The recollections of Mrs. S. A. Bolton of Hollis, Harmon County, Oklahoma stem from the Indian-Pioneer Papers at the University of Oklahoma. She explained living in a dugout in Harmon County, Oklahoma Territory to a WPA worker during the Great Depression.
"We left Montague County [Texas] in wagons... we came to Quanah, Texas and forded the Red River there for there were no bridges.
We arrived at the place that was to be our home, which is two miles north of what is the town of Hollis (Harmon County, Oklahoma) now. [...] We built two dugouts, one for the kitchen and one for a place to sleep. These just had covers; they had no wood floors. The next thing was to get water of some kind and in some way, so the men dug a well by hand. And the water they got was pure gyp [gypsum].
For food we had our chickens and cows so you see we had eggs and milk and butter. We made hominy, using wood ashes for the lye. We also raised sweet potatoes. To cook the potatoes, we would bury them in the hot ashes at night to bake and the next morning they were fine. [...] As to the wild things, we had plenty of wild antelope, wolves and deer. We could stand in our yard and see as many as eight or nine antelope in a bunch.
Quanah, Texas was the place where we got our supplies. We would gather up a load of buffalo bones and take it with us to trade for supplies such as flour bought by the barrel, sugar, coffee, and clothing. I would go once a year to get clothing and I well remember getting at one time, one whole bolt of brown domestic which cost three cents a yard and calico at two and one-half cents and I got some real nice calico for five cents to be used for our best dresses. Now those bones which we took brought eight dollars a ton. It took us three days to make the trip.
We got our mail from Mangum and when one person went, he took a list of all the folks around and got their mail [...] Our first post office was called the Witt post office and stood about two miles southeast of Hollis. In about 1892, a man by the name of Hollis came and put in a little store where Hollis now stand and that is how this place got its name. Sometime after that the post office was moved here."
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