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Oklahoma became a state on November 16, 1907 and was the 46th state to be admitted into the Union.  It has an approximate area of about 68,667 square miles with a population of just over 3.5 million people.  This makes it the 28th most populous state in the nation.

The capital city is Oklahoma City, which was founded April 22, 1889, as the result of a land run. It grew from a work crew at the Santa Fe Railroad station to a city of 10,000 people in one day! By 1910, it had grown to a population of 64,000.  

Oklahoma Territory's history began with the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834 when the United States Congress set aside land for Native Americans. At the time, the land was unorganized territory that consisted of all the federal land "west of the Mississippi and not within the states of Missouri and Louisiana, or the territory of Arkansas..." By 1856, the territory had been reduced to the modern day borders of the State of Oklahoma. These lands quickly became known as Indian Territory.

Up until this point, the land had been exclusively used by Native Americans. However, in 1866, shortly after the American Civil War, the federal government forced many of the tribes in Indian Territory into making concessions. The government accused them of abrogating the standing treaties by joining the Confederacy. As a result some 2,000,000 acres of land in the center of the Indian Nation Territory were ceded to the United States. The popular press began referring to this tract as the Unassigned Lands or Oklahoma and to the people agitating for its settlement as Boomers. To prevent settlement of the land, President Rutherford B. Hayes, in April 1879, issued a proclamation forbidding unlawful entry into Indian Territory.

The Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 was the first land run into the Unassigned Lands and included all or part of the modern day Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The land run started at high noon on April 22, 1889, with an estimated 50,000 people lined up for their piece of the available two million acres.

The Unassigned Lands were considered some of the best unoccupied public land in the United States. The Indian Appropriations Bill of 1889 was passed and signed into law with an amendment by Illinois Representative William McKendree Springer, that authorized President Benjamin Harrison to open the two million acres for settlement. Due to the Homestead Act of 1862, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, legal settlers could claim lots up to 160 acres in size. Provided a settler lived on the land and improved it, the settler could then receive the title to the land.

Download the State of Oklahoma Reference Map

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