Mrs. John L. Holmes was a pioneer of that part of Noble County surrounding the town of Billings, OK.

On the day of the opening of the Cherokee Outlet, September 16, 1893, Mrs. Holmes, with her four small children, watched the race from the family wagon stationed near the old cattle stockade at Hunnewell, KS. That evening with Mrs. Bert Kinney, a neighbor with whose husband Mr. Holmes had made the race, drove down into the strip to spend the night on claims which they hoped their husbands had obtained near the old Lone Tree, a famous land-mark known to all cowboys. It turned out that Mr. Kinney had been successful. Mr. Holmes, however, had no such luck.

At the moment of his arrival at the claim of his choice, made on a ride into the strip before its borders were closed to the public, a man, obviously a Sooner, armed with a rifle, came up from a draw leading a cool horse which had clearly not made the run and ordered Mr. Holmes to move on. So that night was spent on the Kinney claim.

Returning to his rented farm near South Haven, Kansas, Mr. Holmes started immediately to look for another claim and soon located and purchased one in what is now Noble County, then "P" County, 13 miles north and nine west of Perry and one mile north of the present town of Billings. The seller demanded and received as part payment for his claim, a young brood mare which Mr. Holmes had counted on to help stock his farm as well as to take part in the farm work.

At midnight on October 24, 1893, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes with their four children arrived at their new home, having come in a covered wagon by way of an old trail which crossed the claim. Not a building, not a fence post, not a furrow was on the place. In a few days, neighbors and friends from Kansas brought in supplies and materials for the building of a one-room house. While the building was going on Mrs. Holmes cooked for her family and builders over a fire out in the pen, served meals out-of-doors, and slept in a tiny dug-out which Mr. Holmes had made in a hillside, an up-ended table serving as a door.

That winter, with Mr. Holmes gone frequently to Kansas for supplies and other materials necessary to the starting of a new home on a bare piece of land (the trip took at least three days and one for the transaction of business), Mrs. Holmes stayed on the claim, caring for the home and children, milking the cows, feeding the pigs and chickens, and in the evening teaching the children their lessons.

From October 1893 to March 1894, without a building or a form of improvement in sight, Mrs. Holmes was the only woman for miles around and saw only two women, one Miss Kate Nelson, sister of A.D. Nelson, whose claim was nearby, the other Mrs. James Young, mother of Calvin Young (Calvin Young is buried in the Billings Union Cemetery). These were overnight visitors only, having no houses on their claims.

In March 1894, other settlers began to come in and build houses, some of them sod houses. The settlers immediately started breaking sod and putting up fences. Roads were established on the section lines, the settlers doing the necessary grading and culvert work. Wells were dug, the water used up to this time by the Holmes family had been hauled to barrels from a branch a mile away.

In the early days groceries and other necessities were obtained at a little general store owned and operated by George Meece at a junction of the four counties, P, O, L, K, now Noble, Garfield, Grant, and Kay counties and mail was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Holmes at Polk, Oklahoma Territory. The post office took its name from the four letters which named the cornering counties.

Soon the settlers organized a community Sunday School which in summer was held in an arbor of poles and tree branches brought up from Red Rock and erected on the southwest corner of James Noonan's claim. Wagon seats and planks laid across nail kegs served as seats. In the winter, the school was held at various homes.

Until the public schools could be established, the parents of school age children arranged with Pleasant Hurst to conduct a three-month term of school, the father paying the tuition of their children by breaking sod on Hurst's claim. Other early teachers of three-month terms were Mrs. Wilkins and Mr. Murdock.

When the first one-room school house was built on Noonan's claim, a literary society was organized. The programs consisted of music, songs, recitations and debates. Mrs. Holmes was often one of the debaters.

In this first school house, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, Mr. and Mrs. A.D. Nelson, Charles M. Sheldon and others organized a Christian Church which, upon the coming of the town of Billings, became the First Christian Church of Billings.

Box suppers were often held in the little school house and the receipts of one of these affairs were used to buy bracket lamps to take the place of the lanterns brought by settlers. The lamps were installed and used at one literary meeting only, because before morning, a small tornado came out of the west and scattered schoolhouse and lamps over Noonan's fields.

Not all, in fact very little, of the settler's life was of a social nature. . .

Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, as well as their neighbors, plowed and planted, built fences, barns and sheds, endured drouth, heat and hot winds, fought cinch bugs, greenbugs and grasshoppers, and raised their families.

Mrs. Holmes often helped in the field and with the other women of the neighborhood, cooked for harvest hands and threshing crews. And in the six years after the opening of the strip, Mrs. Holmes gave birth to two more children. In each instance, the attending physician was Dr. S.F. Brafford, a true pioneer doctor, who for years made all calls on horseback.

Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, after proving up on their claim, lived there until 1917 when they sold the farm and moved to Billings. Mr. Holmes died in 1924. Mrs. Holmes died 20 December 1956 at the age of 99 years.

Mr. Holmes was the son of John Quincy Holmes and Barbara Bozzell.

John Quincy Holmes died 25 September 1901 South Haven, KS. At that time his wife was Catherine Adamson.

Mrs. John L. Holmes was formerly Zillah Ellen Smith, the daug
This article from the BILLINGS NEWS 18 August 1977 re-printed from the Perry Daily Journal 14 September 1953.

I copied this exactly (misspellings and all) except for the last 3 paragraphs which I added. Zillah was my great grandmother. Carole Spencer