, the Vlasaks relocated to South Dakota where they were able to acquire farm land.1
When the Vlasak’s two sons, Frantisek Jr. (called Frank) and Vincent reached maturity they found cheap land in South Dakota in short supply. In early 1891, the two brothers and their wives, along with their sister, Fannie, and her husband, Frank Koutnik, bid their parents farewell and trekked to Waterloo, Iowa in search of their own land. No sooner had they entered the town when they learned of a land run to be held on the Sac and Fox Indian Reservation in distant Oklahoma Territory. Jumping at the opportunity for land ownership, the three young families quickly decided to participate in the run. The three families immediately packed their few belongings and left for the new and booming town of Oklahoma City, where they discovered that the land run was still six months away. Determined to joust for the valuable land, the three siblings waited for their opportunity. Although conversant in English, their native tongue drew the young immigrants into contact with other ethnic Bohemians also waiting for the prospect of inexpensive land.2 After poring over the map of the proposed land run, this group of Czechs resolved to try and claim land close to one another in the hopes of forming a Czech farming community.
At noon on September 22nd of 1891 when the gun sounded for the start of the land run, the Czechs, along with about twenty thousand others, raced their horses and wagons as fast as possible in expectation of acquiring prime acreage.3 Unfortunately for Frank Koutnik, his horse died only four miles into the run slightly south and several miles west of his hoped-for destination. A frustrated Koutnik had no other option but to claim the area under his dead horse. Although saddened by the mishap of their brother-in-law, the Vlasak brothers strove forward and staked desirable plots in the southeast corner of what later became Lincoln County, Oklahoma. ...