Joseph A. Kemp
Joseph Alexander Kemp, sometimes known as Jodie Kemp, was an entrepreneur and investor who along with his brother-in-law Frank Kell is considered one of the modern founders of Wichita Falls, Texas. Kemp was born in Clifton in Bosque County in Central Texas, he was the second of eight children of William T. Kemp from Tennessee, the former Emma Frances Stinnett, a native of Missouri. William Kemp arrived in Clifton in 1856, where he became a prosperous merchant and served as the Bosque County tax assessor; the senior Kemp died in Clifton at the age of forty-four. The third Kemp child, William Clinton Kemp, died in early childhood. In 1878, Joseph Kemp graduated from Clifton High School and took over operation of his father's general store. Within two years, Kemp sold his interest in the store at a profit to a partner. While Kemp moved to Wichita Falls in 1883, Frank Kell and his wife Lula, Kemp's sister, both of whom were born in Clifton, did not relocate to Wichita Falls until 1896. Kemp established a small wholesale and retail business that furnished supplies for area residents and ranchers as well as the Indian reservation at nearby Fort Sill in the Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.
He sold that business in 1887. In 1890, Kemp launched the J. A. Kemp Wholesale Grocery Company, with headquarters in what is now Depot Square in downtown Wichita Falls, he established branch stores throughout West Texas. This enterprise helped to make Wichita Falls into an important regional trade center. In 1903, Kemp sold controlling interest in the grocery company but maintained the title of company vice president. From 1891 to 1914, Kemp was president of the former City National Bank, founded in 1890 in Wichita Falls. Frank Kell played a similar role with the American National Bank and Trust Company, which maintains a downtown branch at 719 Scott Avenue. In 1894, Kemp assumed the presidency of the Wichita Falls Railway. After the sale of $20,000 worth of stock and $250,000 in bonds, construction began to link Wichita Falls with the tracks of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad called the Katy, at Henrietta in Clay County some twenty miles to the southeast. Missouri-Kansas-Texas officials built in Wichita Falls a station, offices, a roundhouse, three switching tracks.
In 1906, Kemp chartered the Wichita Falls and Northwest Railway Company of Texas and constructed a rail line into the wheat-producing region of Oklahoma, when it became the Wichita Falls and Northwestern Railway. Kemp organized the Wichita Falls and Southern Railroad, which connected Wichita Falls with the coal fields around Newcastle near Graham in Young County, Texas, he established the Wichita Falls and Wellington, which linked Wichita Falls and Wellington in Collingsworth County, Texas. Kemp served as president of each of these rail companies. In 1911, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas purchased Kemp's remaining lines, including the eighteen miles of the Wichita Falls Railway. Kemp hence helped to make Wichita Falls the hub city of western Texas railroads. In 1918, Kemp and two partners established the K-M-A Oil Company, he subsequently became a major shareholder and vice president of the Texhoma Oil and Refining Company a corporation now based in Tishomingo in Johnston County in southern Oklahoma.
In 1910, Kemp's Wichita Falls Traction Company established an electric rail line. He founded and served as president of both the Wichita Falls Glass and the Wichita Bottle Manufacturing companies, he established the Wichita Motor Truck Company, which manufactured and sold the durable Wichita trucks throughout the United States and Canada from 1911 until the company closed in 1931. The plant is now inhabited by the Wichita Energy Company; these Kemp endeavors as a whole worked to establish Wichita Falls as a manufacturing center. In 1915, Kemp introduced Guernsey cattle into North Texas. From 1883, when he arrived in Wichita Falls, until 1885, Kemp served on the board of the Wichita Falls Independent School District, he was appointed Wichita County treasurer and won election as a Democrat to two consecutive terms in that position. Kemp was a regent of the University of Texas in Austin from October 1917 through May 1921 under appointment of Governor William P. Hobby, Sr. of Houston. In 1917, Kemp and his wife donated a library building and books to Wichita Falls, now the Kemp Center for the Arts located on Lamar Street across from the office of the Times Record News.
