Stillwater, Oklahoma

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Stillwater, Oklahoma sits at the intersection of U.S. Route 177 and State Highway 51 in the north-central part of the state, and within a single afternoon in April 1889, it went from open prairie to a tent city of 300 people. That was the day the cannons fired to start the first Oklahoma Land Run, opening the Unassigned Lands for settlement. By nightfall, 240 acres had been claimed and designated as Stillwater Township. The city charter followed just four months later, on the 24th of August, 1889. Today, with nearly 49,000 residents as of the 2020 census, Stillwater is Oklahoma's tenth-largest city. But population numbers only hint at what makes it unusual. How did a frontier township become a home for Red Dirt music, a National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and the career origin of one of the best-selling solo artists in American music history? And how did a simple creek, whose name may have come from a cattleman noticing water was always "still there," end up anchoring a city that drew 40,000 military trainees, a sister-city partnership with Japan, and the first Sonic Drive-In?

• 2. Prairie to Township

  ›

  In 1832, Washington Irving traveled through north-central Oklahoma and recorded what he found in his book A Tour on the Prairies. He described "a glorious prairie spreading out beneath the golden beams of an autumnal sun" and noted deep, frequent traces of buffalo marking it as one of their favorite grazing grounds. That passage became the first recorded written description of the area around Stillwater. The land had been known to the Ponca, Kiowa, Osage, and Pawnee, who according to one account called the creek "Still Water" because the water was always still. The region formally entered the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, but practical settlement was a contested, turbulent matter. In 1884, William L. Couch established a "boomer colony" on Stillwater Creek's banks, and the creek received its official name at that point. Pioneers who wanted the fertile, free land clashed repeatedly with soldiers holding them back while legal disputes over Creek and Seminole land titles worked through the courts. The post office settled the official place-name question: according to the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Stillwater became the official name only when the post office opened on the 28th of May, 1889. On Christmas Eve, 1890, the legislature of Oklahoma Territory certified Stillwater as the land grant college site, a designation that would shape everything that followed.

• 3. Oklahoma State and the City It Built

  ›

  In 1894, Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College dedicated its first brick building, Assembly Building, later known as Old Central, and that structure still stands today as the oldest building on campus. By statehood in 1907, downtown Stillwater already held more than 50 buildings including banks, churches, grocery stores, hotels, and department stores. When World War II arrived, Stillwater's leaders made a decisive move: they converted Oklahoma A&M into a war training center, ultimately creating 12 training units that brought nearly 40,000 service men and women to the city. The WAVES, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, was the largest single unit, with 10,000 participants. Quonset huts spread across town, and barracks occupied land where Stillwater Medical Center and the CareerTech headquarters now stand. That wartime operation carried the city's economy through the conflict and set the foundation for postwar industrial expansion. The Industrial Foundation, established in 1952, worked to recruit new employers; Moore Plant arrived in 1966, Mercury Marine in 1973, and Armstrong World Industries in 1988. Today, Oklahoma State University employs 6,007 people, making it by far the largest employer in the city. The university enrolls more than 20,000 students and holds a research focus that feeds directly into Stillwater's economic clusters: aerospace, agribusiness, biotechnology, optoelectronics, printing and publishing, and software manufacturing.

• 4. Red Dirt and the Strip

  ›

  Stillwater calls itself the home of Red Dirt music, a genre built from country, folk, blues, and rock that grew out of the city's bars and live music venues. Bob Childers is recognized as the father of Red Dirt, and a festival held in Stillwater since 2011 bears his name: Bob Childers' Gypsy Cafe. Proceeds from the event go to the Red Dirt Relief Fund, which supports Oklahoma musicians facing hardship. Notable Red Dirt acts from Stillwater include Cross Canadian Ragweed, Jason Boland and The Stragglers, the Red Dirt Rangers, The Great Divide, and No Justice. The Strip, an entertainment district on Washington Street just south of the OSU campus, is where many of these careers took shape. Garth Brooks launched his career there after Dallas entertainment attorney Rod Phelps discovered him at Willie's Saloon. The All-American Rejects, who formed in Stillwater in 1999, also played the local bars before breaking through nationally. Tumbleweed Dance Hall, home of the annual Calf Fry Festival, earned a nomination for "Dancehall of the Year" from the Academy of Country Music. The McKnight Center, a performing arts facility on the OSU campus, opened in 2019 and added a formal concert venue to a city that had long hosted music in informal settings.

