Oklahoma is a state in the United States situated in the Southern Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands regions. Oklahoma became the 46th state in the Union in 1907. The state's name comes from the Choctaw words okla meaning people and humma meaning red, literally meaning "red people" and was chosen by Allen Wright, Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation between 1866 and 1870.
Ada Afton Altus Alva Anadarko Ardmore Atoka Bartlesville Blackwell Broken Arrow Broken Bow Catoosa Checotah Chickasha Claremore Clinton Davis Del City Duncan Durant Edmond El Reno Elk City Enid Erick Glenpool Grove Guthrie Guymon Heavener Henryetta Hinton Idabel Lawton Locust Grove Lone Wolf Miami Midwest City Moore Muldrow Muskogee Norman Okemah Oklahoma City Okmulgee Owasso Pauls Valley Perry Ponca City Poteau Pryor Roland Sallisaw Sand Springs Sapulpa Savanna Sayre Seminole Shawnee Stillwater Stroud Sulphur Tahlequah Thackerville Tulsa Vinita Wagoner Weatherford West Siloam Springs Woodward Yukon
Oklahoma is a state with a rich history, including its days as a frontier state, it being a destination of recently freed slaves looking for opportunity and equality, and being at the heart of the oil boom in the early 20th Century.
Most notably, Oklahoma has the nation's second largest Native American population. In honor of its large Native American population, and for tourism purposes, Oklahoma is called "Native America." Oklahoma's early history is forever tied to the Trail of Tears, which was the forced removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from the southeastern United States to present-day Oklahoma. As a testament to the state's western and Native American heritage, Tulsa is the home of the world-renowned Gilcrease Museum, which houses the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of American Western and Native American art, artifacts, manuscripts, documents, and maps.
Oklahoma is one of the six states on the Frontier Strip. It is bounded on the east by Arkansas and Missouri, on the north by Kansas and northwest by Colorado, on the far west by New Mexico, and on the south and near-west by Texas.
Oklahoma City, with a population of 523,303 in the immediate city limits and 1.3 million in the metro area, is the capital and largest city. Tulsa is the second largest city, with 387,807 within the city limits and roughly 1.1 Million in the statistical metropolitan area.
Oklahoma's four main mountain ranges include the Ouachitas, Arbuckles, Wichitas, and the Kiamichis. In addition to several smaller ranges, Oklahoma also notably encompasses a portion of the Ozarks.
Oklahoma is the third largest natural gas-producing state in the nation, has forests covering approximately one quarter of Oklahoma's land area.
The state's highest peak, 4,973 foot (1,515 m) Black Mesa, resides in the far northwestern corner of the panhandle near the town of Kenton. The lowest elevation in the state is in the far southeastern corner, near Idabel, at 324 feet (99 m). Oklahoma also has what is officially considered the highest hill in the world, Mount Cavanal, at 1,999 feet (609 m); this is considering the fact that a "mountain" is anything 2,000 feet or higher.
With 200 man-made lakes, Oklahoma has more man-made lakes than any other state and boasts over one million surface-acres of water and 2,000 more miles (3,200 km) of shoreline than the Atlantic and Gulf coasts combined. Lake Eufaula is the largest lake in the state, covering 102,000 surface acres (413 km˛) of water.
Nation's Most Diverse Terrain - According to the EPA, Oklahoma has the most diverse terrain in the United States, calculated on a mile-per-mile basis.
Major climate variations between the western and eastern parts of the state are partly to account for the terrain irregularity.
Oklahoma’s wetter and more mountainous eastern third is home to oak, hickory and pine forests, as well as the ancient Ouachita Mountains and the Western Ozark Mountains and their foothills. This portion of the state, often called Green Country, contains Oklahoma's only national forests and is anchored economically and culturally by the Tulsa Metropolitan Area and receives upwards from about 40 inches of rainfall each year. The state's largest lakes and more than half of its state parks and recreational areas are found in this area.
Central Oklahoma, anchored by the Oklahoma City area, is a less forested region dominated the Cross Timbers, with post oak and blackjack oak forests as well as the southern portion of the Flint Hills. This region is occupied by intermittent breaks between true prairie and oak forests, compliments of extreme swings between dry and wet weather patterns. The area sees extreme differences in annual rainfall totals the farther east or west.
In western Oklahoma, terrain indicative of the American Southwest brings mesas and small mountain ranges, such as the mesa-dominated Glass Mountains near Enid, and the rugged Wichita Mountains near Lawton, to mesh with the stereotypically semi-arid plains such as those found in Kansas and northern Texas.
During the height of the Great Depression, drought and poor agricultural practices led to the Dust Bowl, when massive dust storms blew away the soil from large tracts of arable land and deposited it on nearby farms and ranches, distant states, the Atlantic Ocean, and even occasionally Great Britain. The resulting crop failures forced many small farmers to flee the state altogether. Although the most persistent dust storms primarily affected the Panhandle, much of the state experienced occasional dusters, intermittent severe drought, and occasional searing heat. Towns such as Alva, Altus, and Poteau each recorded temperatures of 120°F (49°C) during the epic summer of 1936.
Advances in agro-mechanical technology simultaneously enabled less labor-intensive crop production. Many large landowners and planters had more labor than they needed with the new technology, and the federal Agricultural Adjustment Act paid them to reduce production. Plantation owners throughout the American South and much of eastern and southern Oklahoma released their sharecroppers of their debts and evicted them. With few or no local opportunities available for them, many emancipated, but destitute blacks and whites fled to the relative prosperity of California to work as migrant farm workers and, after the onset of World War II, in factories.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, photographs by Dorothea Lange, and songs of Woody Guthrie tell tales of woe from the era. The negative images of the "Okie" as a sort of rootless migrant laborer living in a near-animal state of scrounging for food greatly offended many Oklahomans.
These works often mix the experiences of former sharecroppers of the western American South with those of the exodusters fleeing the fierce dust storms of the High Plains. Although they primarily feature the extremely destitute, the vast majority of the people, both staying in and fleeing from Oklahoma, suffered great poverty in the Depression years. Some Oklahoma politicians denounced The Grapes of Wrath (often without reading it) as an attempt to impugn the morals and character of Oklahomans.
The term "Okie" in recent years has taken on a new meaning in the past few decades, with many Oklahomans (both former and present) wearing the label as a badge of honor (as a symbol of the Okie survivor attitude). Others (mostly alive during the Dust Bowl era) still see the term negatively because they see the "Okie" migrants as quitters and transplants to the West Coast.
Major trends in Oklahoma history after the Depression era included the rise again of tribal sovereignty (including the issuance of tribal automobile license plates, and the opening of tribal smoke shops, casinos, grocery stores, and other commercial enterprises), the building of Tinker Air Force Base, the rapid growth of suburban Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the drop in population in Western Oklahoma, the oil boom of the 1980s and the oil bust of the 1990s.
Oklahoma has some of the strictest liquor laws in the country. This began with the state's constitution including total prohibition of alcoholic beverages. In 1959, voters repealed total prohibition and liquor-by-the-drink bars were not allowed until 1985. Since 1985, liquor-by-the-drink is decided on a county-by-county basis, with approximately half allowing it. Currently, liquor stores are required to close on Sundays, may not be open past 9:00 pm, and may not refrigerate alcohol (Warehouses and shipping companies are also prohibited from using refrigeration).
Some bars are also restricted from selling beverages in excess of 3.2% alcohol. Persons under twenty-one years of age are prohibited from being in a bar area of a restaurant. Some breweries, such as New Belgium Brewing Company, will not ship to Oklahoma because these laws degrade the quality of beer by the time it reaches the consumer.
Despite being illegal, some state residents cross into Texas to purchase six-point beer and transport it back into Oklahoma—though six-point beer may be purchased legally in liquor stores. This trend has prompted several Texas border-counties to prohibit the sale of alcohol in order to discourage would-be bootleggers.
In April 2005, the state's House of Representatives approved Senate Bill 518, banning happy hour and drown nights. Since the use of the phrase "happy hour" was restricted, many bars and pubs began using alternative phrases, such as "Hour of Happiness" or "Hour of Joy."
Primary interstate highways in Oklahoma include I-35, which traverses the state from north to south, I-40, which traverses the state from east to west, and I-44, which enters Oklahoma in the northeast and leaves the state toward the southwest. These highways all run through Oklahoma City.
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The state's other two interstate highways, interstates 244 and 444, form what is called the "inter-dispersal" loop in Tulsa off of I-44.
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