Oscar to Nocona
Aliases: Oscar Ferry, Seay Ferry, Reid Ferry, Stewart Ferry
(We are searching for a photo of Oscar swinging bridge.)
click on photos to enlarge
Aliases: Oscar Ferry, Seay Ferry, Reid Ferry, Stewart Ferry
(We are searching for a photo of Oscar swinging bridge.)
click on photos to enlarge
View looking up river from Ketchum's Bluff. A This and That photo.
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View atop Ketchum's Bluff at the Oscar Ferry. A This and That photo.
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Seay Ferry Crossing was located down river from the bridge. This and That photo
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Remains of the burned out Bridge at Oscar. This and That photo.
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Grant Reid. a TeresaEarnheart photo
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Grant and Mollie Reid a TeresaEarnheart photo
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Ivie Boys; Hubert, Curlie, Bob, and Ivie front right. a Max Brown photo
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Russells: George, Sarah, Walter, and James. a Max Brown photo.
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From Red River Station and the Chisholm Trail crossing at Fleetwood the Red River flows in a northeasterly direction roughly five miles where it banks hard against the Oklahoma side. Atop this high rocky outcrop known as Ketchum’s Bluff is a beautiful scenic view above the River and surrounding area.
Three miles north sets the small community of Oscar named for Oscar Seay who settled in the Chickasaw Nation in 1889. The roadway reflected on an 1898 map of the Chickasaw Nation places the ferry location at roughly GPS coordinates 33.936873, -97.757288. The road from Oscar to the ferry however did not take a direct route. Today the mouth of Red Creek reaches the Red River on the Oklahoma side a half mile east of the old ferry location. In 1898 Red Creek flowed some 3.5 miles further to the northeast before entering the river. The road from Oscar headed in a southeast direction until crossing Red Creek then turning southwest followed a line between Red River to the south and Red Creek to the north until reaching the ferry. On the Texas side of the river the road headed south and slightly east nine miles to Nocona. (Note: A1900 map of the Chickasaw Nation reflects a second crossing of the river at GPS coordinates 33.944144, -97.734704.) Jeff Seay, born 1861 in Dalton, GA, an older brother of Oscar Seay, operated the ferry at Seay’s Crossing sometime between 1885 through the 1890s. According to the Seay family records the ferry was located down from the “old foot bridge” which correlates with my GPS estimates. (Glen Seay’s family history). David Henry Cochran had lived on a farm in Montague County eight years; “then I decided to come over to the Indian Territory in 1896. We crossed Red River close to Nocona at the Seay Crossing; we forded the river as it was very shallow at that time. I was driving horses to my wagon and had a few head of cows.” (IPH Int. # 10560 David Henry Cochran) Pioneer Mary Marshall recalled, “The Seay crossing on the Red River at Nocona and the Yellow Bank crossing were the ones that could be forded in the early days.” (IPH Int. # 9871 Mary Elizabeth Marshall) The crossing continued to be known as the “Seay Crossing” as late as 1914 evident of the newspaper article in the Nocona News dated Aug 7th: Mr. and Mrs. G.M. Utt chaperoned a party of young people to Seay Crossing…….” Another ferry is referenced in The History of Spanish Fort, Texas, pg 9: “The main artery of travel across Red River into Indian Territory (Oklahoma) was the ferry. One was located north of the Stewart farm, called the Stewart Ferry. It was owned by Grant Reid (father of Bunk Reid). Terry Earnheart shared the following information from one of his Reid family cousins that lived in the area, “the ferry ran from Spanish Fort to the OK side that was the land Grandpa [Grant Reid] owned on the river. It had a cable that was above the water that was used to pull it back and forth. As far as when it was put there, I think it was before Grandpa owned the land because the ferry was part of Grandmas story of when she got married and first saw Oklahoma. She said they rode the train to Fort Worth and then to Nocona. At Nocona they got on a stage coach and rode to the ferry. She said she did not want to get on the ferry because the river was so big and the ferry was just a flat boat made to carry wagons, horses and people across. Grandpa convinced her it would be okay, people rode across all the time. She said a surrey was waiting for them on the other side owned by Sherman Joins. Grandpa worked for him two years. The Reid cousin goes on to say, “It was 1905 when they bought the 160 acres where we live, so it would have been sometime later when they got land on river. As far as when they stopped running it, one time Uncle Dewey [Reid] said he wanted to get married and leave here because he didn't like operating the ferry. Then, he laughed. So, the year they got married [1923], for sure it was still running.” In 1915 at the age of nine Oscar Ivie arrived with his dad by train to Nocona then on to Rowland. Located on the Texas side of the river, Rowland is about four miles southeast of Oscar and roughly five miles southwest of Grady with the Red River between. His Uncle Will and Aunt Minnie Russell lived in Oklahoma on the banks of Red River outside Grady and ran the ferry owned by the Reid family. Grant Reid and his wife Mollie and family had been in the area for years and lived outside Grady. Oscar remembered his days on the ferry, “There were too things happened, on that cold bitter winter, one day, Old Red had just the –wed where the wagon had crossed the ice, they hauled wood from Oklahoma side, it was a grinding mass, as the chunks of ice floated down, this was on a Sunday A.M. “Curlie” [Ivie], Jim Russell, Will Russell and I, and maybe George, we had just put a young man across the ferry boat, he was really drunk, the boat landed on Oklahoma side. “Will grabbed the hitching rope that was used to tie the boat to a big tree on the bank. On his way up the steep bank about that time the guy in the nice “T” model coupe asked Jim to Crank ‘er up! Jim did, he stepped to the front, whirled the crank, the coupe took off, Jim didn’t have time to jump to the side as the front wheels of the car hit the dirt on the steep bank incline, the hind wheel was still on the boats apron and kicked the boat back, way back, then the coupe stalled and rolled back deep under the water, and icy chunks, Jim still holding to the radiator, the drunk still in the car, no need to mention business around there picked up, they had to get Jim out fast and did, then there was the case of the drunk inside too, they had to smash the door glass and drag the drunk out and by time they had him on the boat he was never so sober as those short minutes.”. |
“We had to quickly build a booming fire since Jim and the once drunk ‘s clothes were already frozen stiff and to them. Then someone had to get a team to fish and drag the car out of the way so the ferry could be used again.”
