History of the Boomer and Sooner Rooms

Boomer Room (Guest Room 2)

As American civilization forged westward across the continent in the late 1800s, pioneers from many states and nations were willing to work and develop land if they could find it. “Boomers” trumpeted, or boomed, their belief that millions of acres that the U.S. government had confiscated from the five great Indian republics in western Oklahoma to punish them for siding with the Confederacy in the Civil War, should be opened to the American public. This land included present-day Waukomis. Not even one person per square mile inhabited these sweeping Southern Plains environs. Boomer influence led to the historic Oklahoma Land Runs, including the Run of 1893 that settled Waukomis.

Sooner Room (Guest Room 3)

The word “Sooner” has meant very different things in the course of Oklahoma history. It first referred to participants illegally entering the area opened for settlement in the original land run of present-day Oklahoma, the Unassigned Lands Run of 1889, before the designated time to begin the race. That land opening began just a few miles south of Waukomis, heading south, and participants camped out all around the present-day town in preparation for it. Sooners grabbed so much free land before law abiding “Boomers” could get to it during that event and later ones, that a fury involving property disputes, court battles, and even gunfights eventually ended land runs in favor of lotteries and sealed bids for later land openings. Since those wild days of the frontier, however, the football teams of the University of Oklahoma, nicknamed the Sooners, have built one of collegiate history’s greatest athletic dynasties, and Oklahoma itself is nicknamed the Sooner State!