The Wichita Falls Public Library today is located a few blocks north of the original Kemp building. In 1887, Kemp proposed a bond issue to finance the construction of a dam and a reservoir on Holliday Creek. However, the Texas Constitution of 1876 prohibited such bond issues; when lobbying trips to Austin and Washington, D. C. failed to secure backing for a constitutional amendment, Kemp moved to establish Lake Wichita through the Lake Wichita Irrigation and Water Company, which with a partner from Galveston financed the construction of a dam and a reservoir just south of Wichita Falls. In 1923, voters approved a constitutional amendment to permit the use of bonds to finance irrigation projects. In time more than $4 million was spent to establish two dams on the Wichita River for dual purposes of irrigation and flood control. Lake Kemp, located near Seymour, Texas, in Baylor County forty miles west of Wichita Falls, is named in his honor. In 1882, Kemp married in Clifton the former Flora Ann Anderson.
The couple had five children, all born in Wichita Falls: Emma Sibyl Kemp Maer, the wife of William Newton Maer, Mary Jewell Kemp Langford, wife of William Smith Langford, Flora Charlotte Kemp (1890-
Gulf of Alaska
The Gulf of Alaska is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east, where Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage are found. The Gulf shoreline is a rugged combination of mountain and a number of tidewater glaciers. Alaska's largest glaciers, the Malaspina Glacier and Bering Glacier, spill out onto the coastal line along the Gulf of Alaska; the coast is indented with Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound, the two largest connected bodies of water. It includes Cross Sound. Lituya Bay is the site of the largest recorded tsunami in history, it serves as a sheltered anchorage for fishing boats. The Gulf of Alaska is considered a Class I, productive ecosystem with more than 300 grams of carbon per square meter per year based on SeaWiFS data. Deep water corals can be found in the Gulf of Alaska. Primnoa pacifica has contributed to the location being labeled as Habitat Areas of Particular Concern.
P. pacifica is a deep water coral found between 150 metres and 900 metres here. The Gulf is a great generator of storms. In addition to dumping vast quantities of snow and ice on southern Alaska, resulting in some of the largest concentrations south of the Arctic Circle, many of the storms move south along the coasts of British Columbia, Oregon, as far south as Southern California. Much of the seasonal rainfall and snowfall in the Pacific Northwest and Southwestern United States comes from the Gulf of Alaska; the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Gulf of Alaska as follows: On the North. The coast of Alaska. On the South. A line drawn from Cape Spencer, the Northern limit of the Coastal Waters of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia to Kabuch Point, the Southeast limit of the Bering Sea, in such a way that all the adjacent islands are included in the Gulf of Alaska; the US Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System database defines the Gulf of Alaska as bounded on the north by the coast of Alaska and on the south by a line running from the south end of Kodiak Island on the west to Dixon Entrance on the east.
Admiralty Island Afognak Island Aghiyuk Island Aiaktalik Island Akun Island Akutan Island Aleutika Island Amaknak Island Adronica Island Annette Island Anyaka Island Ariadne Island Augustine Island Avatanak Island Baker Island Ban Island Baranof Island Beautiful Isle Bell Island Benjamin Island Biorka Island Bligh Island Chat Island Chenega Island Chichagof Island Chisik Island Chiswell Island Chowiet Island Coronation Island Cronin Island Culross Island Dall Island Deer Island Doggie Island Dolgoi Island Douglas Island Duke Island East Chugach Island Egg Island Egg Island Eldred Rock Eleanor Island Elizabeth Island Erlington Island Esther Island Etolin Island Fish Island Fitzgerald Island Forrester Island Goloi Island Granite Island Gravina Island Green Island Gregson Island Gull Island Haenke Island Harbor Island Hawkins Island Heceta Island Herring Island Hesketh Island Hinchinbrook Island Kalgin Island Kanak Island Karpa Island Kataguni Island Kayak Island Khantaak Island Knight Island Kodiak Island Korovin Island Kosciusko Island Kriwoi Island Kruzof Island Kuiu Island Kupreanof Island Latouche Island Lemesurier Island Lincoln Island Lone Island Long Island Lulu Island Lynn Brothers Ma Relle Island Mab Island Marmot Island Mitkof Island Montague Island Nakchamik Island Naked Island Near Island Noyes Island Nuka Island Osier Island Otmeloi Island Outer Island Partofshikof Island Pearl Island Perry Island Pleasent Island Popof Island Powder Island Prince of Wales Island Rabbit Island Ragged Island Rugged Island Raspberry Island Revillagigedo Island Rootok Island San Fernando Island San Juan Island Sebree Island Sentinel Island Shelter Island Shikosi Island Shuyak Island Sinith Island Sitkalidak Island Sitkinak Island Spruce Island Strawberry Island Suemez Island Sullivan Island Sutwik Island Talsani Island Tanker Island Tigalda Island Tugidak Island Twoheaded Island Uganik Island Unalaska Island Unalga Island Unavikshak Island Unga Island Warren Island Whale Island Wingham Island Wooded Island Woronkofski Island Wrangell Island Yakobi Island Yukon Island Zarembo Island World Atlas: Gulf Of Alaska – Map & Description https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwgCKF0QcPU
