Oklahoma

From about 500 to 1300 A.D., the builders of the Spiro Mounds lived in the area of present-day Oklahoma. Later groups that settled along its rivers included the Caddoan-speaking Caddo, Wichita and Pawnee, the Siouan-speaking Quapaw and Osage, and the Athapascan-speaking Plains Apache; Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho and Apache groups also raided into the region and claimed hunting territories.⁠[1]

An expedition led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado left Mexico in 1540, reached a Wichita village in present-day KansasKansasKansas is a state of the United States bordered by Nebraska to the north, Missouri to the east, Oklahoma to the south, and Colorado to the west; its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita. It was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861, as the 34th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,937,880.Open the full entry in July 1541 and returned to Mexico in 1542. In the 16th century Coronado recorded Plains tribes hunting and raiding in the region.⁠[2][1]

Around the spring of 1542, Andrés do Campo and Friar Juan de Padilla returned to Quivira; in 1544 Kaw (Kansas) Indians attacked them, killing Padilla, and the survivors escaped across present-day Oklahoma. Hernando de Soto began his expedition in 1539; after his death in May 1542, Luis de Moscoso Alvarado led the party out of the Arkansas region on a route that historians have traced across southeastern Oklahoma.⁠[2]

Francisco Leyva de Bonilla and Antonio Gutiérrez de Humaña perhaps crossed the present-day Oklahoma Panhandle in 1592–1593; Juan de Oñate founded a colony in present-day New Mexico in 1598 and set out in search of Quivira in 1601; and in 1634 Capt. Alonzo Baca led an expedition eastward.⁠[2]

From 1682 to 1763 the region was part of French Louisiana, and Spain’s interest in it was mainly to defend its territory against French incursion. The Comanche began moving into the area around 1700.⁠[2]

In 1719 Jean Baptiste Bénard, Sieur de La Harpe, led a trading party into present-day Oklahoma and reached the Tawakoni, a Wichita subgroup, near present-day Tulsa; that year Capt. Claude-Charles du Tisné visited the Osage and made a trade pact with the Wichita near present-day Chelsea. Pierre and Paul Mallet traveled across present-day Oklahoma in 1740.⁠[2]

In the autumn of 1759, Col. Diego Ortiz Parrilla attacked the Twin Villages on the Red River, which served the French, the Comanche and the Taovaya, and was repelled by the Wichita.⁠[2]

In 1763 France transferred LouisianaLouisianaLouisiana is a state in the southern United States on the Gulf of Mexico, bordered by Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas; its capital is Baton Rouge and its largest city is New Orleans. It entered the Union on April 30, 1812, as the 18th state, and had a population of 4,657,757 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry to Spain, and in 1771 Athanase de Mézières y Clugny signed a treaty with the Wichita. In 1800 Napoleon acquired Louisiana from Spain, and in 1803 he sold it to the United States, which thereby acquired most of the land that is now Oklahoma. By 1800 the region had no European settlement apart from French traders.⁠[2][3]

The Indian Removal Act was passed in 1830. The Choctaw signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830 and, from 1831, became the first of the Five Tribes to be forcibly removed; the Chickasaw signed the Treaty of Pontotoc in 1832 and removed in 1837; the Seminole signed the Treaty of Payne’s Landing in 1832, and removal of the Florida Seminole began in 1836 and ended in 1842; Muscogee (Creek) removal began in 1834, with forced removal beginning in 1836; and the Cherokee signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, after which the forced removal of about 16,000 people began in 1837, with the Trail of Tears continuing into 1839.⁠[4]

More than 6,000 Choctaw arrived in 1831–1832, and about 5,000 more in 1832–1833.⁠[5]

In 1834 the Indian Intercourse Act set aside the land that formed the Indian Territory, which shrank over the rest of the 19th century.⁠[3]

Tribes from the Northeast arrived around and after the Civil War; in the 1870s the Indian Wars produced reservations for Plains tribes such as the Comanche and Kiowa. In all, the federal government removed 67 tribes to the area.⁠[1]

In 1861 the Choctaw Nation signed a treaty with the Confederacy; after the war the Five Tribes negotiated new treaties with the United States, the Reconstruction Treaties signed in 1866.⁠[5][1]

On July 17, 1863, the Battle of Honey Springs was fought in the rain with about 9,000 troops. The Union side was the First Division of the Army of the Frontier under Maj. Gen. James G. Blunt, including the First Kansas Colored Volunteers, which the Oklahoma Historical Society identifies as the first African American regiment in the Union army; the Confederate side was the Confederate Indian Brigade under Brig. Gen. Douglas H. Cooper, with veteran TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry regiments. Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) regiments fought on both sides. The society describes the battle as the largest of more than 107 documented hostile encounters in Indian Territory and a turning point of the Civil War there.⁠[6]

