Softcover: $14.95 {Publisher's price: $17.95} (ISBN 1-4251-4340-7)
Hardcover: $21.95 {Publisher's price: $27.95} (ISBN 978-1-4251-6461-4)

By Scott L. Weeden

Imagine a stretch of riverbed a half-mile wide in 1889. The first land run in Oklahoma is now history and the South Canadian River divides Indian Territory (dry) and Oklahoma Territory (wet). Purcell is in the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory and is the railroad hub for the first north-south rail line through Indian Territory. The town was founded in 1887 when the railroad was built.

Lexington is in Oklahoma Territory and was founded during the first land run in 1889. At one point in time, there were twenty-three distilleries in Lexington.

If you were staying in Purcell and wanted a drink in Lexington, you had to walk about three-fourths of a mile to Lexington and stagger back about three-quarters of a mile to Purcell. All that whiskey and all those customers were a riverbed apart.

With all that whiskey in Lexington, the saloonkeepers were in stiff competition, until one enterprising saloon owner decided to make it easier on the customers. The boundary between the twin territories was the middle of the water in the river. The saloon owner knew that he could build right up to the edge of the water on the Lexington side of the river and still be in Oklahoma Territory.

The South Canadian River was on the Purcell side of the riverbed in 1889. Thus, the trip for customers was shortened to one-quarter mile at the most. That saloon owner decided to build a saloon in the riverbed. Thus was born the Sand Bar Saloon and Sand Bar Town.

D.W. Sweden saw the opportunity, found a gambler for a business partner and a saloon girl for added attraction, and soon was in business with the Heavens Gate Saloon. The outlaws, oddballs and lawmen that frequented his saloon were a match for D.W.s moonshine made with his own special recipe. Between floods that wiped out Sand Bar Town on regular occasions to gunfights over poker winnings, D.W. and his partner were always having to discover unique ways to keep the business open.

Civilization would never be quite the same in the wild and woolly late 1880s and early 1890s in the Twin Territories.




Excerpt from book review in The Daily Oklahoman, Sept. 24, 2008:

"Weeden tells an exciting story about the erabefore the first bridge was built between Indian and Oklahoma territories. His characters speak in the language of that time, using idioms that have been long forgotten. He was born in Purcell, and this book is his first novel. It should not be his last. It is great reading about early territorial history."- Russ Long, The Daily Oklahoman