Woodward County, originally known as N County, was 60 miles square. It was composed of present day Woodward County and portions of Harper, Ellis and Woods County. Woodward County was the westernmost county of the Cherokee Outlet and adjoined Texas and the Oklahoma Panhandle on the west and Kansas on the north. Political pressure applied by William H. Murray during Oklahoma's Constitutional Convention resulted in the reduction of the size of Woodward County to its present boundaries.

 Before its designation as a county of Oklahoma Territory, the U.S. Cavalry had established Camp Supply in 1868 during the “Indian Wars” at the confluence of the Wolf Creek and Beaver River, about 13 miles northwest of present-day Woodward. It played a large part in the settlement of natives on reservations in western Oklahoma. George Armstrong Custer was stationed for a short time in what would become Woodward County. The post closed in 1894 after the area had been settled in to non-natives.

 The lush grasslands of the Cherokee Outlet provided ample fodder for Texas cattle en route to railheads in Kansas during the 1870s and 1880s. The Cherokee Strip Livestock Association was created in 1883 in an effort to lease the prairie lands in the possession of the Cherokee Nation. They were successful until the United States government decided to open the Indian land for settlement.

 It was on 16 September 1893 that thousands of hopeful pioneers rushed into the territory to claim prime locations for the chance of a new beginning. Not only would settlers rush in on horses, mules, wagons and bicycles, but they also rode trains into the territory and ran on foot to claim prime town lots. These hardy pioneers built northwest Oklahoma from the ground up.  As no trees were readily available, they dug into the virgin soil to build homes and crude shelters until lumber could be shipped in by rail for frame houses.  The railroad served as the lifeblood of the area.  It would either “make or break” the towns of northwest Oklahoma depending on their proximity to the rail.  Those fortunate enough to lie close to the railroad were given a chance to survive with a steady supply of visitors and traders passing through.  Rail lines were so important that towns might even pick up and literally move to a track that bypassed them.  It was the railroad that had brought life to the open prairie and created the town of Woodward in 1887.

Soon after the opening of the Outlet, business centers along wide main streets sprang up across the prairie landscape.  With the creation of new towns came general merchandise stores, banks, post offices, lawyers’ offices.

Before statehood, The City of Woodward was home to 15 brothels and 23 saloons! They provided a never-ending source of excitement, especially when disagreements led to gunplay such as the 1895 shootout of Jack Love and Temple Houston against brothers Ed & John Jennings.   

 The disagreement began in the courtroom the morning of 8 October. On trial were several men accused of stealing a keg of beer from a railroad car near the Santa Fe Depot. Temple Houston appeared with County Attorney Smith for the prosecution. Ed & John Jennings appeared for the defense. During examination of evidence, an argument over minor points occurred, and Houston suggested Jennings of being “grossly ignorant of the law.” Slamming his fist on the table, Ed declared Houston to be a “damned liar” and attempted to slap Houston’s face. Guns were drawn, but those present in the court room intervened. Court was adjourned until the next morning so the men would have an opportunity to cool off. But this wasn’t to be. While Houston and ex-sheriff Jack Love were having a friendly drink in one of Woodward’s saloons, the brothers Jennings walked in.

 A Woodward dispatch to the territorial press on October 9 gave this account of Woodward’s most famous gunfight.

 Last night about 10 o’clock, this town was aroused by a fusillade of shots in one of the  principal saloons here, known as the “Cabinet,” and owned by Jack Garvey. Hastening there  the spectators beheld lawyer Ed Jennings weltering in blood, his brain oozing from a bullet  hole in the left side of his head, his hand still clinging to a smoking revolver, half concealed  by his prostrate form.

 Lawyer John Jennings was fleeing up the street with one arm limp and dangling by his side  from which the blood poured in streams.

 Lawyer Temple Houston and ex-Sheriff Jack Love were on their way to the sheriff’s office to  surrender their persons to his custody.  Neither Love nor Houston were wounded, although several bullets passed through their  clothes and hats. 