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is used in Canada, Romania and the United States. County towns have a similar function in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, in Jamaica. In most of the United States, counties are the political subdivisions of a state; the city, town, or populated place that houses county government is known as the seat of its respective county. The county legislature, county courthouse, sheriff's department headquarters, hall of records and correctional facility are located in the county seat though some functions may be located or conducted in other parts of the county if it is geographically large. A county seat is but not always, an incorporated municipality; the exceptions include the county seats of counties that have no incorporated municipalities within their borders, such as Arlington County, Virginia. Ellicott City, the county seat of Howard County, is the largest unincorporated county seat in the United States, followed by Towson, the county seat of Baltimore County, Maryland.
Some county seats may not be incorporated in their own right, but are located within incorporated municipalities. For example, Cape May Court House, New Jersey, though unincorporated, is a section of Middle Township, an incorporated municipality. In some of the colonial states, county seats include or included "Court House" as part of their name. In the Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the term "shire town" is used in place of county seat. County seats in Taiwan are the administrative centers of the counties. There are 13 county seats in Taiwan, which are in the forms of county-administered city, urban township or rural township. Most counties have only one county seat. However, some counties in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont have two or more county seats located on opposite sides of the county. An example is Harrison County, which lists both Biloxi and Gulfport as county seats; the practice of multiple county seat towns dates from the days.
There have been few efforts to eliminate the two-seat arrangement, since a county seat is a source of pride for the towns involved. There are 36 counties with multiple county seats in 11 states: Coffee County, Alabama St. Clair County, Alabama Arkansas County, Arkansas Carroll County, Arkansas Clay County, Arkansas Craighead County, Arkansas Franklin County, Arkansas Logan County, Arkansas Mississippi County, Arkansas Prairie County, Arkansas Sebastian County, Arkansas Yell County, Arkansas Columbia County, Georgia Lee County, Iowa Campbell County, Kentucky Kenton County, Kentucky Essex County, Massachusetts Middlesex County, Massachusetts Plymouth County, Massachusetts Bolivar County, Mississippi Carroll County, Mississippi Chickasaw County, Mississippi Harrison County, Mississippi Hinds County, Mississippi Jasper County, Mississippi Jones County, Mississippi Panola County, Mississippi Tallahatchie County, Mississippi Yalobusha County, Mississippi Jackson County, Missouri Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Seneca County, New York Bennington County, Vermont In New England, the town, not the county, is the primary division of local government.
Counties in this region have served as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems. Connecticut and Rhode Island have no county level of thus no county seats. In Vermont and Maine the county seats are designated shire towns. County government consists only of a Superior Court and Sheriff, both located in the respective shire town. Bennington County has two shire towns. In Massachusetts, most government functions which would otherwise be performed by county governments in other states are performed by town or city governments; as such, Massachusetts has dissolved many of its county governments, the state government now operates the registries of deeds and sheriff's offices in those counties. In Virginia, a county seat may be an independent city surrounded by, but not part of, the county of which it is the administrative center. Two counties in South Dakota have their county seat and government services centered in a neighboring county, their county-level services are provided by Fall River Tripp County, respectively.
