The Cherokee Outlet, or Strip, south of here was opened to a land rush in 1893. This tract of land was 60 miles wide and stretched along the Kansas-Oklahoma border, and due to a surveying error, a two-mile strip lay north of the Kansas border. The land had been the property of the Cherokees since 1836. As a result of the Cherokee Nation's support of the Confederacy during the Civil War, Congress persuaded the Cherokees to eventually cede more than 8 million acres to the U.S. government for about $1 an acre, making the Cherokee Strip available to settlers. Every eligible settler who could stake a claim would receive a quarter section or a town lot. Finally, on September 16, 1893, more than 100,000 people lined the border awaiting the pistol shots that began the nation's last great land rush. Competitors walked, rode bicycles and horses, and drove cabs, covered wagons, and buggies. By nightfall, papers had been filed on dozens of new town sites, homesteads, and ranches.