Originally posted by grant kimberlin:
When a request for the post office (I think around 1871) was put in, it required the origin of the requested name. White Bead Hill, the original name, of which I have cancelled envelopes from, was named after Chief White Bead of the Caddo's, according to the U.S. Postal Service records. This namesake is somewhat skewed. His name was George Washington (christian name) and he was a chief of the White Bead clan of the Caddo tribe (northern) from Texas. He and some other Caddos camped at the springs (there are two) on the hill, or slope, and served as scouts for the Confederates. The confusion about the woman would be because she was of this same clan, and naturally wore a string of white beads, as did they all. Political correctness finds easy roots in this story. In the past few years the myth has grown to her being a "princess"...that is a crock. After the war, George broke his tribal nomad tradition and settled into his own spread on the Chisolm Trail where it crosses either the Washita or Canadian. My notes are at my other house. But he may have been somewhat north of where Muncrief settled at Old Fred, where Sam Garvin's actual first born is buried. But that is another story.
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Originally posted by Tower:
As to White Bead Hill, this is the explaination I have in my latest writing: "This place was a collection of raw board and cottonwood log buildings on the site of an old Caddo Indian village located on the government road from the Caddo station of the MKT railroad to Fort Sill. It gained its name from Aaron Harlan, an intermarried Choctaw who set up a trading store there in 1870 and who used the moniker for his store. According to the earliest residents, Harlan borrowed the name from a band of Indians living in the area who called themselves White Bead Caddo’s. Another story insists the name came not from the band but from an old lady in charge of affairs called White Bead from the strand she wore. Both stories could be right; the truth is no one knows for sure, but the uniqueness of the title took hold and the community is still known as White Bead.
The village then as now is on a prominence five miles west of present Pauls Valley. Though called a hill, it is actually part of the south ridge parallel to and overlooking the Washita River valley. At the time Heck first saw it the surrounding country was a rolling prairie covered in bunch grass; trees being found only at springs or along the river. The abundance of grass and water made the area attractive to cattlemen and several set up shop nearby. The store then grew into a village to service these ranches; its shops and mechanics catering to the immediate needs of territorial cattlemen. Because of this, goods offered were of the most common and durable variety.
Circumstance caused the village to grow and endure. The fortuitous accident was Sam Garvin, an intermarried rancher who ran stock over a large section of the northern Chickasaw Nation. He, having a large family, and wanting his children to receive a good education, originally tried living in the border towns of Kansas where he also had a ranch. But the constant travel between properties was wearying. So, being tied to his wife and kids, and they being more tied to the Territory, Garvin, for the benefit of his children, capitulated and financed the construction of a Methodist Missionary school called the Pierce Institute. The school quickly became one of the finest in the American West and attracted many of the territorial elite. The stability the institution brought caused the community to expand. Soon the town was boasting a mercantile store, hotel, barber, doctor, and church. And, although primitive in terms of amenities and structures, White Bead in the mid-1880’s was the largest population center west of Muskogee in the Creek Nation and east of Ft. Sill. But White Bead Hill was doomed to fail for it lay off the path chosen by the railroad in 1886. Thus, even before the tracks pushed through, business houses began to fold and move closer to the Pauls Valley depot.