Oscar continued, “When Old Red was up and raging you could hear it for miles away, as the old timers would say “she’s a cutting a new channel” anyway one day in the spring she was really a roaring, a couple of us from Rowland (about two miles away on Texas side) heard it, we like to go down when she was a roaring and see things a float’in down, like house tops, all manner of dead animals, this day we was watching a house top floating down, a gag of chickens was on the roof and a hog. We was all standing at a very sharp curve, like a short finger sticking out in the water and the sharp bend also there was a small clump of trees and neck too, when the house sort of passed out of our sight, we all bounded around the tree and neck of the bank, just as the last one got off the whole thing disappeared into the swirling, murky, deep eddies of the mad Red. Just like where in less than two seconds we would all have went down and lost forever with the undermined embankment that disappeared.” “Then on another time at about the same place the Old Red was raging again, quiet a number of people was there and as usual drunks, two of them got to arguing, betting, on how he could conquer Old Red, (swim) all around them knew it was impossible and tried to put some sense into them, no deal, when one of them donned his hat, boots, dived in, we never seen him again, never even once came to the top, the eddies did the rest. I never learned if they ever found him later or not.” “The summer Dad and Etta married [1920] and we all lived with Will [Russell], one week he had to be away for a week said to me, Oasie, you can run the ferry this week and I will give you half you make, I had a quilt down there, used it for a padded seat, between two big roots of the huge pecan tree, one day here came 21 old field wagons and teams, the ferry would hold just one wagon and team, it usually held two teams and wagons, anyway I was just heavy enough to lower the apron so the wagons could drive on so the men helped me in fact they did all the work not a dollar per ???” “Was there too that summer I was almost no more. I was a good swimmer, just lived in Red River. One day two friends was on the Texas side shooting big mallard ducks, they hollered to me “hey kid get those ducks we shot and you can have them.” Man I bounded downstream so they would soon float down to me, but I misjudged and like a blunders of so many kids I made the mistake that almost cost me my life, I kept fighting the current.” “Will seen it and called “Ossie don’t fight the current!” but I didn’t want to lose the ducks, when I seen all was lost and the cramps got me I seen nothing but goodbye yuin world, I ached so I couldn’t hardly move an arm or leg, finally I came up that first time and had enough sense to say to myself, maybe one more try, I gave one last big try to lunge back towards the sandy shallow side, then all strength was gone, I seen all was over and as I went limp and so weak I felt the sand under me then I did manage to fall back some more then the next thing I know Will had me in his lap and actually crying. I heard him say Ossie hon why did you have to buck the currents of Old Red, she beat you!” “I came to he still had me across his lap with my head hanging from his lap he was as happy a man as I ever seen.” At the end of summer 1920 Oscar’s father found work in Purcell, OK so he hopped the train and joined him. (Thanks to Max Brown for contributing the Oscar Ivie stories.) “In January 1924, a contract was entered into with Nocona Bridge Company for a bridge across Red River, nine miles north of Nocona, connecting Texas and Oklahoma. The plans called for a 700’ span, 16’ roadway, and the main cables to contain 1,000 No. 9 galvanized wires each. The building of this, [the Austin Bridge Company’s] first complete cable bridge, and the experience gained therefrom helped to launch Austin Bridge Company into an interesting and profitable line of work.” (Shannon Miller, Austin Bridge Company – The First 50 years 1918 – 1968). Completion of the bridge would have ended ferry service at this location. From the Waurika News-Democrat, Waurika Oklahoma April 16, 1948: Nocona-Burns Bridge Burned. The Nocona-Burns Bridge across Red River was practically destroyed by fire Thursday afternoon of last week, closing the main artery of traffic between Nocona and the Oscar oil fields. The only explanation of the cause of the fire is from a lighted cigarette thrown by a passing motorist in a rotten place in the flooring. Remnants of the Oscar swinging bridge remain today on the Oklahoma side of Red River at GPS coordinates 33.936243, -97.758697, very near the old ferry location. Texas maps point the way to the location along “Burned Out Bridge Road”. From the ferry crossing at Oscar the River flows due east a little more than a mile then turns north northwest roughly four miles before beginning its three mile arch over the top of Spanish Fort Bend. The community of Grady, OK is centered above the arch roughly three miles north. With the ferry at Petersburg located only a few miles further to the south and both ferries leading to Spanish Fort, information becomes somewhat confusing. Both ferries were in operation in the mid to late 1870s with multiple owners and operators. (Story by Scott Black) |