In Louisiana, divided into parishes rather than counties, county seats are referred to as parish seats. Alaska is divided into boroughs rather than counties; the Unorganized Borough, which covers 49 % of Alaska's area, has equivalent. The state with the most counties is Texas, with 254, the state with the fewest counties is Delaware, with 3. County seat war Administrative center County town, administrative centres in Ireland and the UK Chef-lieu, administrative centres in Algeria, Luxembourg, France and Tunisia Municipality, equivalent to county in many c
ZIP Code
A ZIP Code is a postal code used by the United States Postal Service in a system it introduced in 1963. The term ZIP is an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan; the basic format consists of five digits. An extended ZIP+4 code was introduced in 1983 which includes the five digits of the ZIP Code, followed by a hyphen and four additional digits that reference a more specific location; the term ZIP Code was registered as a servicemark by the U. S. Postal Service, but its registration has since expired; the early history and context of postal codes began with postal district/zone numbers. The United States Post Office Department implemented postal zones for numerous large cities in 1943. For example: The "16" was the number of the postal zone in the specific city. By the early 1960s, a more organized system was needed, non-mandatory five-digit ZIP Codes were introduced nationwide on July 1, 1963; the USPOD issued its Publication 59: Abbreviations for Use with ZIP Code on October 1, 1963, with the list of two-letter state abbreviations which are written with both letters capitalized.
An earlier list in June had proposed capitalized abbreviations ranging from two to five letters. According to Publication 59, the two-letter standard was "based on a maximum 23-position line, because this has been found to be the most universally acceptable line capacity basis for major addressing systems", which would be exceeded by a long city name combined with a multi-letter state abbreviation, such as "Sacramento, Calif." along with the ZIP Code. The abbreviations have remained unchanged, with the exception of Nebraska, changed from NB to NE in 1969 at the request of the Canadian postal administration, to avoid confusion with the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Robert Moon is considered the father of the ZIP Code; the post office only credits Moon with the first three digits of the ZIP Code, which describe the sectional center facility or "sec center." An SCF is a central mail processing facility with those three digits. The fourth and fifth digits, which give a more precise locale within the SCF, were proposed by Henry Bentley Hahn Sr.
The SCF sorts mail to all post offices with those first three digits in their ZIP Codes. The mail is sorted according to the final two digits of the ZIP Code and sent to the corresponding post offices in the early morning. Sectional centers do not deliver mail and are not open to the public, most of their employees work the night shift. Mail picked up at post offices is sent to their own SCF in the afternoon, where the mail is sorted overnight. In the case of large cities, the last two digits coincide with the older postal zone number thus: In 1967, these became mandatory for second- and third-class bulk mailers, the system was soon adopted generally; the United States Post Office used a cartoon character, which it called Mr. ZIP, to promote the use of the ZIP Code, he was depicted with a legend such as "USE ZIP CODE" in the selvage of panes of postage stamps or on the covers of booklet panes of stamps. In 1971 Elmira Star-Gazette reporter Dick Baumbach found out the White House was not using a ZIP Code on its envelopes.
Herb Klein, special assistant to President Nixon, responded by saying the next printing of envelopes would include the ZIP Code. In 1983, the U. S. Postal Service introduced an expanded ZIP Code system that it called ZIP+4 called "plus-four codes", "add-on codes", or "add-ons". A ZIP+4 Code uses the basic five-digit code plus four additional digits to identify a geographic segment within the five-digit delivery area, such as a city block, a group of apartments, an individual high-volume receiver of mail, a post office box, or any other unit that could use an extra identifier to aid in efficient mail sorting and delivery. However, initial attempts to promote universal use of the new format met with public resistance and today the plus-four code is not required. In general, mail is read by a multiline optical character reader that instantly determines the correct ZIP+4 Code from the address—along with the more specific delivery point—and sprays an Intelligent Mail barcode on the face of the mail piece that corresponds to 11 digits—nine for the ZIP+4 Code and two for the delivery point.
