Ketch Ranch House (Oklahoma)

Frank Ketch served as the business enterprise administrator for the Jake L. Hamon Sr. estate. Jake Hamon Sr. was a prominent committee member of the Republican Party where Warren Harding had appealed for Mr. Hamon to accompany his presidential cabinet as the next United States Secretary of the Interior.[5]

Mr. Hamon governed a diverse portfolio of holdings and ownership in oil and gas lease properties geographically apportioned in South Central Oklahoma. The petroleum assets were devised in the crude oil fields of Healdton, Oklahoma and Hewitt, Oklahoma.[6][7][8]

By 1920, Jake L. Hamon Properties invested in the Breckenridge oilfields of Stephens County geographically apportioned in North Texas decisively exemplary of the 1920s Texas oil boom and interwar period.[9][10][11]

During 1921, the Jake L. Hamon investments were appraised at three million U.S. dollars considering a brief eight year period of time after discovering a prosperous 1914 blowout in the Healdton oilfield.[12]

• Ketch Ranch House ~ Fort Sill Military Reservation
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  Cobblestone columns at driveway entrance
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  Cobblestone retaining wall at driveway entrance
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  Cobblestone architecture detail of Ketch Ranch House
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  Ketch Ranch House exterior structure near Medicine Park
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  Ketch Ranch House exterior structure near Medicine Park
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  Ketch Ranch House exterior structure near Medicine Park
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  Ketch Ranch House exterior structure near Medicine Park
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  Ketch Ranch House exterior structure near Medicine Park
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  Ketch Ranch House exterior of front porch structure
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  Ketch Ranch House interior of kitchen area
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  Ketch Ranch House interior of bedroom area

The Ketch Ranch estate was established approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) to 6 miles (9.7 km) northeast of Craterville Park, Oklahoma.[13] Craterville Park was established after the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache land openings coinciding with Oklahoma statehood as confirmed on November 16, 1907.[14][15][16][17]

1894 Indian Territories & Oklahoma Map

In 1907, cowboy naturalist Frank Rush, a native of Blackburn, Oklahoma, served as the superintendent of the Wichita Forest and Game Reserve.[18][19] Mr. Rush attained local and statewide recognition for the railway transport facilitation and safeguard of the near extinct American bison during October of 1907.[20][21][22]

The Plains bison herd was granted to the state of Oklahoma by the Bronx Zoological Gardens and New York Zoological Society.[23] The buffalo were a conservation and restoration of cultural property consuming a permanent habitat near the vicinity known today as the Holy City of the Wichitas Historic District.[24] The American bison collection was a species reintroduction to the native lands of the southwest Indian Territory within the Wichita National Forest federal lands during the fourth quarter of the 1907 calendar year.[25][26]

In 1924, the Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa vowed to a pledged of the Craterville Park Covenant with Wichita National Forest Preserve curator Frank Rush.[27][28] The Wichita Mountains mixed grass prairie served for the local tribal pow wow events during the Craterville Park Indian Fair from 1924 to 1933.[29][30]

The Craterville Park Covenant

The object of this Fair will be to create self-confidence and to encourage leadership by the Indian for his people, to better his position, and to take his place on terms of equality with other races in the competitive pursuits of every day life, and a desire to accomplish the most possible for himself and his people.[31][32]

May 25, 1924 - Craterville Park at Wichita Mountains

At the transition of the twentieth century, the Quanah Parker Star House was located south of the Quanah Mountain summit or Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.[33][34] The Star House was situated west of Craterville Park and Oklahoma State Highway 115 approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Cache, Oklahoma or U.S. Route 62 in Oklahoma.[35]

The Southern Plains villagers immeasurable presence cultivated a historical perspective of the tribal culture and tribal sovereignty for the last of the 19th century plains indians tribal chiefs.[36] During the final decade of the nineteenth century, the Southwest Oklahoma native tribes began embracing the ceremonial practices of the Native American Church while residing in the Great Plains of Southwestern Oklahoma and the Wichita Mountains.[37][38][39]

Historical Perspective for Exploration of Oil

◇ The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power

• "Says Jake Hamon Told Woman to Flee; Clara Smith's Attorneys Assert She First Heard of Death at El Paso". The New York Times. December 25, 1920.
• "Court Recessed at Noon; Mrs. Jake Hamon to Testify". United States Library of Congress. The Daily Ardmoreite. March 13, 1921.
• "Mrs. Hamon and Ketch on Stand in Murder Case". United States Library of Congress. Grand Forks Herald. March 14, 1921.
• "Ketch Declares Hamon Wanted Clara to Leave" [Business Manager of Hamon Interests Relates Conversations]. The Portal to Texas History. Brownwood Bulletin. March 14, 1921.
• "State to Rest Its Case Today". United States Library of Congress. The Morning Tulsa Daily World. March 14, 1921.
• "Hamon's Widow Testifies at Trial". The New York Times. March 15, 1921.

• "Jake Hamon, Oil Man of Oklahoma, Is Shot". National Petroleum News. Cleveland, Ohio: National Petroleum Publishing Company. XII (47): 32. November 24, 1920.
• "Gunshot Wound Proves Fatal to Jake Hamon". National Petroleum News. Cleveland, Ohio: National Petroleum Publishing Company. XII (48): 36. December 1, 1920.

• Media related to Ketch Ranch at Wikimedia Commons
• Media related to Holy City of the Wichitas Historic District at Wikimedia Commons
• Medicine Park travel guide from Wikivoyage
• "Ketch Ranch House ~ Fort Sill Military Reservation, Building 7775" [Historic American Buildings Survey ~ HABS No. OK-66] (PDF). Medicine Park, Comanche County, Oklahoma: United States Library of Congress.
• "Ketch Ranch (Fort Sill Military Reservation, Building 7775)" (PDF). HABS No. OK-66. United States Library of Congress.
• "Ketch Ranch House". Photo, Print, Drawing. United States Library of Congress.
• "Ketch Lake Dam at Fort Sill, Oklahoma Project Profile" (PDF). BASF Master Builders Solutions. 2010.
• "Clara Smith Hamon in Fort Worth, Texas; Ms. Hamon Surrendered to Answer Murder Charges". United States Library of Congress. 1920. LCCN 2001695112.