This facsimile reproduces the Brand Book Containing the Brands of the Cherokee Strip, compiled by W. Proviso Brush and printed by I.P. Moore in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1882. The book records brands authorized by two founding conventions of the open-range cattle industry in southern Kansas and Indian Territory: the Stock-men's Convention held at Caldwell, Kansas, on March 1 and 2, 1882, and the Southwestern Cattle-Growers' Association, organized at Medicine Lodge, Kansas, on March 17 and 18, 1882. These organizations were among the earliest efforts by cattlemen grazing the Cherokee Strip — a sixty-mile-wide belt of more than six million acres in northwestern Indian Territory — to regulate roundups, maintain official brand records, resolve disputes over stray cattle, and bring order to what was the cattleman's last frontier during the final years of the open-range era. The book lists the registered cattle and horse brands of members across southwestern Kansas and the Cherokee Strip, recording each stockman's name alongside their brand. It is a compact field reference from a brief but pivotal moment in Western ranching history — published the year before the cattlemen formally incorporated as the Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association and secured a five-year grazing lease from the Cherokee Nation covering the entire Outlet. An essential primary source for researchers of the cattle trade, Indian Territory history, and the settlement of the southern Great Plains. 5.5" x 8.5". 68 pages.
