Publication: The Oklahoman Oct. 3, 1947 Page 30

The thinning ranks of Oklahoma's real pioneers, the men who clearned the way for '89ers, Saturday still included the name of James McGranahan.  One of the last of the old time trail blazers, McGranahan served as postmaster at what is now Oklahoma City until 10 a.m. April 21, 1889.  He came into Oklahoma in 1868 and was present when Gen Phil Sheridan changed the name of Camp Wichita to Fort Sill in 1869.  The farm,  between Piedmont and Yukon, were a bit happier last week became McGranahan realized his ambition of living to enjoy his ninety-second birthday.  A few week ago the outlooks was bleak, the years have demanded their toll of his once magnificent strength, and he lay in bed seriously ill.  But he pulled out of it, and Tuesday, his birthday, he read scores of congratulation cards sent by friends.  Though McGranahan, whose eyes are dimmed by the years and carved a career in Oklahoma before the pioneers came, he doesn't live in the past.

His mind clear as a bell.  He lives in the present and future as does Mrs. McGranahan, whom he married and brought to Oklahoma in 1883.  She is 76 years old and works daily around the house.  "You know," laughed McGranahan. "We might have owned all those oil wells you got on the east side there in the city.  There were some folks living up that way when I was down there and they always had the best begetables you could buy.  The wife and I thought that was fine and we came mighty near buying a quarter section out there because of them.  "Why I wouldn't know what to do with so much money," he said.  He recalled the day of the run.  "If those boys who cam in her opening day had any idea there was on that land out there, we'd have had a sure enough war.  It was almost a war anyway."  McGranahan has his own ideas about the Oklahoma City water problem.  "There should be plenty of water in the river to take care of another Oklahoma City.  When our government train camped at Fort Supply in 1868 we were right near the river.  The water was pretty deep and it was a good piece across it.  "But I guess the river's changed a lot, because these engineers don't think much of it would get down here if the stored it up by Supply.  Times sure have changed."  The only thing wrong with Getting Old, as McGranahan sees it, is that he can't work. "I see my farm running down and down, and I can't get out and fix it up like I used to."  Mrs. McGranahan, whose agility belies her 76 years, has her own ideas about old age penions.  "Think they ought to be lower she said.  I can't believe so many of the old ones should get those pensions.  I mean deserve them.  There's lots of them didn't try to save and place away when they were young.  Of Course, some of them had back luck and sickness, but there's lots of them who don't deserve it."  McGranahan turned over his postoffice (where the union bus station now stands) to G. A. Beidler, Oklahoma City's first Postmaster.  He and Mrs. McGranahan operated the city's first hotel, the Arbeka, in the half-block north of the Union bus station.  They moved to their farm three miles south of Piedmont in the early nineties and have lived there since.  McGranahan reads "everything in the papers but the sports pages."  "I don't seem interested in sports anymore, not even baseball."  He was a member of a baseball team when players didn't wear gloves.  "I'm feeling I might not be here for my nine-tythrird birthday, "My father lived to be 92 and six or seven months olds, and he was a stronger man that I ever was."  But his friends are pulling for 100 years.

Pre-Opening Postmaster Is Dead at 93

James McGranahan Was in Charge Until Run

Frisco Cemetery

Canadian County, Oklahoma

ASHTON	Charles	01 Dec 1878	01 Dec 1945
ASHTON	Myra Alice (Dau of James & Sarah McGranahan)	09 Jun 1893	12 Feb 1982

JONES	Beryl	22 Dec 1913	20 May 1966
JONES	Bessie (Dau of James & Sarah McGranahan)	13 Jul 1913	17 May 1994