From the Lawrence Daily World for Dec. 17, 1910:

“‘Oakland City townsite is located on the Rocky Mountains, three miles from the railroad. We have a good county here, but Oakland City is badly located. I should not invest in it.’ The above telegram received from the register of deeds of Poteau county, Okla., indicates that forty-eight Lawrence citizens who purchased twenty-five lots in the proposed town, have been defrauded out of $4.45 Christmas money. Last Saturday B. L. Lewis, representing the Oakland City Township and Immigrant Company, blew into town with a square yard of blueprint, plats and a trunk full of mimeographed abstracts. He secured an empty dry-goods box which he mounted and proceeded to give away a whole townsite in fifteen minutes. He proposed to present the crowd which quickly assembled, forty 25-foot lots in the thriving little city of Oakland absolutely without cost. A little matter of $4.45 for the cost of the abstracts, could be paid when the deeds arrived this week. Oakland City, so he asserted, had a population of 600, but he failed to explain whether it consisted of jack-rabbits or prairie chickens. Lewis has been working the same scheme in a score of Kansas towns. In Parsons there are still 54 deeds awaiting the payment of ‘only $4.45 just for fees you know.’ At Salina and Newton the scheme of Lewis was investigated and exposed.”