 Love and Houston would later stand trial on the second floor of Peter Martinson’s building (known as the Opera House) for the murder of Ed Jennings. They were acquitted as it was found they acted in self defense.

  By the turn of the 20th Century, women in Woodward County had had enough of the rowdy cowtowns they found themselves living in. In order to make Woodward more civilized, they established literary societies and other social organizations in which they could nurture refinement.  They also demanded that the infamous red-light district in Woodward be dismantled.

This was evident by the 1898 indictment of Miss Minnie Stacie, a hopelessly guilty brothel madam in Woodward County Court. Attorney Temple Houston, who had been away on business, returned home on the morning Stacie’s trial had begun. Realizing she had no one to defend her, Houston rushed to the courtroom and stated that he would come to her aide. After a ten-minute adjournment, Houston defended her, and convinced the jury to let her go. The “Soiled Dove Plea” as it was later called became known as the perfect defense, and is still taught to Harvard Law students. 

 In 1903, Editor William Ezra Bolton, of The Woodward News wrote an editorial which proclaimed the greatness of the “Empire County of Oklahoma” as he fondly called his Woodward home. He wrote, “The most advanced ideas of thought predominated and made Woodward superior to most counties in any country, new or old”. Bolton continued to describe the then current development of the county seat. “Three splendid elevators at Woodward are kept busy handling the enormous wheat crop of  this year, and the big stockyards are not idle by any means”. An important fact in the  commercial life of Woodward is that in addition to being the seat of government in the  ‘Empire County,’ it is also the center of a land district for the government, a Unites States  Land Office being located here.

Added to this is the big pay roll of the Santa Fe [railroad], this point being the terminal as well as the connection of the A.T.. & S.F. Railway and the  S.K. of T. Railway, the latter being a Santa Fe System line extending from here southward  through Texas and New Mexico. …

 The city of Woodward is also preparing to build a water works system of the latest and best  kind and when this is done the town will lack nothing to make it a modern and up-to-date  city of prosperous commercial lines and hundreds of happy homes.

 And what of the future? No one may estimate that which is hidden by the veil of oncoming  years, but it is safe to say that in ten years from now, the town of Woodward will contain not  less than 5000 people, perhaps double that number even. The other towns of the county, the  live hustling ones, will become important trading centers. The population of the county will  advance along the line of general development of the rich resources of fertile uplands and  valleys until the general feeling of unrest and change is substituted by content coupled with  conditions which will make Woodward county famous as one of the choicest and fairest  portions of the earth, in which to live and enjoy all the happiness of good government.

On 7 September 1907, William Jennings Bryan spoke to 20,000 people gathered in Woodward and urged the ratification of Oklahoma's proposed constitution and the election of a democratic ticket. Two months later the proclamation admitting Oklahoma as a state was signed by Theodore Roosevelt on 16 November 1907 with the quill from an American Golden Eagle captured near Woodward.

 With statehood came a sense of permanence for Oklahomans.  The first-generation wooden buildings were soon replaced by grand structures of brick and stone as family roots were planted deeper and deeper in the red Oklahoma soil.

 Along with statehood came prohibition, thus ending Woodwards rough and tumble social scene. The red light district north of the tracks in Woodward was no longer in business, as well as the dozen or so saloons. “Uncle” Jack Garvey, owner of the Cabinet Saloon, turned his establishment into a bank.

 Temple Houston  died in 1905 from a cerebral hemorrhage. The silver-tongued devil, the son of Colonel Sam Houston, was dead. He was laid to rest in the newly created Elmwood Cemetery, southwest of Woodward. His widow Laura, remained in Woodward and became Postmistress. Although Houston had died at the young age of 45, he left an indelible mark on Woodward and the rest of the county.

