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MAN IN BLACKThe Stock Market Crash of 1929 ushered in the Great Depression. By the early 1930s banks failed, factories closed their doors, millions were out of work. Desperate men sold apples and pencils on street corners. Then, to make matters worse, a drought covered the mid-west. Oklahoma was one of the hardest hit areas. Route 66 quickly became the road of flight. In the extreme northeast corner of the state — a rifle shot off Route 66 and less than ten miles from both the Kansas and the Missouri borders — sat the town of Quapaw, known locally for one thing. They called it Spooklight, a common but unexplainable flash of bright light that bounced and bobbed near Devil’s Promenade, a bluff a mile north of town.
NEAR PRESENT-DAY QUAPAW, OKLAHOMA — SPRING, 1874SIX DUSTY AND HARDENED ME