For Post Office Boxes, the general rule is. The add-on code is one of the following: the last four digits of the box number, zero plus the last three digits of the box number, or, if the box number consists of fewer than four digits, enough zeros are attached to the front of the box number to produce a four-digit number. However, there is no uniform rule, so the ZIP+4 Code must be looked up individually for each box; the ZIP Code is translated into an Intelligent Mail barcode, printed on the mailpiece to make it easier for automated machines to sort. A barcode can be printed by the sender, it is better to let the post office put one on. In general, the post office uses OCR technology, though in some cases a human might have to read and enter the address. Customers who send bulk mail can get a discount on postage if they have printed the barcode themselves and have presorted the mai
Wichita Falls, Texas
Wichita Falls is a city in and the county seat of Wichita County, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer and Wichita Counties. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 104,553, making it the 38th-most populous city in Texas. In addition, its central business district is 5 miles from Sheppard Air Force Base, home to the Air Force's largest technical training wing and the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program, the world's only multinationally staffed and managed flying training program chartered to produce combat pilots for both USAF and NATO; the city is home to the Newby-McMahon Building, constructed downtown in 1919 and featured in Robert Ripley's Ripley's Believe It or Not!. The Choctaw Native Americans settled the area in the early 19th century from their native Mississippi area once Americans negotiated to relocate them after the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. American settlers arrived in the 1860s to form cattle ranches.
The city was titled Wichita Falls on September 27, 1872. On that day, a sale of town lots was held at what is now the corner of Seventh and Ohio Streets – the birthplace of the city; the Fort Worth & Denver City Railway arrived in September 1882, the same year the city became the county seat of Wichita County. The city grew westwards from the original FW&DC train depot, located at the northwest corner of Seventh Street and the FW&DC; this area is now referred to as the Depot Square Historic District, declared a Texas Historic Landmark. The early history of Wichita Falls well into the 20th century rests on the work of two entrepreneurs, Joseph A. Kemp and his brother-in-law, Frank Kell. Kemp and Kell were pioneers in food processing and retailing, flour milling, cattle and oil. A flood in 1886 destroyed. After nearly 100 years of visitors wanting to visit the nonexistent falls, the city built an artificial waterfall beside the river in Lucy Park; the recreated falls are recirculate at 3,500 gallons per minute.
They are visible to south-bound traffic on Interstate 44. The city is seeking funding to rebuild and restore the downtown area. Downtown Wichita Falls was the city's main shopping area for many years, but lost ground to the creation of new shopping centers throughout the city beginning with Parker Square in 1953 and other similar developments during the 1960s and 1970s, culminating with the opening of Sikes Senter Mall in 1974. Wichita Falls was once home to offices of several oil companies and related industries, along with oil refineries operated by the Continental Oil Company until 1952 and Panhandle Oil Company American Petrofina) until 1965. Both firms continued to use a portion of their former refineries as gasoline/oil terminal facilities for many years. A devastating tornado hit the north and northwest portions of Wichita Falls along with Sheppard Air Force Base during the afternoon of April 3, 1964; as the first violent tornado on record to hit the Wichita Falls area, it left seven dead and more than 100 injured.
Additionally, the tornado caused $15 million in property damage with about 225 homes destroyed and another 250 damaged. It was rated as an F5, the highest rating on the Fujita scale, but it is overshadowed by the 1979 tornado. An F4 tornado struck the populated southern sections of Wichita Falls in the late afternoon on Tuesday, April 10, 1979, it was part of an outbreak. Despite having nearly an hour's advance warning that severe weather was imminent, 42 people were killed and 1,800 were injured because it arrived just in time for many people to be driving home from work, it left 20,000 people homeless and caused $400 million in damage, a U. S. record not topped by an individual tornado until the F5 Moore-Oklahoma City tornado of May 3, 1999. Wichita Falls is about 15 miles south of the border with Oklahoma, 115 mi northwest of Fort Worth, 140 mi southwest of Oklahoma City. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 70.71 square miles, of which 70.69 square miles are land and 0.02 square miles is covered by water.
