Day 5, Conway AR to El Reno OK

Table of Contents

	Previous 40 to Phoenix Rides
	Video
	Sequoyah's Cabin Museum, Sallisaw OK
	Rain Again and Wind
	Elevation Changes During the Day
	Google Map Track Log
	Comments
	Other Blogs About This Trip

Previous 40 to Phoenix Rides

This is my 3rd 40 to Phoenix ride. I have visited just about all the Route 66 sites I want to see and have written about them in previous years. To read about this day and see photos from previous years, please see Day 5, 2017 and Day 5, 2018.

Video

Sequoyah's Cabin Museum, Sallisaw OK

Located in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Sequoyah's Cabin Museum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was designated as a National Literary Landmark in 2006.

Sequoyah built this one-room log cabin in 1829, shortly after moving to Oklahoma. The actual cabin is located inside a stone memorial building built by the Works Progress Administration in 1936 and is surrounded by a 10-acre park. The cabin is made of hewn logs with a stone chimney and fireplace and is maintained as a historic house museum, furnished to appear as it might have when Sequoyah lived there. There are relics and documents associated with his life on display.

Sequoyah, also known as George Guess or George Gist, was born in Tennessee around 1778. He was among the "Old Settlers" of Cherokee Nation, who migrated to present-day Oklahoma and western Arkansas in approximately 1818, prior to the Trail of Tears. Though lame in one leg, Sequoyah became known as a skilled blacksmith and silversmith as well as an artist.

In 1809, he began experimenting with an alphabet for the Cherokee language. After many years of experimentation, Sequoyah realized the Cherokee language is composed of a set number of recurring sounds. With this insight he identified the sounds and created a symbol for each sound, producing a syllabary. By the 1820s, his work was complete. When Sequoyah demonstrated that he and his daughter, Ahyokah (Ah-yo-ka), could communicate by reading written messages, the teaching of the syllabary spread and literacy rates among Cherokees soared within just a few years.

Sequoyah left his eastern home in 1818 to operate a salt production and blacksmith works near present-day Russellville, Arkansas. In 1828, Sequoyah joined a delegation sent to Washington by the Arkansas Cherokees to make a treaty to exchange their lands for lands in Indian Territory. Following this trip, Sequoyah traded his land and salt works for land located on Big Skin Bayou Creek in Indian Territory.

This language fascinates me. The Cherokee created a constitution, a government and newspaper, but it did no good in dealing with the US government. The language is still used today. The exhibit had a Cherokee language type writer and an Apple iPhone showing texting in the language. Below is an excerpt from one of the exhibits:

From the 1975 Hermes typewriter to our modern computers and cellphones, the syllabary adapted with technology over time. Typographer Herman Zapf created a Cherokee font by 1984. Later, Unicode approved the Cherokee syllabary for its own code system. This approval led to Apple Inc's acceptance of the Cherokee font in 2003, making it the first major computer operating system to use the syllabary.

By 2010, syllabary could be used on all Apple devices. The following year, efforts were made by Microsoft and Google to include the syllabary in operating systems and search engines. Now, syllabary can be used on Google Search, Gmail, Android devices and Microsoft Windows platforms.

Rain Again and Wind

We had time to get our rain suits on at the park before the storm. We started west again in the rain but soon decided the lightning was too much to deal with. We pulled into a gas station just before getting on I-40 and waited out the worst of the storm. Our weather app showed the storm as mostly behind us when we hit I-40 but it just held on. After the rain we got strong cross winds.

We had planned to visit the Arcadia round barn but were beat and just went on the the motel. Swadley's BBQ in El Reno was great for dinner. We will definitely eat there again.

We plan to visit several locations tomorrow so I should have more than just selfie photos and pictures of food.

Elevation Changes During the Day

Google Map Track Log