Catale The Last Rites of Faye Baird

Catale was, at one time, a thriving coal-producing (and later oil-producing) boom town.Today, we talk of boom times with oil and gas, but coal was the "First Energy Boom", longbefore gasoline fueled our cars. However, by the time we moved there in mid-1941, the town hadbecome a dim reflection of its former self. When I started my elementary education at the Cataleschoolhouse in 1947, I was in the first grade. There were a few businesses still open.Our land was and still is original Cherokee Indian land. The old homestead was once owned bya true-to-life character played in this book, Lemuel (Lem) Paris.In the Photo Section of Rogers County, there is an Ownership Map displaying the owners ofIndian Land as allotted by federal law.One surviving store when I started school, was the original Catale general store, which at thattime was owned by Henry and Ruby Dick. I remember the cost of bubble gum was a penny. Ofcourse, that penny was hard to get in the 1940s.We went to school with Henry and Ruby Dick's children, Billy Ray and Joyce.Billy Rae Dick was in the same grade as my sister Lois, and Joyce Dick startedschool with me in the first grade. Joyce and I were classmates from first gradeat Catale, through our senior year at Chelsea High.The trial and shooting of Faye Baird happened over 100 years ago, and alltrue stories and witnesses have long been forgotten.The schoolhouse has been torn down, and the lot where it stood is a cemetery. Any evidence ofthe coal mines, and cattle yards is gone. The Catale Coal Pits, where my classmates and I wentswimming, have been mostly covered up by the EPA Reclamation Project of 1974. All that is leftnow are legends, memories, and a few houses and residences of American suburbia.The Post Office closed in 1933, and train service was discontinued soon after that. The townCatale ceased to exist, and over the years, the buildings have been torn down, and persimmontrees and prairie grass have covered the once ambitious dream of Marcus De Lafayette (Faye)Baird.

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