Wichita Falls experiences a humid subtropical climate, featuring long hot and humid summers, cool winters. The city has some of the highest summer daily maximum temperatures in the entire U. S. outside of the Desert Southwest. Temperatures have hit 100 °F as early as March 27 and as late as October 17, but more reach that level on 28 days annually, with 102 days of 90 °F or higher annually. However, 59 to 60 nights of freezing lows occur, an average of 4.8 days where the high does not rise above freezing. The monthly daily average temperature ranges from 42.0 °F in January to 84.4 °F in July. Extremes in temperature have ranged from −12 °F on January 4, 1947, to 117 °F on June 28, 1980. Snowfall is sporadic and averages 4.1 in per season, while rainfall is greatest in early summer. In September 2011, Wichita Falls became the first Texas city to have 100 days of 100 °F in one year. During the 2015 Texas–Oklahoma floods, Wichita Falls broke its all-time record for the wettest month, with 17.00 inches of rain recorded in May 2015.
Wichita Falls is no longer experiencing drought conditions. During a three-week period in May 2015, 17 inches of rain
Jackson County, Oklahoma
Jackson County is a county located in the southwestern corner of the U. S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, the population was 26,446, its county seat is Altus. According to the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, the county was named for two historical figures: President Andrew Jackson and Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. One source states that the county was named only for the former President, while an earlier source states it was named only for General Stonewall Jackson. Jackson County comprises OK Micropolitan Statistical Area. After a dispute over the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, both the governments of the United States and the state of Texas claimed ownership of some 1,500,000 acres in what was operated as Greer County, Texas. Litigation followed, in the case of United States v. State of Texas 162 U. S. 1, issued on March 16, the Supreme Court, having original jurisdiction over the case, decided in favor of the United States. Greer County was assigned to the Oklahoma Territory on May 4, 1896.
When Oklahoma became the 46th U. S. state, old "Greer County" was divided into Greer and part of Beckham counties. Altus was designated as the seat of Jackson County. Olustee vied in an unsuccessful bid to replace Altus as the seat in an election on July 18, 1908. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 804 square miles, of which 803 square miles is land and 1.6 square miles is water. Most of the county is within the Red Bed Plains physiographic region; the western part lies in the Gypsum Hills and the northeastern part is in the Wichita Mountains. The county is drained by the Red River and its tributaries, the North Fork of the Red River and the Salt Fork of the Red River. U. S. Highway 62 U. S. Highway 283 State Highway 5 State Highway 6 State Highway 34 Greer County Kiowa County Tillman County Wilbarger County, Texas Hardeman County, Texas Harmon County As of the census of 2000, there were 28,439 people, 10,590 households, 7,667 families residing in the county; the population density was 35 people per square mile.
There were 12,377 housing units at an average density of 15 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 76.14% White, 8.03% Black or African American, 1.74% Native American, 1.16% Asian, 0.17% Pacific Islander, 9.34% from other races, 3.42% from two or more races. 15.63% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 10,590 households out of which 38.10% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.80% were married couples living together, 10.70% had a female householder with no husband present, 27.60% were non-families. 24.20% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.70% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.61 and the average family size was 3.11. In the county, the population was spread out with 29.20% under the age of 18, 10.30% from 18 to 24, 29.00% from 25 to 44, 19.60% from 45 to 64, 11.90% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females there were 99.10 males.
For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.80 males. The median income for a household in the county was $30,737, the median income for a family was $38,265. Males had a median income of $28,240 versus $19,215 for females; the per capita income for the county was $15,454. About 13.60% of families and 16.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.70% of those under age 18 and 14.40% of those age 65 or over. The county's economy has been based on livestock since its inception; the major crops include cotton, corn and hay. Barley and sorghum became major crops in the late 1940s. Livestock consisted of horses, mules and sheep. Altus Air Force Base is the county's largest non-farm employer. There were 16 manufacturers in the county by 2000; these included Altus Athletic Manufacturing and the Luscombe Aircraft Manufacturing plants, the Bar-S Foods Company, the Republic Gypsum plant. The Western Oklahoma State College and the Southwest Technology Center, both in Altus, offer higher education opportunities in Jackson County.
