Charles N. Haskell - Move To Muskogee

Move To Muskogee

With the Land Run of 1889 and the passage of the Organic Act in 1890, Oklahoma Territory was quickly coming onto the national scene. Seeing a chance to make it big, Haskell moved his family to Muskogee, the capital of the Creek Nation, in March 1901. When he arrived, Haskell found Muskogee a dry, sleepy village of some 4,500 people. However immediately on his arrival, the town took new life, and business blocks were constructed, with Haskell building the first five-story business block in Oklahoma Territory.

Using his knowledge as a contractor, Haskell began building railroads and has the honor of having organized and built all the railroads running into that city with the exception of but a small few. It is said that he built and owned 14 brick buildings in the city. Through his influence, Muskogee grew to be a center of business and industry with a population of more than 20,000 inhabitants. Haskell often told others that he hoped Muskogee would become the “Queen City of the Southwest.”

His success brought him much political clout in the politics of Indian Territory and the attention of the Creek Nation. During this time, the Native American nations in Indian Territory were talking of creating a state and joining the Union under the name of the State of Sequoyah. Haskell was selected as the official representative of the Creeks to the conventions, in the position of vice-president for the Five Civilized Tribes, held in Eufaula, Oklahoma in 1902 and Muskogee in 1905. Of the six delegates at the Muskogee convention, all were of Native American descent, save two: Haskell and William H. Murray. Even though the attempt to create the state was blocked by US President Theodore Roosevelt, Haskell wrote a large portion of the proposed state’s constitution. Though publicly, Haskell worked for a separate state for Indian Territory, privately, he was thrilled to see the Sequoyah state defeated. Haskell believed it would force the Indian leaders to join in statehood with Oklahoma Territory.

The United States Congress and President Roosevelt agreed that Oklahoma and Indian Territories could only enter the Union as one state, the State of Oklahoma. In response to Congress’s passage of the Enabling Act in 1906, Haskell was elected as the delegate from the seventy-sixth district (including Muskogee) by the largest majority of any delegate in the entire new state. Traveling to Guthrie and the Oklahoma Constitutional convention on November 20, 1906, Haskell would meet William H. Murray from the Muskogee convention and Robert L. Williams. Because of their meetings at both conventions, Haskell would gain a friendship with Murray that would last until the end of his life.

With many of the men at the Guthrie convention having served at the earlier Muskogee convention, many of the ideas proposed for the new constitution were based upon the Sequoyah constitution. Haskell owned the New State Tribune, and through its editorial columns advocated certain specific propositions for the new constitution, most of which he eventually saw, in substance if not in form, incorporated into the document. While William H. Murray served as the convention's President, all recognized Haskell’s power within the body. A local newspaper during the time, the Guthrie Report, called Haskell “the power behind the throne.”

Haskell was present at every roll-call and voted on every proposition during the session. Among the things he advocated were provisions that affected both territories’ labor problems and avocation for representatives of organized labor. Haskell also drafted a report drawing up county boundaries, led the crusade for state prohibition, introduced Jim Crow laws and successfully kept female suffrage out of the Constitution.