Clymer, Oklahoma
Woods County, Section 18, Township 24N, Range 13W

Size of Woods County... cub-reporter, Nola (Veley) Wilkerson

Some interesting notes regarding places related to our family heritage and regarding the size of Woods County -- I found an old copy of the '10th Anniversary Edition' of the 'Carmen Newspaper', dated before 1910. It has been donated to Cherokee Strip Museum in Alva.

There was an article on the front page about the history of Carmen, Augusta, and Woods Co. up to that time. According to that article, Woods County was once much larger than present. Carmen had hoped and expected to become the county seat. When Oklahoma became a State, Woods County was divided into 3 counties: Woods, Alfalfa, and Major. I'm a little weak on my Oklahoma geography, but I believe I remember that Major was the 3rd.

Clymer, Oklahoma...

Clymer (Woods County, Section 18, Township 24N, Range 13W) rang a bell with me -- My father just recently told me that my grandmother (Lulu Frack Veley) worked at a little store called Clymer's when she was a young girl. He said it was on the southwest corner of the same section the Green Valley Church is on.

Would that be where the townsite of Clymer would've been?

In that same newspaper article (Carmen paper mentioned above), there was quite a bit about the old town of Augusta, which was 'one mile west of Carmen.'

A local man was quoted as telling that some of the men from the town and surrounding area were working so hard to get the railroad to come there to Augusta, and were so hopeful, that they had even worked to construct eight miles of roadbed.

Some big shots from the railroad company in Kansas City, however, came to the area, bought a chunk of land where Carmen is and decided to run their railroad there. Hence, the businesses in Augusta started moving to Carmen, and the rest is history... My abbreviated summary isn't nearly as interesting as the original article, of course. I surely hope the museum takes good care of that paper and is able to share all the articles with interested parties. I found it fascinating! Perhaps there is an archive somewhere with the old Carmen papers in it.