The Gloss Mountains region was long a place of passage and use, serving until the 1800's as a hunting domain for Plains Indian tribes including the Apache, Kiowa, and Comanche, while countless buffalo herds traveled there in search of prairie grass. Explorers Thomas James in 1821 and Nathan Boone in 1843 passed through the area, and while seeking a trade route to Santa Fe, New Mexico, James called the colorful formations the "Shining Mountains." The name Glass Mountains, drawn from the transparent gypsum crystals, or selenite, scattered on the slopes, first appeared on a U.S. General Land Office map in 1873 because the selenite shimmered in sunlight and looked like glass from a distance. In 1875, a second map labeled the area the Gloss Mountains, apparently through a drafting error, and a third map soon returned to Glass Mountains. In 1835, the region became part of more than six million acres conveyed by the U.S. Government to the Cherokee Nation, and as part of the Cherokee Outlet it was leased to the Cherokee Strip Livestock Association from 1880 to 1883. By 1892, the Cherokee Nation reluctantly agreed to cede the unoccupied lands of the Cherokee Outlet for white settlement, and the Cherokee Outlet Run of 1893 brought many pioneers who built farms, ranches, and towns. Cedar trees that once covered the mesas were used as fence posts and as rafters for sod houses and dugouts, and while industrious settlers worked the land, outlaws such as Dick Yeager also took refuge in this rugged country. In more recent times, explorers have searched the region for oil and natural gas, and Major County became one of the Mid-Continent's most active drilling fields.