Environmental Quality has not completed its tests on the water, which are required because the water system was drained after a series of power outages last week followed by a broken valve discovered over the weekend.

THE LAWTON CONSTITUTION

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2003

By

EDWARD CHARLES ELLENBROOK

WICHITA MOUNTAINS FIELD NOTES
HOME ON THE RANGE

Cache’s Woesner Saves Historic Buildings

James Carroll and Emma Epting McMillian, Herbert Woesner’s grandparents on his mother’s side of the family, were only in their 30s when they migrated to Oklahoma for the opening of Big Pasture for settlement.  They packed all their belongings and came by rail, sometimes riding in boxcars, all the way from Tupelo, Miss.  Herbert’s mother, Cora, was only 3 years old when the family uprooted, leaving Tupelo and arriving in Lawton, by rail, in 1906.

During the bidding, the McMillians failed to bid enough to obtain a piece of land in the Big Pasture bidding, but soon bought a relinquishment for a farm just outside Lawton.  McMillian built a house on a hill east of where the Great Plains Vo-Tech is located.  Later, he sold his  land and went to work at Quartermasters at Fort Sill to help build the new post.

On his father’s side of the family Herbert Woesner’s grandfather came to America from Germany when he was about 7 years old, in approximately the 1870s, where the family settled in Ottawa, Illinois.  During the early years he worked at the Western Organ and Piano Co.  In 1907, both of his parents died of the influenza epidemic and were buried in Ottawa.  They left behind four sons; Arthur, Emil, Herbert and Walter.  The brothers were split up among various relatives.  Herbert’s father, at the age of 12, was sent to live with his aunt Jewel and his brother, Emil, went to live with Aunt Minerva.  Experiencing difficulty adjusting, Herbert Sr. ran away and went to work at Berson Millings Machine Co., where he learned the trade of a machinist.

In 1917, during World War I, Herbert’s father and his brother, Emil, joined the Army.  His father served at the Rock Island Arsenal (Illinois) and the Frankfort Arsenal (Philadelphia) where he worked as a machinist and tool maker.  Eventually, he was ordered to Fort Sill to help open the new Artillery School.  His brother Emil (Dan Woesner’s father and former county commissioner) served in the infantry and was sent overseas where he fought and was wounded in the combat Battle of Verdun.

In 1919, Herbert’s father was ordered to Fort Sill to help open up the new Artillery School.  They set up shop in the old Post Trader’s building.  He was discharged in 1919 and resumed his work in civil service at Fort Sill in ordinance.  In 1950, he was given a promotion, becoming armament foreman supervising all armament work.  When he retired in 1952, it was noted that in his 35 years of he had never taken one day of sick leave or been absent from his job for the reason of illness.

Although raised a Lutheran, Herbert’s father attended Lawton First Baptist Church where he met and married Cora McMillian.  Their first born was Herbert Woesner Jr., born at Fort Sill in the old rock faced hospital on Feb. 4, 1925.  Later a daughter, Kathleen, was born to the Woesners at Angus Hospital in Lawton in 1939.

Herbert grew up in what is now called “the old North Addition” of Lawton.  He attended McKinley Elementary School for three grades, completing grade school at Washington Elementary in 1936.  After attending  Lawton Central Junior High School and then Lawton High School, Herbert graduated from Lawton High with the class of 1942.

In the fall of ‘42 Herbert enrolled at Cameron College where the first year, at the insistence of his father, he studied engineering.  He didn’t return for his second year at Cameron until 1946 when he enrolled in agriculture.

Following in his father’s footsteps, as Herbert’s father had instilled in him the ethic of hard work, by the age of 12 Herbert worked for John Helvy at Lawton Drug Co. next to the Dome Theater.  Then worked as a doorboy and assistant cashier at the Dome Theater, and between 1941-1944 worked for Willie Weinburg as a clerk at Willie’s Men’s Store.  In 1944, he moved to the country near Cache where he worked with his father on their 250-acre farm and 160-acre Indian lease.

Herbert has had many roles in his life including a span of years when he served as a Sunday School teacher at Lawton First Baptist Church.  He taught a 12 year old boy’s Sunday School class for three years when Mrs. Witzel, Sunday School Superintendent, took another church position.  Herbert felt the new superintendent might want to enlist his own teachers so he went back to Joe Troop’s men’s class.  One Sunday, H. Tom Wiles, pastor, spotted him sitting in class and asked him, “What are doing here?”  After a brief conversation, ordered him to report to Roy B. Hooper’s 8-year-old boy’s primary class as they needed a teacher.  Herbert continues to to be a member of First Baptist Church Lawton.

In the fall of 1956, Herbert bought the Ferris wheel, bumper cars and dark ride (spook house ride) from Frank Rush Jr., who was forced to close Craterville Park due to the Fort Sill land expansion.  In late 1956, he opened up an amusement park to the public called “Frontier Park,” later to be renamed “Eagle Park” in 1957 in honor of Quanah Parker, known as the “eagle of the Comanches” to his people.  In 1957, a skating rink was built, and the bumper cars and “Dark Ride” were installed.  The first building brought to the park was the Elk Mountain Ranger Station (original headquarters used by Frank Rush, forest supervisor) in 1957 and later, in 1958, Quanah’ Parker’s “Star House.”

