Jonita Mullins

Tulsa

Author and Contributor at The Muskogee Phoenix

Author, speaker, photographer, preservationist; a lady who knows God's grace.

Articles

Dwight Mission served Cherokees in education

5 days ago | muskogeephoenix.com | Jonita Mullins

The first Christian mission in Oklahoma was Union Mission. This Presbyterian work opened in 1821 at a location on the Neosho River among the Osages. The following year, the Presbyterian mission board opened Dwight Mission in Arkansas among the Cherokees. Dwight Mission was located on the Illinois Bayou near Russellville. It was named for Timothy Dwight, a president of Yale College, and founder of the American Board of Missions. Reach Jonita Mullins at [email protected].
Information on Howitzers was censored

1 week ago | muskogeephoenix.com | Jonita Mullins

The United States entered World War II just a day after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Soon the United States was also at war with the Axis nations in Europe. To fight a war on two fronts would require far more munitions and manpower than America had at the time. Ramping up the production of weapons and training soldiers was an immediate necessity. Oklahoma was deemed a good site for infantry training because of its central location, good natural resources, and availability of land.
Tribal leaders appoint Posey as secretary of convention

2 weeks ago | muskogeephoenix.com | Jonita Mullins

Alexander Posey, a Muscogee citizen and gifted linguist, is hardly remembered today. But he had a great impact on his nation and all of Indian Territory in the turbulent times just before Oklahoma statehood. Posey was something of a renaissance man using his skill with words to work as a newspaper editor, educator, politician, poet, humorist and philosopher. He was born near Eufaula in 1873 to a Muscogee mother and Scotch-Irish father and mastered both the Muscogee and English languages.
'Mad Dog' died as he lived

3 weeks ago | muskogeephoenix.com | Jonita Mullins

Crawford Goldsby, better known as Cherokee Bill, was one of Indian Territory's most infamous outlaws. He was born in Texas, but his mother who was a Cherokee freedwoman moved her family back to Fort Gibson when Goldsby was still young. Even then trouble seemed to dog him and he was involved in petty crimes before his teen years. Some accounts say he committed his first murder when he was just thirteen. By the time he was eighteen, Goldsby had joined an outlaw gang known as the Cook Gang.
Band leader made lasting impression

1 month ago | muskogeephoenix.com | Jonita Mullins

Few Muskogee citizens had such an influence on a generation of young people as the director of Muskogee's Central High School Marching Band. Anton Goetz, a native of Hungary, came to Muskogee in 1922 after retiring from a military career with the U.S. Army. Goetz was born March 3, 1884 in Hungary. His father enrolled him in the Beethoven Conservatory of Music in Budapest in 1889 at age five. Musical training was a daily part of the curriculum along with regular studies.
Poet fostered image as a 'tramp'

1 month ago | muskogeephoenix.com | Jonita Mullins

With the poetic name of Welborn Hope, the man who billed himself as Oklahoma's Tramp Poet, lived up to the image that title invokes. Like other Oklahomans such as Woody Guthrie, Hope spent the Depression years traveling across the country, working when he had to and writing poetry the rest of the time. Often he would pay for a meal with one of his poems. Hope was born in Ada, Indian Territory in 1903.
THREE FORKS HISTORY: Region displays Jazz legacy

1 month ago | muskogeephoenix.com | Jonita Mullins

Oklahoma has a great jazz and blues heritage. The Three Forks region has produced more jazz superstars than anyplace in the state except Oklahoma City. Besides Muskogee musicians, Fort Gibson’s Lee Wiley, Haskell’s John Simmons and Rentiesville’s D.C. Minner all give the Three Forks area a stellar list of jazz and blues specialists. Lee Wiley was named Minnie Lee Willey at her birth in Fort Gibson in 1908.
THREE FORKS HISTORY: Katy Lake served trains, town

1 month ago | muskogeephoenix.com | Jonita Mullins

In the fall of 1871, a new railroad was being built across Indian Territory. Residents of the Three Forks region were watching its progress with great interest. Surveyors for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad (Katy) worked miles ahead of the actual tracklayers so the route of the tracks was known well in advance of a single spike being driven in the area. A determining factor in where a line would be laid was the availability of water.
THREE FORKS HISTORY: Several state names proposed for Oklahoma

2 months ago | muskogeephoenix.com | Jonita Mullins

With the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, the land west of the Mississippi River was generally regarded as land for the indigenous Americans. By the 1830s much on the Louisiana Purchase was carved up into territories and states and the “Indian territory” had shrunk to include only what would become Oklahoma. But even with this set-aside of land for the native nations, there were still many Americans who thought the Indian territory should be made a state.
THREE FORKS HISTORY: Interpreter served as wartime chief

2 months ago | muskogeephoenix.com | Jonita Mullins

In their eastern lands of Georgia and Alabama, the Muscogee Nation was referred to as the Lower Creeks and Upper Creeks. The Lower Creeks lived in Georgia and had intermarried with white traders and most spoke English as well as the Muscogee language. The Upper Creeks in Alabama were less inclined to intermarry, held more closely to their traditions and rarely spoke English. For that reason, the Upper Creek leaders depended upon interpreters to deal with the federal government and the military.