‘Salt King of Blaine County’
Nearly 100 years ago, on the evening of Feb. 8, 1919, in a N Broadway Avenue boardinghouse, an 86-year-old man died. He was buried in Fairlawn Cemetery next to the Western Avenue fence.
August Henquentte, (there are many variations of his last name, but the records of Fairlawn Cemetery use this spelling) came to Oklahoma to make his fortune in the late 1890s. By 1903, he was known as the “Salt King of Blaine County.”
This article from The Oklahoman on June 22, 1911, paints a colorful portrait of the man:
A rival of Harry O. Shelby, the Oklahoman who suddenly became famous because he once sat upon the throne of the sovereigns of England, has appeared in the person of A. Henquenet of Ferguson, in Blaine county. The claims of Mr. Henquenet are based on the fact that he once sat in the carriage of Pope Pius IX, and caused all the gates of Rome, the ‘eternal’ city to be closed for twenty four hours, and hunted lions in Africa before Theodore Roosevelt was born.
Mr. Henquenet is of SwissFrench descent and was born on the line between France and Switzerland in the year 1832. He entered the French army at an early age and served in it for several years, then joined the Pontifical Zouaves, the personal army of the pope of the Roman Catholic church. He was advanced to drill master while in the troops. One day in 1861, he went to call upon Pope Pius IX. Before leaving he sat for a few minutes in the carriage of the church head, who at that time, also was head of an earthly kingdom.
During the same year, after an officer who had deserted the army, had been arrested and then escaped, Mr. Henquenet who was commander of the division in charge of prisoners, caused all the gates of the city to be closed and remain closed for twenty-four hours while the city was searched for the escaped man. No one entered or left the city during that time.
It was some years before this that he hunted lions in the Sahara desert in Africa. He had left the French army just before his regiment was ordered to the front in the Crimean war, and his company was in the fight before Sebastopol. He missed this by choosing the lion hunt in Africa.
Mr. Henquenet has lived in the United States for nearly fifty years and has lived in Oklahoma for the last fifteen years. He resides on a salt farm in Blaine county, and he is now in Oklahoma city negotiating with the Sulzberger & Sons company, packers, to supply them with the salt for their plant.
He is a well known character over the state, and has appeared before nearly every legislature since statehood in an endeavor to induce the state to go into the salt producing business. One of his plans along this line was to have a branch penitentiary established near his salt fields and have the mines worked by the convicts ...
August Henquentte never made a fortune from salt, no town bears his name and no stone identifies his grave; but he has not been completely forgotten. Mount Henquent, elevation 1,460 feet, is located north of Roman Nose State Park in Blaine County. There is also a Henquent Cave near Hope, Kansas, a town he helped to found before coming to Oklahoma.
If you would like to contact Mary Phillips about The Archivist, email her at gapnmary@gmail.com