first corporate ranches in the southwest. Starting with about 26,000 head of cattle around Evansville, Kansas, the pool grew to control nearly shipping over 20,000 cattle to market each year. This Comanche Pool was the biggest outfit anywhere. It had from sixty to eighty thousand head of cattle belonging to the various pool members, which ran all over the country; in our annual roundup we used to come as far south as Sacred Heart Mission on the Little River, sometimes even to the Red River, ... west as far as the west end of the Panhandle. In 1879, outlaws John Middleton and Henry Brown left Billy the Kid's gang and stayed at Colcord's camp in the Cherokee Outlet for several weeks. On December 18, 1879, Middleton married Colcord's 15-year-old sister, Maria "Birdie" Colcord, but the marriage only lasted about a year. During the 1880s, cattle prices remained high and the members of the Comanche Pool continued building their herd. In 1882 a lease was negotiated for over of land for ten years at an annual rent of two cents an acre, payable semi-annually in advance. By the fall of 1885, the Pool cattle numbered nearly 84,000 head. But by then, reacting to allegations of bribery and fraud, President Cleveland voided the leases that were never approved by the federal government, and ordered all cattle removed from the reservation within forty days. 210,000 head of cattle were moved to the already overstocked ranges of the adjoining states. An unusually dry summer in 1885 was followed by a bad winter; nearly 85 percent of the cattle died during an 18-month span, reducing Pool assets to a mere 13,000 head. Most of the ranchers were wiped out and moved elsewhere. The Colcord family continued with the Pool until its final collapse. Charley, now married (see below) and his brother William moved to Arizona to manage a ranch, followed by their mother, younger brother and now-divorced sister Birdie. Oklahoma years Then the Oklahoma land run was announced. According to one account, Charles made the run on April 22, 1889, then traded his $66 investment in a team and wagon for a shack and lot. By the end of the excitement, a noisy tent city had sprung up, and Colcord was its leading citizen, with his lot becoming Lot Number 1, Block Number 1, Oklahoma City. Another source indicates that Colcord first staked a claim