The Cruze farm house was associated with Elmer "Red" Cruze and Elsie G. Cruze, early settlers of the Indian Creek area north of Carter, Oklahoma. Elsie came to the Indian Creek area in 1908 at age 3 with her parents, Pearl J. and Kate King, from Wise County, Texas. Elmer came to the farm where the house stood at age 16 from Amarillo, Texas, after his parents, Wallace and Edna Cruze, bought the farm in 1917 from Marion Throckmorton. Elmer and Elsie married in 1922 and lived in the house until Elmer's death in 1975. Afterward Elsie moved to Sayre, Oklahoma, but remained fond of the house and maintained it as best she could until her death in 1996. Their four children, Earl T. Cruze, Irona Bradford, Juanita Bradford, and Arnold L. Cruze, donated the house to the Elk City Old Town Museum in October 1997. Records indicate that Thomas Inman homesteaded the farm and built the house in the late 1890s on the banks of Indian Creek, 4 miles north and 1 mile west of Carter, Oklahoma. The lumber for the house was hauled about 100 miles by wagon from Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The structure is a box house, built without vertical studs, with a foundation of red shale stones and trees cut from the creek. During restoration, materials from corn husks to newspapers were found in the cracks, where they had been used as insulation. The house was a typical low-cost homesteader dwelling of its period, requiring less lumber, and its survival for one hundred years reflected its strength despite the tornadoes, grass fires, and harsh weather of western Oklahoma that destroyed many other homes.