Milburn

In 1890, Indian Territory (today's Oklahoma) was rough, rowdy and full of pioneers hoping to start a new life full of promise by using hard work and clever thinking. The railroad was creeping across the new nation and many a young man saw opportunities for new towns, fame and fortune. The Chickasaw Indians were neighbors and held great power in the area but one man, Williamson J. Milburn used both his wits and his gun to birth a new town along the Blue River. This book is the story of that young man and his family as they began a new life in the lawless country of Milburn, Indian Territory. It is also the true story of Mode Milburn, born in Texas, who as a young boy came by wagon to Lebanon, Indian Territory and then to Milburn where he grew up in the pioneer town. His father, Adoniram J., found a leather wallet belonging to Thompson Pickens, a Chickasaw Indian and returned it to Thompson, forever changing their lives. Adoniram, Williamson, and their families built the town and developed friendships until one afternoon it all changed with a bullet outside of Adoniram's hotel. Mode recollects his childhood experiences, pranks played on his friends and family, murder, unexplained mystery, death and life's unexpected twists and turns as Oklahoma becomes a state. Banks open, businesses spring up, horses turn into carriages and carriages turn into cars. Follow Mode as he brings the telephone into Milburn and falls in love with his sweetheart Alma, a schoolteacher in a one room schoolhouse in Emet, Oklahoma. Mode's life is one of strong family, hardships, loyalty and unbelievable heartache mixed in with beauty, kindness and enough personal conviction to raise a family in the new town of Milburn, Oklahoma during the turn of the twentieth century. Families were strong and close during that time before technology isolated us from each other, and the world got smaller through mass media. Milburn is a book that captures history and life as it was, and in many ways, it still should be.