My son Robert and I passed through Kiowa County, Oklahoma on our way by car from Washington, DC to Colorado Springs in late May. We stopped to explore the country for a few hours, short to get a feel for the old home grounds of my Great Grandparents and their family.
The ranches today are mostly in wheat, the late winter crop during our visit was mature and some farmers were harvesting. The land also supports cattle, some oil and gas is pumped from the shale deposits under the ranchland, and now, in places, there are clusters of enormous wind turbines.
George B. “Doc” Mahaffie and Mary Frances Williams “Molly” Mahaffie, each at age 34, homesteaded in Oklahoma, at Kingfisher, just northwest of Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma Land Rush which started April 22, 1889, opened 2 million acres for homesteading, and 50,000 people lined up for the High Noon start. It was one of several openings and rushes in the late 1800s.
As best we know, the Mahaffies were not “Sooners.” They waited for the proper time to move in and find a homestead. George and Mary had begun their family 300 miles away in Olathe, Kansas where George’s father, James Beatty Mahaffie, had built his farm and stage coach stop.
In 1901, land further west that had been a Kiowa-Comanche-Apache reservation, in what become Kiowa County, opened to homesteaders. And the loss for Native Americans became the gain of thousands of homesteaders, including the Mahaffies. They moved one hundred miles further west and took claims at what became Komalty, Oklahoma. The county seat, Hobart, formed as a tent city with that 1901 land opening and before long the new homesteaders built the town.
Both land rushes were part of a wave of late 1800s/turn-of-the-century land confiscations by the U.S. Government which took treaty-promised plans from native peoples. Oklahoma, which had been Indian territory, became far less in the control of Native peoples, though there are still reservations spread through the state.
My grandfather, Charles D. Mahaffie, Sr., was about 4 years old when the Oklahoma land was opened to settlers. The family included his sister Rose who was 6. Their brothers George Barton “Bart”, and Oscar Beatty were not yet born, though Bart arrived that winter. Charles D. Senior was, if I recall right, with his father in a wagon for the Land Rush, and recalled hearing shots fired by homesteaders tussling over claims.
With each generation, the Mahaffies had homesteaded their way westward. Doc was born in Indiana, grew up in Olathe, Kansas where his father had settled. His father preceeding him was born in Pennsylvania and lived also in Indiana, before settling in Kansas. Picking up the pattern, Doc sought his fortune with his young family, further west, claiming his land in Kingfisher and then Kiowa County. The family prospered in Kiowas County, growing their holdings and becoming leading members of the community.
Robert and I explored the fields and section roads around Komalty, where the Mahaffie homestead was. Robert flew his drone out over the wheat fields towards Rainy Mountain and took in the scenery.
Komalty isn’t really a town now, if it ever was. The ranchers have assembled the old homesteads into larger parcels, and likely more often than not, they manage them from a home in town. Justin Krieger, who tenanted the land Charles D. Mahaffie, Jr. inherited and now owns it, lives in Hobart where he also has an insurance business on Main St.
Here is a little of the aerial video Robert shot:
There are still scattered oil pumps in the Kiowa County fields, but there are also long arcs of wind turbines, adding power to the yield the area gets from wheat and cattle. Doc Mahaffie surely would have gone for turbines, anything to add to the productivity of his farm.
In Hobart, “town” for the Mahaffies, we saw a worn-out downtown, and not much in the way of commerce or energy. It is a big town, the county seat. There are fewer people in the county now than there once were, it takes far fewer to farm and ranch. Hobart shows the signs of a smaller population. There were 27,500 in Kiowa County in 1910. Today about 9,300 people live there.
A gravesite at Hobart Rose Cemetary has a Mahaffie headstone, and three small stones, for “Father” George, “Mother” Mary Mahaffie, and the youngest, which simply reads “Bart.” Bart is there because he died young, succumbing in 1919 to the influenza that killed millions. In his obituary, he is remembered as one of the favorite young men ever to live in Kiowa County.
George and Mary’s children kept up the established pattern of moving onward to find their own way, but now higher education shaped their prospects. Charles had gotten all the way to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and initially moved westward to Portland, Oregon, before taking a job in Washington, DC with the Federal Government. Rose married and also moved west. Oscar completed college and also took a government job. And Bart had started his ranch in southeastern Colorado when he died of the flu.
By the 1940s, no Mahaffie’s were left in Kiowa County, though Doc’s descendents still held land there until recently. Ranchers still thrive there, but much fewer in number.
Very much appreciate your written contribution to early Kiowa County. My grandmother was born in Komalty in 1903. Though I live in the DFW area I have not yet had a chance to take my desired trip of exploration up to western Oklahoma. My family has also scattered and I have no current family connection there. The drone footage was particularly nice.
Thank you for sharing. My great grandfather, Jeptha Gideon Stone went to El Reno, OK to draw lots for land. He was lucky he won. His brother didn’t. They came in 1901 with 2 covered wagons and an extra horse. My granddad, Carl, age 10, rode the horse. He was born in MO. I always thought they were from Hobart, but grandpa’s ww1 draft registration says Komalty. When they got there, they built a school called the Stone School. No doubt they knew your family. Grandpa went to Kingfisher college where he met my grandmother. They moved outside Chicago, and ended up retired in Florida with color tv and a Lincoln Continental. Such changes in their lifetime. Grandma wrote they went back to see the old farm in the 60’s, but nothing was left except an old cistern. I think all the family left the area. Would love to go see the place and the cemetery.
Robin,
It’s wonderful to hear from you. I am glad my blog post was of interest. There cannot be too many of us with Komalty ancestry, but what fun to connect over that.
I had not heard of the Stone School, but in truth I have very little information about Komalty way back when. For this and other blog research, I was pleased to find Oklahoma historic newspapers in a searchable, online place: https://gateway.okhistory.org/. Having the name Mahaffie made it easy to keyword search the Hobart papers and only get not get hits connected to my forebears.
You might have a lot of search hits with “Stone”, but might do well with “Jeptha”. With luck there are things there to add to what you know about your family.
Thanks for writing!
John
My grandmother, born in 1924, was raised in the Komalty area. Her name is Eula Bea Mobley. Her parents, Harve and Dora, owned a turkey farm at Komalty in the 20’s and 30’s. She told me once that she remembers Komalty being a small area with a small store and a grain silo. If they needed anything beyond that they went in to Hobart (this was during her teenage years in the late 20’s and through the 30’s. Her parents, as well as her, are buried in Hobart now along with her 8 siblings (large family!). My grandmother mentioned in her later years that she probably couldn’t find her old house in Komalty if she tried because it had been so long since she had been in that area. She stayed in Hobart for pretty much her whole life, marrying her husband Omar Ahrens there. Because of the turkey farm life, she never went beyond 8th grade… neither did the majority of her siblings. She attended Prospect view school through 8th grade in 1939 then got married soon after at age 16 (she told me she lied on her marriage certificate, saying she was 18, in order to escape the turkey farm!).
Thank you for posting the John. Great writing! I was born and raised in OKC, and visit Hobart from time to time still.
Thanks for your interest and your story. When I visited Komalty a few years ago, we found a sign for the town, but no town. I think it’s likely the houses are all gone, and the farms have probably been joined into larger parcels for bigger operations.
I was there in the early 1970s and the old house of my great grandparents was still there but abandoned, if I remember correctly.
My sense is there are fewer people in Kiowa County now than 100 years ago.