Homesteaders – Kenneth and Barbara Goodin

When Kenneth and Barbara Goodin retired from working in Lawton, they decided to move to their ancestral land near Elgin. Kenneth’s grandfather, a respected Comanche Indian named Bob Otipoby claimed the land after the 1901 Jerome Agreement, which forced the Comanches to assign tribal members individual land allotments. He and his Betty Pedday had been living on the land for years prior to 1901. In fact, as a teenager Otipoby ranged free across southwest Oklahoma until the Comanche tribe was forced onto the reservation near Lawton. Now Kenneth and Barbara live in a small stone house they designed, which overlooks the Wichita Mountains and Medicine Bluff, both sacred grounds for the Comanche.

I photographed Kenneth and Barbara at their home for the story about homesteaders for Oklahoma Today magazine written by Nathan Gunter.