The Dawes Act (General Allotment Act) was passed in 1887. In 1893 the Indian Appropriation Bill directed the Dawes Commission to begin allotment with the Five Tribes; in 1897 the Atoka Agreement was ratified, under which the Choctaw and Chickasaw agreed to allot their lands; and the Curtis Act of 1898 called for tribal governments to end on March 4, 1906, imposed allotment and abolished tribal courts.⁠[1][7][5]

Through Rep. William Springer’s amendment to the Indian Appropriations Bill, Congress authorized President Benjamin Harrison to open the roughly two-million-acre Oklahoma District, the Unassigned Lands; Harrison signed the proclamation on March 23, 1889. Under the Homestead Act of 1862, settlers could claim 160 acres.⁠[8]

The run began at noon on April 22, with about 50,000 people surrounding the Unassigned Lands; starting signals included pistol and rifle shots and a cannon at Fort Reno. About 11,000 agricultural homesteads were claimed and many towns sprang up overnight; those who entered early were called “sooners.”⁠[8]

Oklahoma City was founded in the run; its provisional government operated until May 2, 1890, and the city was incorporated on July 15, 1890.⁠[9]

A bill was introduced in the Senate in December 1889; on March 13, 1890, the House passed the amended Senate bill, and on May 2, 1890, the Organic Act became law, creating Oklahoma Territory.⁠[10]

The act made Guthrie the provisional capital, where the legislative assembly would hold a 120-day session; the governor and secretary were to be appointed by the president, and the laws of NebraskaNebraskaNebraska is a state of the United States bordered by South Dakota to the north, Iowa and Missouri to the east, Kansas to the south, and Colorado to the southwest, with its panhandle bordering Wyoming to the west; its capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha. It was admitted to the Union on March 1, 1867, as the 37th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 1,961,504.Open the full entry would apply for the time being. It created six counties with seats at Guthrie, Oklahoma City, Norman, El Reno, Kingfisher and Stillwater, while the Public Land Strip became Beaver County, and it reserved two sections in each township for public schools. Section 29 formally named the remaining area “Indian Territory.”⁠[10]

The act provided for a non-voting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives and consolidated the four towns of Guthrie, East Guthrie, West Guthrie and Capital Hill into Guthrie. On May 8, 1890, Harrison nominated George Washington Steele as governor of Oklahoma Territory.⁠[7][11][3]

Numerous statehood conventions were held in Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory between 1891 and 1905. The first, held in Oklahoma City on December 15, 1891, favored single statehood for the two territories and sent a memorial to Congress.⁠[7]

The white population of Indian Territory was 110,254 in 1890 and 302,680 in 1900, outnumbering American Indians by about 3 to 1 and about 6 to 1 respectively.⁠[7]

In August 1905 the Sequoyah Convention met in Muskogee to write a constitution and a memorial seeking separate statehood for Indian Territory.⁠[7][5]

At noon on September 16, 1893, the Cherokee Outlet was opened, and more than 100,000 pioneers raced on horseback, by train, by wagon and on foot for about 40,000 homesteads and town lots, in what the Oklahoma Historical Society calls the largest land run in history. The Cherokee had sold the land to the federal government for $8,505,736, or about $1.40 per acre.⁠[12]

On January 20, 1906, the Joint Statehood Convention met in Oklahoma City, and H.R. 12707 was introduced in the House the same day, originally also covering New Mexico and ArizonaArizonaArizona is a state in the southwestern United States; its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona was admitted to the Union on February 14, 1912, as the 48th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 7,151,502.Open the full entry (then territories). On March 9, 1906, the Senate voted to admit Oklahoma and Indian Territory as one state and removed New Mexico and Arizona from the bill.⁠[3]

On June 16, 1906, Congress passed the engrossed H.R. 12707, “An Act to Enable the People of the Indian and Oklahoma Territories” to form a state constitution and government, and President Theodore Roosevelt signed it that day; the act also included a compromise letting voters in Arizona and New Mexico decide on joint statehood.⁠[3][7]

Delegates were elected on November 6, 1906: 55 from each territory and 2 from the Osage Nation, 112 in all; William H. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray was elected president of the convention.⁠[13]

The constitutional convention met in Guthrie from November 20, 1906, to March 15, 1907, and then held two more week-long sessions. On September 17, 1907, voters in the two territories approved statehood and adopted the constitution with 71 percent of the vote; the date was chosen because the drafters of the U.S. Constitution adjourned on that day in 1787.⁠[13][3]

President Theodore Roosevelt admitted Oklahoma by Presidential Proclamation 780, and the day was also marked by the inauguration of Charles Haskell as governor. On December 3, 1907, Roosevelt discussed Oklahoma’s statehood in his annual message to Congress.⁠[3][7][11]

Guthrie remained the state capital until 1910. On June 11, 1910, a statewide vote chose Oklahoma City as the capital by a margin of about 50,000 votes over Guthrie; Governor Haskell then moved the state seal from Guthrie to Oklahoma City, which caused controversy because Guthrie still claimed to be the capital. In 1912 State Question 40, an initiative to move the capital back to Guthrie, was defeated, with 54 percent voting no.⁠[11][9]

Ground was broken for the State Capitol on July 20, 1914, and it was completed on June 30, 1917, without a dome.⁠[9]

The 1907 constitution limited suffrage to men except in school board elections; a 1918 amendment to the state constitution gave women the vote, two years before the federal amendment.⁠[13]

On May 31 and June 1, 1921, a race massacre lasting about 18 hours took place in Tulsa; martial law was imposed and the state’s second-largest African American community was burned. More than 1,000 homes and businesses were destroyed, and credible estimates of the dead range from 50 to 300.⁠[14]

In early 1921 Tulsa had more than 100,000 residents; most of its roughly 10,000 African American residents lived in the Greenwood District, which had two newspapers, several churches, a branch library and many Black-owned businesses. An incident in the Drexel Building on May 30 involving Dick Rowland and Sarah Page set events in motion, though exactly what happened remains uncertain.⁠[14]

Before dawn on June 1, thousands of armed whites gathered at the edge of Greenwood and at daybreak looted and burned the district; by the time additional National Guard troops arrived around 9:15 a.m., most of Greenwood had been burned. Rowland was later exonerated, while an all-white grand jury blamed Black Tulsans, and no whites were sent to prison for the murders and arson. Most of Tulsa’s Black population was left homeless, and thousands spent the winter of 1921–1922 in tents.⁠[14]

The violence long remained a taboo subject. A state commission was formed in 1997 to investigate, and its report recommended reparations for surviving Black residents; a team of scientists and historians later found evidence supporting long-held beliefs about unmarked graves of unidentified victims.⁠[14]

On December 4, 1928, the Oklahoma City Number One discovery well was completed by the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company and the Foster Petroleum Company.⁠[9]

Signs of the Great Depression emerged in 1930 as drought hit the region, and the economy reached bottom in the winter of 1932–1933.⁠[15]

The Dust Bowl occurred during the drought years of the 1930s, the most severe drought on record for many parts of the Great Plains, with 1934 and 1936 the most intense years. The most severely affected areas included Cimarron, Texas and Beaver counties in the state’s Panhandle; the most severe dust storms occurred from 1935 (40 storms) to 1938 (61 storms). In May 1934 an estimated 300 million tons of soil were removed from the region and spread across much of the eastern United States.⁠[16]

During the 1930s, out-migration caused an estimated 15 to 18 percent population decline in the Panhandle, and John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath stereotyped the migrants as “Okies.”⁠[15]

The Indian Reorganization Act was passed in 1934, followed by the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act in 1936; the Relocation Program began in 1952 and continued until the early 1970s; and the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act was passed in 1975.⁠[1]

In 1948 the United States bought most of the Choctaw Nation’s coal lands for $8.5 million; a termination initiative was proposed in 1959, and Congress repealed termination legislation after activism in the 1960s. From 1971 the Choctaw Nation could again elect its chiefs, and it adopted a new constitution in June 1984.⁠[5]

At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a bomb hidden in a Ryder truck exploded at the north entrance of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring about 850; 30 children were orphaned and 219 lost at least one parent. It was the nation’s worst single act of domestic terrorism at the time, surpassed in deaths only by the attacks of September 11, 2001.⁠[17]

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were indicted on August 10, 1995. McVeigh was found guilty on June 2, 1997, and executed on June 11, 2001; Nichols was found guilty of conspiracy and manslaughter on December 24, 1997, and sentenced to life in prison without parole; and Michael J. Fortier was sentenced to 12 years on May 27, 1998.⁠[17]

The Memorial Task Force was formed in July 1995; on June 24, 1997, a selection committee chose the design of Hans and Torrey Butzer from more than 600 submissions, featuring “gates of time” marked 9:01 and 9:03.⁠[17]

Construction of the State Capitol dome began on June 20, 2001; the Guardian statue was placed atop it in June 2002, and the dome was dedicated on November 16, 2002.⁠[9]

Under the 2020 census apportionment, Oklahoma has 5 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, unchanged from 2010, with an average of 792,703 people per seat; it has 7 electoral votes in the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.⁠[18][19]

On January 27, 2026, the U.S. Census Bureau released its Vintage 2025 national and state population estimates. Under these estimates, Oklahoma’s population on July 1, 2025, was 4,123,288, up 4.1 percent from the April 1, 2020, estimates base of 3,959,354.⁠[20][21]

In the U.S. Census Bureau’s state area measurements (boundaries as of January 1, 2010), Oklahoma has a total area of 69,899 square miles (181,037 square kilometers), of which 68,595 square miles (177,660 square kilometers) is land and 1,304 square miles (3,377 square kilometers) is water, all of it inland water.⁠[22]

Oklahoma City is centrally located within the state and is the county seat of Oklahoma County.⁠[9]

The highest point in Oklahoma is Black Mesa, in far northwestern Cimarron County in the Oklahoma Panhandle, at an elevation of 4,972.97 feet.⁠[23]

The 1907 constitution runs to about 50,000 words, and its Bill of Rights (Article II) enumerates 33 rights. It includes the initiative and referendum, which only four of the 46 states had in 1907, and lets voters initiate amendments, making Oklahoma the second state to allow this. Its articles on corporations (IX), revenue and taxation (X), education (XIII) and banking (XIV) reflected distrust of legislatures.⁠[13]

State representatives serve two-year terms and state senators four-year terms; the governor serves a four-year term, and the original ban on consecutive terms was changed in 1966. Judges were initially elected and later appointed subject to retention elections, and juries of fewer than 12 may be used in some cases.⁠[13]

Major amendments include a 1941 requirement to balance the budget, a 1966 change allowing annual legislative sessions, a 1989 amendment mandating shorter sessions, a 1990 term-limits amendment that made Oklahoma the first state to adopt legislative term limits by constitutional amendment, and a 1992 requirement of a three-fourths vote of both houses for tax-raising bills to take effect.⁠[13]

As of November 2026 the governor is J. Kevin Stitt. He took office on January 14, 2019, as Oklahoma’s 28th governor and is serving his second term.⁠[24][25]

The Oklahoma Legislature consists of 101 members of the House of Representatives and 48 members of the Senate; half of the Senate is elected every two years.⁠[26]

American Indians in Oklahoma form 39 federally recognized tribal governments; by the end of the 20th century, tribes in the state operated 23 bingo and gaming operations.⁠[1]

At the start of the 21st century the Choctaw Nation had about 127,000 members, with its headquarters in Durant.⁠[5]

In 2020 the state had 57.7 people per square mile. In 2020–2024 the median household income was $65,039 (in 2024 dollars), and 28.3 percent of people aged 25 and over held a bachelor’s degree or higher.⁠[21]

In the 2020 census (April 2020), Oklahoma City had a population of 681,084.⁠[9]

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data show Oklahoma’s nominal GDP at $274,292.2 million in 2025, $263,575.6 million in 2024 and $219,233.8 million in 2021.⁠[27]

The name comes from the Choctaw language. At a meeting in Washington after the Civil War at which federal officials proposed an Indian Territory, Choctaw delegate Rev. Allen Wright suggested naming it “Oklahumma”; in Choctaw, “okla” means people and “humma” means red, so the name literally means red people.⁠[28][5]

The state flag was adopted in 1925; the motto is “Labor Omnia Vincit” (1893); the state bird is the scissor-tailed flycatcher (1951); the state flower is the Oklahoma Rose (2004) and the floral emblem is mistletoe (1893); the state tree is the redbud (1937); the state animal is the American bison (1972); the state colors are green and white (1915); and November 16 is Flag Day (1968). In 2026 wheat was named the state crop, and four insects, including the European honeybee, were added as state symbols.⁠[29]

The state adopted its first official banner in 1911. The current flag was designed by artist Louise Funk Fluke, whose design won a 1925 statewide contest held by the Oklahoma Daughters of the American Revolution; its blue field bears an Osage war shield with six crosses, overlaid with a calumet (peace pipe) and an olive branch. In 1941 the word “Oklahoma” was added to the flag.⁠[30][31]

Office of Governor J. Kevin Stitt: Official website: https://oklahoma.gov/governor/about/governor.html (opens in a new window).⁠[24]

Oklahoma Historical Society: Official website: https://www.okhistory.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[32]