KIOWA ? A Kansas man is honoring his city’s link to his family and the history of Oklahoma.

Kiowa, Kan., just across the state line from Oklahoma’s Alfalfa County, once was a rough cowboy town chosen as a sign-up site for the Cherokee Strip Land Run of 1893.

Cecil Tucker Jr.’s grandfather, James W. Polson, was among those pioneers. Tucker, 79, is giving the city a statue titled “This Land Is My Land” that commemorates that land run.

Kiowa is celebrating its 130th anniversary.

In 1893, it was a wild town, often filled with cowboys who tended to cattle across the border in what later would become Oklahoma. The saloons were open Sundays, although it was illegal; cowboys often rode their horses on the wooden sidewalks and fired their guns, Tucker said.

“There wasn’t much law,” he said. “The cowboys were just across the border. When they got paid, they came to Kiowa.”

Those who planned to take part in the land run registered in Kiowa. The land run started about a mile south of town, Tucker said.

Polson, then 24, came from Kingman, and staked his claim on 160 acres four miles south and five miles east of Kiowa, in what is now Alfalfa County.

“He had a fast horse, and he said he ran hard but not far,” Tucker said. Kiowa had a population of 1,500 before the land run and 900 after it, Tucker said.

A bronze statue titled This

Officials in Kiowa, with a population today of about 1,100, accepted Tucker’s offer of the statue, land and construction of a park, City Administrator Mark Skiles said. The life-size bronze, 10 feet tall at its highest point, is of a man on horseback and a woman handing him a wooden stake. It stands at Fourth and Main streets on land where Tucker’s brother, Dale, once operated a family business.

Tucker said the stake was significant because that was how people marked their claim. He said he asked the foundry, Eagle Bronze of Lander, Wyo., to make everything authentic, such as the type of saddle and the woman’s attire.

“You see the veins on the horse’s leg, all the buttons on the dress,” Tucker said.

Tucker said he spent about $200,000 on the park project, which includes sidewalks, benches, and a small parking lot. He said he wanted to do something for the city that helped his family become a success.

Many family members remain in Kiowa. Tucker still makes deliveries for the business, Tucker Tire and Supply, that is run by his granddaughter, Lacey Bryan.

“I’ve always told people I didn’t mind being young and poor, but I didn’t want to be old and poor,” he said. “We worked hard.”

Tucker also owns the Oklahoma land his grandfather claimed. Polson married Cynthia Ellen in Alva a year after the land run. The couple raised seven children who helped with farmwork, Tucker said.

“The smart ones raised a lot of children to do the work,” he said. Although he had good land, Polson sometimes returned to Kansas to make a little cash to support the farm, Tucker said.

“Most of them didn’t have much money, but they could raise their food,” Tucker said.

Polson retired from his farming life in 1935 and moved to Kiowa. He was 69 when he died in 1938, Tucker said.

Despite extensive travels with his wife, Verna, Tucker said he was always glad to get back to the town that is tied to his family. “I don’t even want to move from this house,” he said.