The history of Oklahoma includes stories of horse thieves and cattle rustlers, and Horsethief Spring was associated with that world. During the early 1800s, Cherokee and Osage Indians stole horses from each other and from emigrants passing through. Between 1839 and 1848, Tom Starr's gang ran rustled horses from Texas into Cherokee Country, just 30 miles north of here. During the 1850s, cattle theft became a desperate problem, and rustling escalated when Texas ranchers began driving large herds up the Texas Trail, crossing Winding Stair Mountain 15 miles west of here, to markets in Kansas and Missouri. Rustling continued after the Civil War until the early 1900s, and the organization of anti-horse thief associations in Oklahoma and Arkansas brought an end to the thieving. Many believe Sam and Belle Starr, the son and daughter-in-law of Tom Starr, used this spring to water rustled horses in the 1870s.