3 Surprising Facts About Lawton, Oklahoma

We've talked before about how Oklahoma doesn't have the same history as the older parts of the country, but there are still things to be learned about the state.

Together, we recently learned about the Green Corn Rebellion that happened when America started the draft during WWI. That was an interesting story none of us were taught in school, probably because it's so anti-government, but there are more.

Beyond Oklahoma as a state, there are interesting little tidbits about our cities and towns. Haunted El Reno and Guthrie, how Salina is actually the oldest town in the state vs Fort Gibson, and I recently learned a few surprising facts about Lawton.

We may best be known as the gateway to the Wichita Mountains and mismanagement in Lawton City Hall, but here are a few interesting things I'd wager you didn't know about L-Town.

Fact #1 - Lawton was founded through a lottery.

In 1901, land from the former Kiowa-Comanche-Apache reservation was opened for settlement by a land lottery. The previous land rushes were so chaotic that this was believed to be a more organized solution to growth.

Over the course of three weeks in July that year, more than 170,000 people entered the lottery through offices in El Reno and Fort Sill. 6,500 people were drawn to split up over 2 million acres of land that previously belonged to the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache and Wichita-Caddo-Deleware reservations.

Lawton sprang up practically overnight, growing from hundreds of canvas tents to a legitimate brick-and-mortar city in just a few months.

Fact #2 - Lawton was once the largest city in Oklahoma.

For a very brief period after the lottery, Lawton was the largest city in Oklahoma. It was even bigger than Oklahoma City at the time.

Even though Lawton’s growth eventually slowed down, it was once Oklahoma’s economic powerhouse.

Now it's a place of potholes and jazz cabbage dispensaries.

Fact #3 - Lawton once had a streetcar system.

While I didn't know the first two facts off hand, this one surprised me. I've never heard anyone mention this in the twenty years I've lived in the area.

This too was in the early 1900s when Lawton operated an electric streetcar line that connected downtown to Fort Sill. Though it only ran for about two decades, the streetcar reflected something the city has seemingly given up on. An ambition to modernize.

Apparently there are maps of the old system somewhere online. I can't find it through Google, but I'd wager the tracks on Railroad Street are part of this long-gone system of public transit.