They were originally designated by number and eventually became Logan, Cleveland, Oklahoma, Canadian, Kingfisher, Payne, and Beaver counties.

The Land Run of 1893 led to the addition of Kay, Grant, Woods, Garfield, Noble, and Pawnee counties.

Today, this land in the southwest corner of the state is split into Greer, Jackson, Harmon, and part of Beckham counties.

Oklahoma Territory began with the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834 when the United States Congress set aside land for Native Americans.

In 1866, after the American Civil War, the federal government required new treaties with the tribes that had supported the Confederacy and forced them into land and other concessions.

Elias C. Boudinot, a railroad lobbyist, wrote an article that was published in the Chicago Times on February 17, 1879, that popularized the term Unassigned Lands to refer to this tract.

To prevent settlement of the land by European-Americans, President Rutherford B. Hayes issued a proclamation forbidding unlawful entry into Indian Territory in April 1879.

The formation of the group prompted President Hayes to issue a proclamation ordering Payne not to enter Indian Territory on February 12, 1880.

[4] In response, Payne and his group traveled to Camp Alice in the Unassigned Lands, east of Oklahoma City.

Again they were freed, but this time the federal government charged Payne with trespassing under the Indian Intercourse Act; he went to trial in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

As the number of Boomers grew as people joined Payne, they sent a messenger to President Hayes asking permission to enter Indian Territory.

[5] In the fall term, Judge Cassius G. Foster quashed the indictments and ruled that settling on the Unassigned Lands was not a criminal offense.

After the Boomers refused to leave, the commanders moved their troops across the Kansas border and cut off Couch's supply lines.

In response to Couch's claims that the federal government was discriminating against them, on March 3, 1885, Congress approved the Indian Appropriations Act of 1885.

On March 2, 1889, Congress passed an amendment to the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, which provided for the creation of homestead settlements in the unassigned lands, to be known as Oklahoma Territory.

[7] The term referred to the "sooner clause" in the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889, which states that anyone who violated the official start would be denied a claim to the land.

[8] When the run began at noon, men on thousands of horses, wagons, buggies, carts, and vehicles rushed across to Oklahoma.

Congress included in Oklahoma Territory the strip of country known as No Man's Land, embracing 3,681,000 acres (14,900 km2), which became Beaver County.

In September 1890, the 1,282,434 acres (5,189.83 km2) of the Sac and Fox, Iowa, and Pottawatomie reservations in the eastern part of Oklahoma Territory were opened to settlement.

In 1895, the Kickapoo reservation of 206,662 acres (836.33 km2) was settled, and the year following Greer County, which had been considered a portion of Texas, was given to the territory by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Representatives of the Five Civilized Tribes met in 1902 to work on securing statehood for Indian Territory and held a convention in Eufaula.

The convention drafted a constitution, drew up a plan of organization for the government, put together a map showing the counties to be established, and elected delegates to go to the United States Congress to petition for statehood.

Eastern politicians, fearing the admission of two more Western states,[12] put pressure on President Theodore Roosevelt.

[10] The assembly could only create laws consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the organic act but did not require the consent of Congress to take effect.

Laws enacted by the assembly could be suspended by the President of the United States or revoked, in part or in their entirety, by an act of Congress.

It functioned as a United States Federal Court, but its jurisdiction extended to a trial of cases, both civil and criminal, arising under the code enacted by the territorial assembly.

[15] The territory was entitled to elect one delegate to the United States House of Representatives to serve a two-year term.

Another survey team discovered the mapping error in 1857 and showed that the southern fork was the Red River should be the correct boundary described by the Adams–Onís Treaty.

The United States claimed the land north of the South Fork (previously named the Prairie Dog Town River).

In 1890, Congress passed the Oklahoma Organic Act, which required the United States attorney general to resolve the boundary issue by filing suit against Texas.