Welcome aboard
sstory in
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma! It`s nice to have you with us. Have you wondered what all the hype is about "Arbuckle`s brown gargle"? Well, here is...
"The Way It Really, Really, Was!"
Until about the time of Abe Lincoln`s "Homestead Act of 1862", most Oklahomans and other westerners drank coffees shipped to the United States from South America in green bean form. Because green coffee beans spoiled relatively quickly, they had to be roasted for preservation and use in brewing. Everywhere in Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, Arizona, and other western states, cowboys could usually be seen roastin` their own coffee beans in black, cast-iron skillets over campfires. The roasted beans were then ground (or crushed with the butt of a .44 caliber hogleg) as needed to brew up something cowboys called "brown gargle strong `nuff to float a Colt"! Roasting required some know-how and practice as even one scorched bean could ruin an entire pot of coffee.
Well now pard, `long about 1868, brothers John and Charles Arbuckle patented a method of "flavor sealing" roasted coffee beans with a glaze of egg-white and sugar. By the 1880's, Arbuckle's Coffee Company had eighty-five roasting ovens and their "Ariosa" blend coffee, with its smoky, robust flavor, became the favorite of cowboys, outlaws, soldiers, miners, settlers, and yes... even the "Boomers" in Oklahoma! And these folks made their coffee stout! Camp cooks had a saying: "There's no such thing as coffee too strong... only weak people".
During the late 1880`s, as Arbuckle`s Coffee began fading with the deaths of John and Charles, everyone became edgy, agitated, apprehensive, and relentlessly nervous! Yup pards, without their daily dose of Arbuckles, people in the west were a coffee jitterin`, shakin` mess resembling "jiggled Jell-o"! So much so, that inexplicable "coffee withdrawal" political decisions and reckless pressure was exerted to open up `unassigned lands`. You see, without their mornin` fix of Arbuckles, folks were actin` mighty itchity!
Everyone knows what happened next! About 50,000 coffee-deprived folks having "coffee jitters", lined up before high noon on April 22, 1889! Most were ready to rush right out, without even having their regular "fix" of Arbuckles, to claim two million acres of land! However, only moments before the starter-shot was fired, dozens of the
coffee-impoverished, shaking, souls, in their nervous and weakened state, actually
fainted forward into the dust - across the starting line!
These folks became known as "
Sooners". Nevertheless, as the dust cleared, even these caffeine-deprived "sooners" staked their claim to Folgers, MJB, and other brands, as well as 160 acres of land per coffee drinker! Yup, and that`s the way it really, really, was!
Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon