Town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are larger than villages but smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish them vary between different parts of the world; the word town shares an origin with the German word Zaun, the Dutch word tuin, the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the original meaning of the word: a fence of any material. An early borrowing from Celtic *dunom. In English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed. In England, a town was a small community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications, built a palisade or stockade instead. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more those of the wealthy, which had a high fence or a wall around them. In Old Norse tun means a place between farmhouses, the word is still used in a similar meaning in modern Norwegian. In Old English and Early and Middle Scots, the words ton, etc. could refer to diverse kinds of settlements from agricultural estates and holdings picking up the Norse sense at one end of the scale, to fortified municipalities.
If there was any distinction between toun and burgh as claimed by some, it did not last in practice as burghs and touns developed. For example, "Edina Burgh" or "Edinburgh" was built around a fort and came to have a defensive wall. In some cases, "town" is an alternative name for "city" or "village". Sometimes, the word "town" is short for "township". In general, today towns can be differentiated from townships, villages, or hamlets on the basis of their economic character, in that most of a town's population will tend to derive their living from manufacturing industry and public services rather than primary industry such as agriculture or related activities. A place's population size is not a reliable determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, e.g. in India at least until recent times, a large village might contain several times as many people as a small town. In the United Kingdom, there are historical cities; the modern phenomenon of extensive suburban growth, satellite urban development, migration of city dwellers to villages has further complicated the definition of towns, creating communities urban in their economic and cultural characteristics but lacking other characteristics of urban localities.
Some forms of non-rural settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be non-rural, but have at best a questionable claim to be called a town. Towns exist as distinct governmental units, with defined borders and some or all of the appurtenances of local government. In the United States these are referred to as "incorporated towns". In other cases the town lacks its own governance and is said to be "unincorporated". Note that the existence of an unincorporated town may be set out by other means, e.g. zoning districts. In the case of some planned communities, the town exists in the form of covenants on the properties within the town; the United States Census identifies many census-designated places by the names of unincorporated towns which lie within them. The distinction between a town and a city depends on the approach: a city may be an administrative entity, granted that designation by law, but in informal usage, the term is used to denote an urban locality of a particular size or importance: whereas a medieval city may have possessed as few as 10,000 inhabitants, today some consider an urban place of fewer than 100,000 as a town though there are many designated cities that are much smaller than that.
Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns based on their age and pattern of land use. He identified five types of town: Infantile towns, with no clear zoning Juvenile towns, which have developed an area of shops Adolescent towns, where factories have started to appear Early mature towns, with a separate area of high-class housing Mature towns, with defined industrial and various types of residential area In Afghanistan and cities are known as shār; as the country is an rural society with few larger settlements, with major cities never holding more than a few hundred thousand inhabitants before the 2000s, the lingual tradition of the country does not discriminate between towns and cities. In Albania "qytezë" means town, similar with the word for city. Although there is no official use of the term for any settlement. In Albanian "qytezë" means "small city" or "new city", while in ancient times "small residential center within the walls of a castle"; the center is a population group, larger than a village, smaller than a city.
Though the village is bigger than a hamlet In Australia, towns or "urban centre localities" are understood to be those centers of population not formally declared to be cities and having a population in excess of about 200 people. Centers too small to be called towns are understood to be a township. In addition, some local government entities are styled as towns in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, before the statewide amalgamations of th
Elk City, Oklahoma
Elk City is a city in Beckham County, United States. The population was 11,693 at the 2010 census, the population was estimated at 12,717 in 2015. Elk City is located on Interstate 40 and Historic U. S. Route 66 in western Oklahoma 110 miles west of Oklahoma City and 150 miles east of Amarillo, Texas. In 1541, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado became the first known European to pass through the area; the Spanish conquistador was traveling northeast across the prairie in search of a place called Quivira, a city said to be fabulously wealthy with gold. Because Coronado's route across the plains is speculative, it is quite possible that the expedition passed through present-day Elk City or the nearby area. Elk City's history dates back to the days following the opening of the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation in western Oklahoma Territory on April 19, 1892, when the first white settlers made their appearance. Prior to this time, many early ranchers had driven cattle over the Great Western Cattle Trail from Texas to Dodge City, the present townsite of Elk City being in the direct path of that famous trail.
The creation of Elk City was an idea conceived by land promoters from Weatherford, when they learned that the Choctaw and Gulf Railroad was coming to the area. They formed the Choctaw Development Company; these men with great foresight determined that the area at the source of Elk Creek would be an ideal location for a town, so they came to the area to purchase lands from the homesteaders who had claims along the railroad. The most important day in Elk City's history is March 20, 1901, the date the first lots were sold by the Choctaw Townsite and Development Company. By this time, hundreds of prospective purchasers had built a tent city. On that day, the townsite company sold $32,000 worth of property and continued doing a good business for some time thereafter. There is some confusion about. Elk City was so named because it is located at the head of Elk Creek, which in turn was named by U. S. Army Captain Randolph B. Marcy, leading an expedition to explore the Red River in 1852. Marcy and his troops had left the Wichita Mountains and the waterway which he named Otter Creek during his exploration, they were traveling northwest along the North Fork of the Red River.
On May 31, in the official journal of the expedition, Marcy wrote about the productive soil, the dense grass, the vertical red clay banks of a "bold running stream of good water." Continuing, he wrote, "From the circumstance of having seen elk tracks upon the stream we passed in our march today, I have called it'Elk Creek'. I am informed by our guide that five years since, elk were seen in the Wichita Mountains. Confusion stems from the early post offices that served the residents of the town. Though the town of Elk City has had only one name, its early settlers were served by a post office named Crowe, one named Busch. On many early maps of Oklahoma Territory the names of "Crowe" or "Busch" are seen instead of "Elk City". On July 20, 1907, shortly before statehood, the Busch Post Office had its name changed to Elk City Post Office. On August 13, 1901, the Choctaw and Gulf Railroad laid its last rail on the so-called "Choctaw Route", bringing rail access to Elk City; the first regular train service commenced seven days on August 20, city folk rejoiced, predicting that the dugouts, claim shacks, prairie stables would soon disappear and be replaced by handsome residences, commodious barns, granaries.
In 1910, the Wichita Falls and Northwestern Railway, one of the Frank Kell and Joseph A. Kemp properties, reached from Wichita Falls, into the wheat-growing area of western Oklahoma. By 1912, the northern terminus was in Forgan in Beaver County in the Oklahoma Panhandle; the route through Elk City was abandoned in 1973, as Altus became the new northern terminus of the railroad, absorbed in 1923 by the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad. The remaining 77-mile link between Wichita Falls and Altus was absorbed in 1991 by the Wichita and Jackson Railway. By January 1902, Elk City had more than sixty businesses and a population exceeding 1,000. Paving the streets with bricks began in 1902. Though not yet a year old, the town had become one of the largest in western Oklahoma. With two devastating fires, Elk City continued to grow into a major transportation and commercial hub, by statehood in 1907, the population had more than tripled to 3,000 people; the prairie community had become a boomtown. Elk City is located in northeastern Beckham County at elevation 1,928 feet.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 16.4 square miles, of which 16.2 square miles is land and 0.23 square miles, or 1.37%, is water. Elk City experiences a humid subtropical climate with cool, dry winters and hot, much wetter summers; as of the census of 2010, there were 11,693 people residing in the city. The population density was 718.8 people per square mile. There were 4,973 housing units at an average density of 340.1 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 88.95% White, 3.06%
Roger Mills County, Oklahoma
Roger Mills County is a county located in the western part of the U. S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, the population was 3,647, making it the third-least populous county in Oklahoma, its county seat is Cheyenne. The county was created in 1891. Roger Mills county is located above the petroleum-rich Panhandle-Hugoton Field, making it one of the leading sources of oil, natural gas and helium; the county overlies part of the Ogallala Aquifer. Roger Mills County takes its name from Roger Q. Mills, a senator from Texas; the town of Cheyenne in Roger Mills County is the location of the Battle of Washita River, where George Armstrong Custer’s 7th U. S. Cavalry attacked Chief Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village on the Washita River on November 26, 1868; the area covered by Roger Mills County had been part of the Cheyenne Arapaho reservation until after Oklahoma Territory was created and County E was formed. County E was renamed Day County. Day County was abolished, and Roger Mills County was created at statehood on November 16, 1907.
The county's western boundary with Texas was moved eastward 3,800 feet when the Supreme Court ruled that the 100th Meridian was farther east than supposed. During the 1970s Roger Mills County and the surrounding area was the site of natural gas and oil development in the Panhandle-Hugoton field, the largest-volume gas field in the United States, the world’s largest known source of helium. Between 1973 and 1993 the field produced over 8-trillion cubic feet of gas. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,146 square miles, of which 1,141 square miles is land and 5.3 square miles is water. The Canadian River forms the northern border of the county; the Washita River passes by Strong City as it crosses the county from west to east. The historically-significant Antelope Hills lie in the northeastern part of the county. Ellis County Dewey County Custer County Beckham County Wheeler County, Texas Hemphill County, Texas Antelope Hills Black Kettle National Grassland Washita Battlefield National Historic Site As of the census of 2000, there were 3,436 people, 1,428 households, 988 families residing in the county.
The population density was 1/km². There were 1,749 housing units at an average density of 1/km²; the racial makeup of the county was 91.76% White, 0.29% Black or African American, 5.47% Native American, 0.09% Asian, 0.52% from other races, 1.86% from two or more races. 2.65% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 1,428 households out of which 29.40% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.80% were married couples living together, 6.80% had a female householder with no husband present, 30.80% were non-families. 28.60% of all households were made up of individuals and 16.90% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 2.91. In the county, the population was spread out with 23.80% under the age of 18, 6.70% from 18 to 24, 24.70% from 25 to 44, 26.00% from 45 to 64, 18.70% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 100.50 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.90 males.
The median income for a household in the county was $30,078, the median income for a family was $35,921. Males had a median income of $22,224 versus $19,821 for females; the per capita income for the county was $16,821. About 11.50% of families and 16.30% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.40% of those under age 18 and 10.40% of those age 65 or over. The county economy has depended on agriculture, which has benefitted from the fact that it lies above the Ogallala Aquifer. Principal crops have included Kaffir corn, wheat, cotton and alfalfa. Farms have been consolidating throughout the period since the Great Depression. In 1930, there were 2,353 farms. By 2000, there were 680 farms. Petroleum and natural gas production has become an important contributor since discovery of the Panhandle-Hugoton Field. Roger Mills County is Republican, like most of rural western Oklahoma, it has voted for the Republican in every presidential election since 1980, in all but three elections since 1952.
National Register of Historic Places listings in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma RogerMills.org Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
Sayre, Oklahoma
Sayre is a city in and the county seat of Beckham County, in western Oklahoma, United States. It is halfway between Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Texas, on Interstate 40 and the former U. S. Route 66; the population was 4,375 at the 2010 census, the largest recorded by a census since Sayre's founding. It was an increase of 6.3 percent from the 2000 census. After the Civil War, Congress wanted to aid the growth of the nation. One way that they achieved this was to promote the building of the western railroads. Upon completion of the Union Pacific-Central Pacific joining together in 1869 with the Golden Spike, other railroads trying to capitalize on commerce and trade began crossing the western country; this included the Great Northern and Burlington in the far north, the Southern Pacific on the extreme southern border. This would lead to rails crossing Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma, around the start of the 20th century. A new rail line was extended from Weatherford to Texola by McCabe & Steen Contractors in July 1901.
Entrepreneurs would buy land near where the new tracks were being laid, near a source of water. The Choctaw Town Site and Improvement Company did this, when the Choctaw and Gulf Railroad crossed the North Fork of the Red River in Western Indian Territory an instant town sprang up, which incorporated on 14 September 1901; the Choctaw Townsite & Improvement Company began selling lots to new "Sooners" arriving to start a new life. The seeds of a new town were on, businessmen came to sell their wares to the new town folk, within one year the town's population was up to around 1,000. Robert Heysham Sayre, of Pennsylvania the chief engineer, a stockholder, for the railroad gave his name to the newly formed town in 1901; the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway Company just the "Rock Island", leased the new line. The Rock Island Line would complete its march to the Pacific by filling in the line to Tucumcari, New Mexico. During the period of 1901-1907, Sayre was part of Roger Mills County in Oklahoma Territory.
At the time Oklahoma became a state, Beckham County was created and Sayre, within the boundary of Beckham County, was named as the temporary county seat. An election in 1908 confirmed Sayre as the permanent seat, with voters preferring it to the town of Erick; the Beckham County Courthouse was completed in 1911, is still in service over a century later. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; the discovery of oil and gas nearby caused the population to boom between 1920 and 1930. In the 1930s U. S. Route 66, a dream forwarded by fellow Oklahoman Cyrus Avery, would come to Sayre, cementing the town's fate to fuel the cars and feed the people exploring the country. In 1940 film director John Ford used Sayre's Beckham County Courthouse in the film The Grapes of Wrath, based on the famous book by John Steinbeck. During the 1970s Sayre and the surrounding area benefited from the natural gas and oil development in the Panhandle-Hugoton field, the largest-volume gas field in the United States, the world's largest known source of helium.
Between 1973 and 1993 the field produced over 8 trillion cubic feet of gas. Sayre is located at 35°17′56″N 99°38′12″W, it is located on the North Fork of the Red River, at an elevation of 1,800 feet and 128 miles west of Oklahoma City. The area is dominated by low rolling red clay hills. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 5.6 square miles, of which 0.019 square miles, or 0.36%, is water. As of the census of 2000, there were 4,114 people, 1,132 households, 678 families residing in the city; the population density was 1,215.9 people per square mile. There were 1,399 housing units at an average density of 413.5 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 74.99% White, 18.25% African American, 2.53% Native American, 0.41% Asian, 1.92% from other races, 1.90% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.35% of the population. There were 1,132 households out of which 26.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.8% were married couples living together, 10.6% had a female householder with no husband present, 40.1% were non-families.
36.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 18.9% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.20 and the average family size was 2.87. In the city, the population was spread out with 14.6% under the age of 18, 14.0% from 18 to 24, 40.9% from 25 to 44, 16.0% from 45 to 64, 14.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 197.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 216.8 males. The median income for a household in the city was $21,713, the median income for a family was $30,000. Males had a median income of $22,167 versus $18,147 for females; the per capita income for the city was $10,378. About 15.9% of families and 20.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 26.1% of those under age 18 and 14.0% of those age 65 or over. Sayre's economy has been based on the production of oil and gas. By the 1930s, the town had one gasoline plant in operation. United Carbon Company built a carbon black plant there.
Circa 2000 the Flying J truck stop opened on a 28-acre plot of land along Interstate 40 in Sayre. The city government had purchased the land and sold it to the developer at cost in order to attract the development; the North Fork Correctional Facility, a owned, medium-security prison opened in 1998. This prison h
Enhanced Fujita scale
The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the intensity of tornadoes in some countries, including the United States and Canada, based on the damage they cause. Implemented in place of the Fujita scale introduced in 1971 by Tetsuya Theodore Fujita, it began operational use in the United States on February 1, 2007, followed by Canada on April 1, 2013, it has been proposed for use in France. The scale has the same basic design as the original Fujita scale—six categories from zero to five, representing increasing degrees of damage, it was revised to reflect better examinations of tornado damage surveys, so as to align wind speeds more with associated storm damage. Better standardizing and elucidating what was subjective and ambiguous, it adds more types of structures and vegetation, expands degrees of damage, better accounts for variables such as differences in construction quality; the newer scale was publicly unveiled by the National Weather Service at a conference of the American Meteorological Society in Atlanta on February 2, 2006.
It was developed from 2000 to 2004 by the Fujita Scale Enhancement Project of the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University, which brought together dozens of expert meteorologists and civil engineers in addition to its own resources. As with the Fujita scale, the Enhanced Fujita scale remains a damage scale and only a proxy for actual wind speeds. While the wind speeds associated with the damage listed have not undergone empirical analysis owing to excessive cost, the wind speeds were obtained through a process of expert elicitation based on various engineering studies since the 1970s as well as from field experience of meteorologists and engineers. In addition to damage to structures and vegetation, radar data and cycloidal marks may be utilized when available; the scale was used for the first time in the United States a year after its public announcement when parts of central Florida were struck by multiple tornadoes, the strongest of which were rated at EF3 on the new scale.
It was used for the first time in Canada shortly after its implementation there when a tornado developed near the town on Shelburne, Ontario on April 18, 2013, causing up to EF1 damage. The six categories for the EF scale are listed below, in order of increasing intensity. Although the wind speeds and photographic damage examples are updated, the damage descriptions given are those from the Fujita scale, which are more or less still accurate. However, for the actual EF scale in practice, damage indicators are predominantly used in determining the tornado intensity; the EF scale has 28 damage indicators, or types of structures and vegetation, each with a varying number of degrees of damage. Larger degrees of damage done to the damage indicators correspond to higher wind speeds; the links in the right column of the following table describe the degrees of damage for the damage indicators listed in each row. The new scale takes into account the quality of construction and standardizes different kinds of structures.
The wind speeds on the original scale were deemed by meteorologists and engineers as being too high, engineering studies indicated that slower winds than estimated cause the respective degrees of damage. The old scale lists an F5 tornado as wind speeds of 261–318 mph, while the new scale lists an EF5 as a tornado with winds above 200 mph, found to be sufficient to cause the damage ascribed to the F5 range of wind speeds. None of the tornadoes recorded on or before January 31, 2007, will be re-categorized. There is no functional difference in how tornadoes are rated; the old ratings and new ratings are smoothly connected with a linear formula. The only differences are adjusted wind speeds, measurements of which were not used in previous ratings, refined damage descriptions. Twenty-eight Damage Indicators, with descriptions such as "double-wide mobile home" or "strip mall", are used along with Degrees of Damage to determine wind estimates. Different structures, depending on their building materials and ability to survive high winds, have their own DIs and DODs.
Damage descriptors and wind speeds will be updated as new information is learned. Since the new system still uses actual tornado damage and similar degrees of damage for each category to estimate the storm's wind speed, the National Weather Service states that the new scale will not lead to an increase in a number of tornadoes classified as EF5. Additionally, the upper bound of the wind speed range for EF5 is open—in other words, there is no maximum wind speed designated. For purposes such as tornado climatology studies, Enhanced Fujita scale ratings may be grouped into classes; the table shown to the right shows other variations of the tornado rating classifications based on certain areas. Edwards, Roger. "Tornado Intensity Estimation: Past and Future". Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 94: 641–53. Bibcode:2013BAMS...94..641E. Doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00006.1. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA National Weather Service Improves Tornado Rating System at NOAA News The Enhanced Fujita Scale at Storm Prediction Center EF-Scale Training at The Warning Decision Training Branch of National Weather Service The Enhanced Fujita Tornado Scale at National Climatic Data Center The Tornado: An Engineering-Oriented Perspective A Guide for Conducting Convective Windstorm Surveys Fuji
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, Texas on the south, New Mexico on the west, Colorado on the northwest. It is the 28th-most populous of the fifty United States; the state's name is derived from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning "red people". It is known informally by its nickname, "The Sooner State", in reference to the non-Native settlers who staked their claims on land before the official opening date of lands in the western Oklahoma Territory or before the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889, which increased European-American settlement in the eastern Indian Territory. Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory were merged into the State of Oklahoma when it became the 46th state to enter the union on November 16, 1907, its residents are known as Oklahomans, its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City. A major producer of natural gas and agricultural products, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, telecommunications, biotechnology.
Both Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahoma's primary economic anchors, with nearly two thirds of Oklahomans living within their metropolitan statistical areas. With ancient mountain ranges, prairie and eastern forests, most of Oklahoma lies in the Great Plains, Cross Timbers, the U. S. Interior Highlands, a region prone to severe weather. More than 25 Native American languages are spoken in Oklahoma, ranking third behind Alaska and California. Oklahoma is on a confluence of three major American cultural regions and served as a route for cattle drives, a destination for Southern settlers, a government-sanctioned territory for Native Americans; the name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw phrase okla humma meaning red people. Choctaw Nation Chief Allen Wright suggested the name in 1866 during treaty negotiations with the federal government on the use of Indian Territory, in which he envisioned an all-Indian state controlled by the United States Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Equivalent to the English word Indian, okla humma was a phrase in the Choctaw language that described Native American people as a whole.