Herbert remembers Mrs. Birdsong driving up to the front of the trading post and beeping the horn for him to come out.  It was on Easter Sunday morning in 1958 when Neda Birdsong and her daughter, Annona, beckoned Herbert to the car.  “Neda and Annona appeared very worried and concerned about the fate of the Star House,” Woesner recalled.  There was a tinge of urgency in her voice as Neda began telling Herbert that he Army had jacked up Star House and begun to move it to the edge of the military reservation.  Already prowlers had gotten into Star House and smoke damage had occurred as someone had set a small fire in one of the matresses in a bedroom.  Needa and her husband spoke to officials at Fort Sill convincing Gen. DeShazo to put a hold on the house so it would not be immediately torn down.  She told Woesner, in no uncertain terms, “if you don’t do it no one else will save it.

Due to some complicated, technical government regulations Star House would be torn down if it wasn’t moved within a few weeks.  In order to move it Woesner ended up buying a house from the Cache High School basketball coach, Charles Collins, who was leaving town and subsequently, gave this house to Neda in exchange for Star House.  Star House was moved by C.E. Putney, house mover from Lawton, several days later.  But, had it not been for the efforts of Neda Birdsong, the last Comanche to live in Star House, and Herbert Woesner, Quanah Parker’s Star House would probably have been destroyed and lost forever.

Over the years Woesner operated Eagle Park as an amusement park and village of historic buildings, for a period lasting 27 years.  Eagle Park was officially closed in 1984 due to the exorbitant cost and eventual cancellation of Insurance, which in a year’s  time had doubled in cost.  A rodeo, picnics, family reunions and school parties that had been previously booked for months had to be cancelled.  One group, MacArthur High School, was granted permission to have its activity rescheduled for the day before the deadline for closing.  The next day the gates were shut and have been shut ever since.

Today, Herbert is more that content and right at home living in one of his historic houses.  The home Herbert resides in is the old Fort Sill railroad agent’s home, a 1901 vintage bungalow.  The railroad agent was a man by the name of Vern Lew.  Years ago, Herbert lived on the grounds of Eagle Park in the gingerbread-style Hopps house.

Nowadays, Herbert and his old friend and sidekick, Allan Sasser, keep busy poking around, chasing history, looking for century-old historic buildings, sites and places in this part of the country.  Recently, they found the abandoned building of the historic Peace Congregational Church.

Herbert keeps busy with a plethora of tasks from store attendant, fix-it-man, farm worker, errand runner, buyer of goods, caretaker and historian of Star House, tour guide and dozens of other tasks just to keep things running around the old trading post.

If you are out that way, stop by the Cache Trading Post, Cache, and if Herbert is there you will enjoy his stories about early history and way things used to be.

Historic Buildings Preserved by Herbert Woesner

Building	Original Location		Date Built	Date Preserved
Picket House	Fort Sill	circa	1869	1963
Star House	Mi. N. of Cache		1884	1958
Elk Mountain Ranger Station	Refuge	circa	1907	1957
Orient Drug Store	Blair	circa	1890	1962
Real Estate Office	Chattanooga		1901	1964
Frisco Railroad Depot	Cache	circa	1902	1963
Cache Journal Office	Cache		1902	1963
Sunny Side School	2 Mi. S. of Baseline	circa	1902	1963
Saddle Mountain Indian Mission	Kiowa County	circa	1903	1964
Saddle Mountain School	Kiowa County	circa	1903	1964
Frank James Home	West of Fletcher	circa	1905	1967
Codopony Bungalow	2 Mi. W. of Cache		1923	1967
Hopps House	410 SW B, Lawton		1902	1962
Buffalo Hall  *	West Texas		1880	1975
Violet Livery Stables  **	Cache		1907
Fort Worth & Denver Caboose	Childress, Texas		1907	1965

* Reconstruction of 1880s music hall in west Texas

** Reconstruction of the original which burned in 1907 fire in downtown Cache

 

Article submitted to The County Times by Donald W. Hawthorne.
  Published Thursday, February 16, 2006 – Issue 24, No. 7, Volume 29

The day was a special one as friends and family gathered at the First Methodist Church in Cache to celebrate Thelma Jane Simmons Callicott’s 100^th birthday.  She is known to her extended family as Aunt Jane.

She was born on February 3, 1906 in Greenwood, Texas, which is located about 15 miles northeast of Decatur.

Her family moved to the Cache area when she started in the first grade at a one-room school south of town.  She doesn’t remember the name of the school, but she does remember that her first grade teacher was Rachel Cook.

