No city in the Southwest excels Muskogee in natural advantages, healthful. surroundings, transportation facilities, educational advantages, civic righteousness, religious sentiment and its splendid citizenship.
It is located on a gently rolling plain, with natural drainage toward the Arkansas River, three miles eastward; it has an abundance of oil, natural gas, coal, wood, gravel, sand and building stone within easy reach; it has four lines of railroads extending out in eight different directions; it has a system of public schools not excelled by any city in the Southwest; it has numerous civic organizations, all vying with one another and working harmoniously toward building up a bigger and better city; it has twenty-two churches representing nearly all of the leading religious organizations; and it has an intelligent, public spirited citizenship which has demonstrated its utilitarianism by casting aside all personal and political prejudice and establishing a business form of city government under the managerial system.
Muskogee, in brief, has a population of 35,000, sixty lawyers, forty physicians, 260 teachers, twenty-four hotels, thirty automobile shops, seven banks, six wholesale houses, fifteen drugstores, fifteen furniture stores, eight dry goods stores, twelve clothing stores, ten shoe stores, twenty-five groceries, ten lumber companies, ten machine shops, thirty oil companies, two oil refineries, four packing houses, ten printing shops, two daily and weekly newspapers, and numerous other shops of various kinds.
Source: Benedict, John D. Muskogee and northeastern Oklahoma, including the counties of Muskogee, McIntosh, Wagoner, Cherokee, Sequoyah, Adair, Delaware, Mayes, Rogers, Washington, Nowata, Craig, and Ottawa. 3 v. illus., ports., facsims. 28 cm. Chicago, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1922.