Free Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only by Patrick McGilligan Page A

regulars in Micheaux films he first applauded on stage at the Pekin.
    That winter of 1905–1906, he also traveled to Murphysboro to visitJessie and spent what he called the “happiest week of my life” with her. Then he picked up some extra money portering on runs to the South. Returning to South Dakota as the winter started to ebb, he fell to brooding about Jessie, who was being pressed by a competing Murphysboro suitor, “a three dollar a week menial,” in Micheaux’s contemptuous words. His rival’s growing friendship with Jessie made Micheaux jealous and miserable. He resolved to forget all about Jessie, but suffered attacks of the blues, mingled with daydreams of himself and his ideal wife on the prairie.
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    Land surveyors and train agents visited Gregory County in the spring of 1906, and rumors flew they were mapping the long-awaited extension of the railroad. The route of the extension would decide future train stops, and that would determine the ultimate fate of the sparring towns, while richly increasing the value of land along the new route. Each of the Gregory County towns had newspapers, bankers, and civic boosters campaigning for itself.
    Bonesteel, which had claimed the railhead since 1901, complacently believed that it would be another ten years before the trains passed it by, time it would spend consolidating its status as a prairie capital. If the extension went through Burke and hit Gregory, then it was a cinch to skip Dallas, which fell a little to the south and on irregular high land. By the same token, if the extension chose Dallas, then it was bound to avoid Burke and Gregory.
    The Jacksons kept buying up all available land, while talking up the advantages of Dallas. The brothers bought drinks and dinner for their clients and handed out expensive cigars as they consummated their deals. Their opponents in the other towns derided the Jacksons as “windjammers and manipulators of knavish plots,” in Micheaux’s words. But Oscar himself found the power brokers shrewd and personable. All three brothers were “college-bred boys, with a higher conception of things in general; were modern, free, and up-to-date”; in his view, they far outclassed the local rubes.
    Because of his friendship with the Jacksons, and because he had worked as a porter, Micheaux found that other settlers considered him a “railroad expert,” and sought out his opinion on the future of the railroad. His relinquishment was halfway between Dallas and Gregory; hadhe purchased it because someone had tipped him off about the extension decision? What did he know of the Jacksons’ multifarious schemes? Suddenly viewed as an insider, the “only colored homesteader” found himself an increasingly welcome visitor wherever he roamed.
    Then, just as the surveyor rumors rose to a fever, Ernest Jackson mysteriously disappeared from the vicinity. Promoters in the other towns seized on the anxiety provoked by his absence to convince the nervous merchants of Dallas to evacuate. A man was hired to bring horses, block and tackle, and massive wagons, and he hauled the main buildings out of Dallas, literally sawing the bigger structures in half to facilitate the operation. Some were taken to Burke, others to Gregory. Soon little was left of Dallas, excepting a two-story bank, a two-story hotel, a saloon, and a few lesser buildings, all owned by the Jacksons.
    When Ernest Jackson reappeared, furious at what had transpired in his absence, he confided the details of his mysterious trip to Micheaux. He and other businessmen had gone to see Marvin Hughitt in Chicago, asking for a peek at the blueprints of the Gregory County survey. Hughitt had told them the extension probably wouldn’t include Dallas. Knowing this secret, the Jacksons now made a magnanimous show of offering to move their various enterprises into Gregory and consolidate with that town, which would give Gregory a clear edge