Later, Thelma Jane’s family lived in Grandfield for two years and then in Spencer, Oklahoma before moving back to Cache where she graduated in the Class of 1926.  She played on the girl’s high school basketball team and recalls winning the State tournament.
Her family lived on a farm northwest of Cache in what is now the Quanah Range of the Ft. Sill Military Reservation.  She remembers riding to school in a horse-drawn covered wagon with only a coal oil lantern and quilts to keep them warm in the winter.
In the early 20’s, her father, McCajah Pope Simmons and her brother, Judson bought two trucks and made seats and converted them into school busses.  These “busses” were rented to the Cache School, and Thelma Jane, who was still in school at the time, and her brother Allison “Hans” drove them.  She had what was called the cemetery route and her brother drove the southeast route.  No driver licenses or insurance were required in those days.

In February 1929, she married Walter Burton “Boots” Callicott.  They were married in Duncan. 

For a while, she ran the Simmons Gas Station on the northwest corner of State Highway 115 and old Cache Road while her husband “Boots” owned and operated a dump truck and hauled sand.

In about 1952, she built and operated the Dairy X located at the corner of 15^th and Cache Road in Lawton.  This writer remembers begging his mother for a nickel and walking down to the Dairy X for an ice cream cone, and on the days the Cubs Scouts didn’t meet   taking his dues money (10 cents) and slipping off to the Dairy X and getting a “gret big’en.”

In 1964, when Lawton widened Cache Road, she moved the Dairy X to Cache and located it across the road west of the school campus where she ran it for 2 years.  Then it was sold to Jess Tidwell. 

The secret to her longevity seems to be; staying active- recovered from two broken hips and she still gets around, planting a garden –she still plants a garden, eating well – she eats lots of vegetables and she starts off each morning with a bowl of fruit, and always continue to have plans – she is now planning to use some of the money given to her for her birthday to buy a new lighter weight vacuum cleaner.

The Early Years

Donald W. Hawthorne

There are not too many people today, particularly in this mobile society that can claim to be a resident of any place for an extended period of time.  Especially if they are 92 years old, but Martha Petty Cowan can.  She has been a Cache citizen all her life.

Her folks, Austin Edgar and Matilda Josephine Weaver Petty lived in Illinois in the early part of the 1900’s.  In 1909, Martha’s Uncle Lee Roy Petty was traveling through Southwest Oklahoma and he got word to his brother, Austin, telling him how wonderful the climate was.  It was the middle of January and he was in shirtsleeves.

So Mr. Petty packed up his family, which included wife and two small girls, Esther and Ella and moved to Cache along with the Twineham family.  Her Grandmother Martha Townsend Petty was concerned about the family moving into what was Indian Territory only a few years earlier, and she worried that Esther who had lovely blond hair would be scalped by the natives.  It was not until she visited them in Cache that she stopped worrying.

Together the two families opened a livery stable, which was located in the 400 block of what is now “C” Avenue.  They would also “taxi” folks to Lawton to shop in a two-seated surrey.  The trip was an all day affair usually leaving early in the morning and arriving back in the late afternoon.

Her parents sold that business and bought the Cache Hotel, which was located at the opposite end of the block where the New Life Assembly of God church is now located. The hotel was a block south of the train depot.  It was at this time that Martha Virginia came into the world, being born on March 3, 1911 in the hotel.

The old Cache Hotel, which was located across the street from where the water tower now stands.  In those days, “B” Street was the main street of Cache.In 1912, Mr. And Mrs. Petty sold the hotel and bought the General Mercantile store, which was located just north of where Beeson’s Café is today.  Behind the store the Alf Clingan family built a feed store. During this time the first telephone office was located just north of where the New Life Assembly of God Church now stands.

The Petty General Merchandise Store located on what is now 5^th between “C” and “B” Streets.  Those standing on the porch from left to right are: Mrs. Austin Petty, Marion Norris, Wesley Webb, Austin Petty, A. Drummer, Wallace Violett, Sam Wimple, A. C. Shamley, Cal Clingan, Harry Unsell, Herman Asenap, and, Arthur Mitchell.

The Mercantile store was brick and had a big porch that stretched across the entire front of the store, which faced the east.  There were two big windows on each side of the front door to display various items. Inside double doors separated the grocery and meat market from the rest of the merchandise. It was a typical store of that time, with candy jars on the counter and wooden barrels filled with pickles, beans, crackers, flour and sugar.

Herman Asenap was the butcher and would also check the quality of the cream in the “cream station” as the farmers would bring it for them to buy and before it was shipped to market.  Martha’s mother, who was part German, also worked in the store but also always found time to help the sick and work in the church.  In addition, she made all the clothes for her three girls except for their winter coats.

One of the Petty store windows decorated for Christmas.  Martha is standing in the window.

Martha has many fond memories of the store.  At an early age, she begin helping out by counting eggs for the customers. She remembers that Saturdays were when all the area farmers would come to town to buy what they needed.  Local Indians were also regular customers, tying their horses to the hitching rail at the side and in back of the store.  Because her father was a close friend of the Indians, the family was invited to pow-wows, which were private events in those days. During World War I, a lot of the pow-wows were for the young men who were going off to the war.

During the oil boom in the State, Martha recalls, after closing the store, her father would take a watermelon and go out to an oil well drilling site located a mile west of the current Trading Post where it would be shared with the crew drilling the oil well.

This is the first in a 4 part series about Martha Cowan and her memories of her life in Cache.