Bright, Beautiful Land

Author: S. J. Oslin

Stephen Jesse Oslin (1858-1928) was "a teacher, preacher, poet, musician, composer, author and publisher" from Walker County, Alabama. Beginning his teaching career in Arkansas, he studied with W. D. C. Botefuhr in Fort Smith during the 1880s and briefly published a music journal, The Tempo, from that city. Most of his early career, however, was spent in the Indian Territory (today eastern Oklahoma), where he served as the western correspondent for the Ruebush-Kieffer Musical Million. In 1905 Oslin incorporated the Eureka Publishing Company, in Stigler, I.T., where he published songbooks, a paper called The Eureka Messenger, music theory texts, and held sessions of the Eureka Music Normal. His singing classes and music normals were taugh… Go to person page >