Oklahoma became the de facto name for Oklahoma Territory, it was approved in 1890, two years after the area was opened to white settlers. The name of the state is Pawnee: Uukuhuúwa, Cayuga: Gahnawiyoˀgeh. In the Chickasaw language, the state is known as Oklahomma', in Arapaho as bo'oobe'. Oklahoma is the 20th-largest state in the United States, covering an area of 69,899 square miles, with 68,595 square miles of land and 1,304 square miles of water, it lies in the Great Plains near the geographical center of the 48 contiguous states. It is bounded on the east by Arkansas and Missouri, on the north by Kansas, on the northwest by Colorado, on the far west by New Mexico, on the south and near-west by Texas. Much of its border with Texas lies along a failed continental rift; the geologic figure defines the placement of the Red River. The Oklahoma panhandle's Western edge is out of alignment with its Texas border; the Oklahoma/New Mexico border is 2.1 miles to 2.2 miles east of the Texas line. The border between Texas and New Mexico was set first as a result of a survey by Spain in 1819.
It was set along the 103rd meridian. In the 1890s, when Oklahoma was formally surveyed using more accurate surveying equipment and techniques, it was discovered the Texas line was not set along the 103rd meridian. Surveying techniques were not as accurate in 1819, the actual 103rd meridian was 2.2 miles to the east. It was much easier to leave the mistake than for Texas to cede land to New Mexico to correct the surveying error; the placement of the Oklahoma/New Mexico border represents the true 103rd meridian. Cimarron County in Oklahoma's panhandle is the only county in the United States that touches four other states: New Mexico, Texas and Kansas. Oklahoma is between the Great Plains and the Ozark Plateau in the Gulf of Mexico watershed sloping from the high plains of its western boundary to the low wetlands of its southeastern boundary, its highest and lowest points follow this trend, with its highest peak, Black Mesa, at 4,973 feet above sea level, situated near its far northwest corner in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
The state's lowest point is on the Little River near its far southeastern boundary near the town of Idabel, which dips to 289 feet above sea level. Among the most geographically diverse states, Oklahoma is one of four to harbor more than 10 distinct ecological regions, with 11 in its borders—more per square mile than in any other state, its western and eastern halves, are marked by extreme differences in geographical diversity: Eastern Oklahoma touches eight ecological regions and its western half contains three. Although having fewer ecological regions Western Oklahoma contains many relic species. Oklahoma has four primary mountain ranges: the Ouachita Mountains, the Arbuckle Mountains, the Wichita Mountains, the Ozark Mountains. Contained within the U. S. Interior Highlands region, the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains are the only major mountainous region between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. A portion of the Flint Hills stretches into north-central Oklahoma, near the state's eastern border, The Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department regards Cavanal Hill as the world's tallest hill.
The semi-arid high
Boley, Oklahoma
Boley is a town in Okfuskee County, United States. The population was 1,184 at the 2010 census, a gain of 5.2 percent from 1,126 in 2000. Boley was established in 1903 as a predominantly Black pioneer town with persons having Native American ancestry among its citizens. Boley is home to barbeque equipment maker, Smokaroma and the John Lilley Correctional Center; the Boley Public School District closed the high school in 2007 and the elementary in 2010 due to declining enrollment. The Boley Historic District is a National Historic Landmark. Boley hosts The Annual Boley Rodeo & Bar-B-Que Festival; this area was settled by Creek Freedmen, whose ancestors had been held as slaves of the Creek at the time of Indian Removal in the 1830s. After the American Civil War, the United States negotiated new treaties with tribes that allied with the Confederacy, it required them to give them membership in the tribes. Those slaves were called the Creek Freedmen. At the time of allotments to individual households under the Dawes Commission, Creek Freedmen were registered as such on the Dawes Rolls Creek Freedmen set up independent townships, of which Boley was one.
