Tips for Writers

Ten Facts About Will Rogers

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Perhaps you are thinking about writing a book or article about Will Rogers, or maybe you'd like to know more about the man the Will Rogers Medallion Award organization honors. Either way, we think you'll enjoy this list of ten facts about our favorite historical figure.

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• He was born in the White House – sort of.  The home of his birth was a seven-room log-walled house known as the "White House on the Verdigris River." The house served as a meeting place for community gatherings, parties, weddings, funerals, and more for the surrounding Cherokee-governed land, which would later become Oologah, Oklahoma.

• His father was a Senator and a Judge.

• He was a Cherokee Indian.

• Rope tricks were his specialty.

• He starred in both silent and talking pictures.

• He was, for a time, the honorary mayor of Beverly Hills.

• He was the first and only Native American to host the Academy Awards.

• The World War II Liberty Ship SS Will Rogers was named in his honor.

• The New York Times syndicated his weekly newspaper column from 1922 to 1935. Going daily in 1926, his short column “Will Rogers Says” reached 40 million newspaper readers.

• He never met a man he didn’t like.

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