National Register of Historic Places listings in Jackson County, Oklahoma Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Jackson County Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
Boeing C-17 Globemaster III
The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft. It was developed for the United States Air Force from the 1980s to the early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas; the C-17 carries forward the name of two previous piston-engined military cargo aircraft, the Douglas C-74 Globemaster and the Douglas C-124 Globemaster II. The C-17 performs tactical and strategic airlift missions, transporting troops and cargo throughout the world, it was designed to replace the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter, fulfill some of the duties of the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, freeing the C-5 fleet for outsize cargo. Boeing, which merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997, continued to manufacture C-17s for export customers following the end of deliveries to the U. S. Air Force. Aside from the United States, the C-17 is in service with the United Kingdom, Canada, United Arab Emirates, NATO Heavy Airlift Wing and Kuwait; the final C-17 was completed at the Long Beach, California plant and flown on 29 November 2015. In the 1970s, the U.
S. Air Force began looking for a replacement for its Lockheed C-130 Hercules tactical cargo aircraft; the Advanced Medium STOL Transport competition was held, with Boeing proposing the YC-14, McDonnell Douglas proposing the YC-15. Though both entrants exceeded specified requirements, the AMST competition was canceled before a winner was selected; the Air Force started the C-X program in November 1979 to develop a larger AMST with longer range to augment its strategic airlift. By 1980, the USAF found itself with a large fleet of aging C-141 Starlifter cargo aircraft. Compounding matters, USAF needed increased strategic airlift capabilities to fulfill its rapid-deployment airlift requirements; the USAF set mission requirements and released a request for proposals for C-X in October 1980. McDonnell Douglas elected to develop a new aircraft based on the YC-15. Boeing bid an enlarged three-engine version of its AMST YC-14. Lockheed submitted a C-5-based design and an enlarged C-141 design. On 28 August 1981, McDonnell Douglas was chosen to build its proposed aircraft designated C-17.
Compared to the YC-15, the new aircraft differed in having swept wings, increased size, more powerful engines. This would allow it to perform the work done by the C-141, to fulfill some of the duties of the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, freeing the C-5 fleet for outsize cargo. Alternative proposals were pursued to fill airlift needs after the C-X contest; these were lengthening of C-141As into C-141Bs, ordering more C-5s, continued purchases of KC-10s, expansion of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. Limited budgets reduced program funding. During this time contracts were awarded for preliminary design work and for the completion of engine certification. In December 1985, a full-scale development contract was awarded, under Program Manager Bob Clepper. At this time, first flight was planned for 1990; the Air Force had formed a requirement for 210 aircraft. Development problems and limited funding caused delays in the late 1980s. Criticisms were made of the developing aircraft and questions were raised about more cost-effective alternatives during this time.
In April 1990, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reduced the order from 210 to 120 aircraft. The maiden flight of the C-17 took place on 15 September 1991 from the McDonnell Douglas's plant in Long Beach, about a year behind schedule; the first aircraft and five more production models participated in extensive flight testing and evaluation at Edwards Air Force Base. Two complete airframes were built for repeated load testing. A static test of the C-17 wing in October 1992 resulted in the wing failing at 128% of design limit load, below the 150% requirement. Both wings buckled rear to the front and failures occurred in stringers and ribs; some $100 million were spent to redesign the wing structure. A careful review of the test data, showed that the wing was not loaded and did indeed meet the requirement; the C-17 received the "Globemaster III" name in early 1993. In late 1993, the Department of Defense gave the contractor two years to solve production and cost overrun problems or face termination of the contract after the delivery of the 40th aircraft.
By accepting the 1993 terms, McDonnell Douglas incurred a loss of nearly US$1.5 billion on the development phase of the program. In April 1994, the C-17 program remained over budget, did not meet weight, fuel burn and range specifications, it failed several key criteria during airworthiness evaluation tests. Technical problems were found with the mission software, landing gear, other areas. In May 1994, it was proposed to cut production to as few as 32 aircraft. A July 1994 GAO report revealed that Air Force and DoD studies from 1986 and 1991 stated the C-17 could use 6,400 more runways outside the U. S. than the C-5. The C-5 has a lower LCN; when considering runway dimensions and load ratings, the C-17's worldwide runway advantage over the C-5 shrank from 6,400 to 911 airfields. The report stated that "current military doctrine that does not reflect the use of small, austere airfields". So the C-17's short field capability was not yet considered. A January 1995 GAO report stated that the USAF planned to order 210 C-17s at a cost of $41.8 billion, that the 120 aircraft on order were to cost $39.5 billion based on a 1992 esti