• 5. Sport, Wrestling, and Championships

  ›

  Oklahoma State University athletic programs have won 53 NCAA National Championships across sports ranging from baseball and golf to cross country and track and field. No program stands out more sharply in the record books than wrestling. The OSU Cowboys wrestling team has won 34 team national championships, plus an additional three unofficial ones, along with 134 individual NCAA championships. Both totals are NCAA records. The program's roots run deep: Edward C. Gallagher, born in 1887 and inducted into the Hall of Fame, was an Olympic and NCAA champion coach as well as a champion sprinter and football player. Fittingly, Stillwater is also home to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum, which is dedicated to preserving the heritage of the sport and encouraging young athletes. For those who want to see that history in the context of a single match, Gallagher-Iba Arena remains one of the major sports facilities on campus, alongside Boone Pickens Stadium and O'Brate Stadium. The Oklahoma Special Olympics Annual Summer Games, which take place every May, add another layer of athletic identity to the city. That event is not only the largest amateur sporting event in Oklahoma but also the largest Special Olympics event in the United States.

• 6. Landmarks and Unexpected Origins

  ›

  The first Sonic Drive-In opened in Stillwater in 1959, founded by Troy Smith of the Shawnee, Oklahoma-based Top Hat Drive-In. The original location at 215 North Main Street has been remodeled but still displays the original sign and a statue of the first franchise manager, Gene Longworth. A different kind of landmark sits at the Stillwater Public Library: a bronze statue of historian Angie Debo, who lived from 1890 to 1988 and devoted her career to documenting the history of Oklahoma's Native American communities. Created by local artist Phyllis Mantik and dedicated on the 18th of November, 2010, the statue depicts a young Debo seated with books beside her. The base is surrounded by the seals of Oklahoma's 38 federally recognized Native American tribes. The David L. Payne Memorial Monument in Boomer Lake Park honors the Oklahoma boomer who, according to legend, named Stillwater Creek. In 1995, his body was exhumed and moved from Wellington, Kansas, to that site. Payne County takes its name from him. The International Friendship Garden at the Stillwater Community Center was built in 1997 by the Kameoka Landscape Gardeners Association to mark the tenth anniversary of Stillwater's sister-city bond with Kameoka, Japan. The gardeners shipped 22 tons of materials and tools from Japan and over two weeks constructed a traditional Japanese garden. The garden was formally dedicated on Sunday the 26th of July, 1998, with a delegation from Kameoka present.

• 7. The Kameoka Connection

  ›

  Stillwater has been a sister city to Kameoka, in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, since 1985. The pairing was not random. Kameoka sought an Oklahoma city roughly an hour from the capital, agriculturally based, and home to a university. Stillwater fit precisely. In 1985, the first Kameoka delegation visited Stillwater, and that same November a Stillwater delegation traveled to Japan. Mayors Calvin J. Anthony of Stillwater and Yoshihisa Taniguchi of Kameoka signed the Sister City Affiliation Agreement that year, formalizing the relationship. Since 1989, Stillwater Middle School and Taisei Junior High School in Kameoka have maintained a sister school partnership with an active teacher-student exchange program. In 2016, the Stillwater High School string quintet Penta-Strings performed during the 30-year anniversary visit of the Kameoka delegation. The State of Oklahoma and Kyoto Prefecture also signed a broader sister-state agreement in 1985, brokered through the governor's office. Stillwater also lists Gadabay, Azerbaijan, as a sister city. The city's library has held a bond with its community since 1922; in 1990, voters passed a bond issue of nearly five million dollars to build a new public library at 1107 South Duck, which now holds a core collection of more than 100,000 volumes.