Death has removed another landmark from Day County. William H. Crawford, who lived about seven miles southeast of Grand, died very suddenly at the home of his son, Alex Crawford on last Thursday. The old gentleman had been suffering from asthma, but was in his usual fair health during the day of his death. He rode from his home to his son’s residence after breakfast without any apparent difficulty and spent the day there. About sundown he lay down and expired in a few moments.
Mr. Crawford was among the first white men to view the grove and spring at Grand. He had joined a government surveying corps to establish the 100th Meridian in 1846. There was a company of soldiers, too, with heavy guns for protection against large bands of Indians. It was a wilder looking country then, for all the great sandy flats east of the city were thickly covered with blackjack timber and great patches were also to be seen along the west side of the Canadian from Grand to the Antelope Hills. It was on the summit of the hill above the spring that the soldiers sent at least five hundred solid shots into the red hills to the north, in the neighborhood of A.L. Squire’s residence. This was to lighten the load. There are others, perhaps who can give a little early history of Day County before it became a county or a part of Oklahoma, but we know of no one here who preceded William H. Crawford in his exploration of the west. {The town of Crawford would later be named for W.H. Crawford}
Day County Progress, January 16, 1904