The town was established on the land allotted to Abigail Barnett, daughter of James Barnett, a Creek freedman. The coming of the Fort Smith & Western Railroad allowed agricultural land to be more profitably used as a townsite. Property owned by the Barnett family, among other Creek Freedmen, was midway between Paden and Castle, ideal for a station stop. With the approval of the railroad management, Creek Nation, Indian Territory was incorporated in 1905, it was named for J. B. Boley, an official of the railroad. There were no other Negro towns nearby, it became a center of regional business. During the early part of the 20th century, Boley was one of the wealthiest Negro towns in the US, it boasted the first nationally chartered bank owned by blacks, its own electric company. The town had over 4,000 residents by 1911, was the home of two colleges: Creek-Seminole College, Methodist Episcopal College; the Masonic Lodge was called "the tallest building between Okmulgee and Oklahoma City," when it was built in 1912.
Booker T. Washington visited Boley in 1905, was so impressed that he included Boley in his speeches. Boley's development paralleled that of the railroad. After World War I, a fall in agricultural prices and the bankruptcy of the railroad caused Boley's failure, it went bankrupt in 1939 during the Great Depression. Before World War II, Boley's population had declined to about 700. With the Second Great Migration underway, by 1960 most of the population had left for other urban areas. So far the New Great Migration has not benefited Boley. 1903 Founding 1905 Booker T. Washington tours the newly incorporated Boley. Newspaper The Boley Progress starts publication. 1907 Oklahoma becomes a state. Although by 1897 Oklahoma law required black children to be educated separately from white children, with statehood the legislature passed Jim Crow laws similar to those in much of the South. Oklahoma was no longer a refuge for colored people from Jim Crow. 1911 Facts about Boley, Okla. the largest and wealthiest exclusive Negro city in the world.
(Boley, OK: Commercial Club, 1911 1922 "Produced in the All-Colored City of Boley, Okla." The Crimson Skull. 1925, State Training School for Incorrigible Negro Boys was located in Boley. 1926 The Boley Progress ceases publication. 1932 Armed citizens of Boley thwart a bank robbery attempt by members of Pretty Boy Floyd's gang. 1934 30th Anniversary Celebration 1939 Fort Smith & Western Railroad and Boley go bankrupt. 1959 Smokaroma founded. 1961 First of the Annual Boley Rodeo & Bar-B-Que Festivals. 1970 Oklahoma: OSSAA Boys Basketball State Champions 1974 Oklahoma: OSSAA Boys Basketball State Champions 1975 Oklahoma: OSSAA Boys Basketball State Champions 1975 Boley National Historic District given landmark status. 1976 Oklahoma: OSSAA Boys Basketball State Champions 2007 Boley High School closes 2010 Boley Elementary closes 2016 Adopted a code of ordinances Boley, Oklahoma Est. August 1903 - Inc. May 1905 Boley, Creek Nation, I. T. Established as all black town on land of Creek Indian Freedwoman Abigail Barnett.
Organized by T. M. Haynes first townsite manager. Named for J. B. Boley, white roadmaster, who convinced Fort Smith & Western Railroad that blacks could govern themselves; this concept soon boosted population to 4,200. Declared National Historic Landmark District by Congress 5-15-1975. Oklahoma Historical Society Part of Boley was declared as Boley Historic District and a National Historic Landmark in 1975; the District is bounded by Seward Avenue and Cedar Streets, the southern city limits of Boley. "They have recovered something of the knack for trade that their fore-parents in Africa were famous for"."Boley, Indian Territory, is the youngest, most enterprising, in many ways the most interesting of the Negro towns in the US." In the 2016 presidential election, the city gave over 78% of the vote to the Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton. Cardell Camper, major league baseball player Pumpsie Green - baseball player, first African American to play for the Boston Red Sox Zenobia Powell Perry - composer Nate Quinn-, Basketball Player and Coach, Inducted into Missouri Sports Hall of Fame 2016 http://mosportshalloffame.com/inductees/nate-quinn/ Nathaniel E. Quinn-Basketball Coach, Inducted into Oklahoma Coaches Hall of Fame 1981 http://www.oklahomacoaches.org/ind
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