Lovesick buffalo, mutual pact lead to one town
Mutual is located about 19 miles southeast of Woodward, the county seat of Woodward County.
It is the only town in Oklahoma, probably the world, that, according to a Sept. 5, 1948, article in The Oklahoman, owes its existence to a lovesick buffalo and its name to a mutual agreement.
Because no one else could put a cross-bred buffalo in a pen at Lincoln, Neb., Charles Hamilton Kirkwood got the money to come to Oklahoma in 1894. Because he (and his wife Anna and 7 children) lived a full life of citizenship in the community, 350 persons will gather Sunday at the farm northeast of Mutual where he was one of the 10 founders to celebrate his sixtieth wedding anniversary.The people who play with numerals could get something out of this: At the celebration there will be 60 descendants, children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of the couple who made it on the flats where early day settlers said no man could.The first people who settled in this southern part of Woodward county, drawing on their experience of other states, said one must live beside a creek or river, where there was food and water, in order to live adequately in the new territory. Charley Kirkwood thought differently. He made the $350 to come to the new territory by owning 10 cows to which a buffalo, bought by the Lincoln, Neb. zoo, had become accustomed. When anyone tried to move him, he stayed with the cows. Kirkwood drove them all to town, knowing all the time the buffalo would leave when they did. The zoo keeper was smart — he bought them all. Kirkwood proved up his claim out on the flats, while the men who stayed back on the river perimeter ran their cattle on the grassland. He started farming. He also opened a store and postoffice at a station called Weston. Then he and nine other men bought a 10-acre block on some land and started a town. They had no name for it, so when they petitioned the postoffice department for a name, they said ‘We some something that shows a mutual interest.’ The department complied, they picked the name of Mutual. In its heyday, the town had seven general stores (Charley owned one), two lumber yards, two hotels, three drugstores. That’s changed now. Fast transportation, autos and radios removed its isolation. It’s what you might call a hamlet or village ...The home folk, who have known them all this while, will join in paying tribute to the couple who have helped maintain this bright spot in the fabric of America ...At 81, he is still vigorous, and like his wife, only one year older, he is still part of the community in which they settled ... The book, “History of Mutual,” compiled and edited by Allen A. Aaron, offers a slightly different story of how Mutual was named. The post office named Mutual had moved three times since it was established in 1895. In 1908, when the post office made its final move to the present location:... the town applied for a name and post office, the names of Persimmon and Trenton were submitted. Supporters on both sides finally, by ‘Mutual Agreement,’ agreed to let the Postal System name the town. They rejected both names and named it Mutual, because of the mutual agreement.
Charley Kirkwood died in 1957 at age 89. He, his wife and many of his family members are buried at Dunlap Cemetery in Mutual. Mutual still survives 109 years later.
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