 The decade after statehood was one of much growth and development in Woodward. A second rail line entered the Woodward city limits in 1912. The Wichita Falls and Northwestern, later the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas (Katy) Railway sealed the county seat’s place as an extensive shipping point. The first train on this line rolled into town on May 9, 1912. Railroad officials joined with county residents in celebrating this achievement with much pomp and circumstance as they drove in the final, golden spike. The United States Department of Agriculture Great Plains Field Station opened southwest of town in 1913. It still operates in Woodward under the name Southern Plains Range Research Station.

 The Commercial Club, predecessor of the Chamber of Commerce, was organized in 1916. The Woodward Elks came to be in 1919. Ten years later, the Woodward Elks Rodeo was established to tie the town more closely with the cattle industry of the area. The rodeo quickly became one of the top contests in the United States. The annual event led to Trego’s Western Wear, one of the first western clothiers in the country. The Elks Rodeo still attracts thousands of visitors to Woodward each summer.

The discovery of oil in the 1920s led to the first boom the area had seen. People flocked into its borders to try their luck with the oil field.  Others stuck with the cotton and wheat farming they had always known, barely getting by season after season. 

 The Woodward Theater was built in 1929 in the 800 block of Main Street. Financed by J.O. Selman, he insisted that a stage and green rooms be included in the construction. He believed that “talking picture shows” wouldn’t last. In 1981, Selman’s prediction came true, in a way, when the theater reopened as a performing arts venue.

 The drought and dust storms of the 1930s would prove to be an even greater test of the tenacity of Oklahoma pioneer families.  Though many left for greener pastures in California, almost two-thirds of the population stayed to see better days in Oklahoma. Crystal Beach Park was created on the east side of Woodward during the 1930s. It remains an important location for recreation in Woodward County.

 April 9, 1947 brought “terror in the night” as the deadliest tornado in Oklahoma’s history “touched down” in Woodward at 8:42 p.m.  Over one-hundred city blocks were destroyed, and at least 102 people were killed with many more injured.  As if Woodward had not suffered enough from the effects of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, another wave of destruction had come into the lives of county residents.  However, the prevailing spirit of pioneer ancestors would prove the resiliency of Oklahomans as they began to rebuild the town they called home.

 On May 18, 1956, Charlie Pappe, a local Woodward grocer, opened the second Top-Hat Drive In Restaurant in the United States, which was the precursor to Sonic Drive In.

 In late November, 1956, Woodward renewed its relationship with petroleum. The McCormick # 1 well was drilled on the farm of Hugh and Iva McCormick. This led to the first real boom the area had seen, which lasted almost 20 years. As residents celebrated Oklahoma’s semi-centennial in 1957, drought was plaguing the county. The drought brought President Dwight D. Eisenhower in January 1957, to Woodward County as part of a tour of stricken western states. He visited the farm of Carl and Frances Peoples west of Tangier.

 The boom brought the High Plains Vocational Technical School, a new Woodward High School building, a new post office and hospital and two agriculture related industries, Oklahoma Nitrogen in 1976, and Woodward Iodine in 1977.

Since then, numerous companies have explored for and produced crude iodine in Woodward County. 

The Woodward economy suffered a crash in 1982 as the result of poor agricultural markets, and the collapse of the oil and gas industry.

 In 2003, Florida Power & Light's subsidiary, FPL Energy, and the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority, began commercial production of electricity generated from wind turbines constructed seven miles north of Woodward.

 Today, Woodward is once again enjoying an economic boom. New hotels and restaurants are being constructed, profits from sales taxes are increasing, and new residents are making a home in our increasingly diverse community.

The City of Woodward has grown to a population of nearly 15,000 and as the county seat, serves as a commercial hub for 70,000 area residents.  Through the last 121 years, Woodward continues to beat insurmountable odds in this land of storms, sand, and sage.  The City of Woodward, Oklahoma has stood witness to gun fights, the land rush, the emergence of the cattle industry, the coming of the railroads,  natural disasters, the birth of the Oklahoma Oil Industry, both good economies and bad. however there is no better place to call home.

 An enduring spirit and a lasting memory of the sacrifices made by the pioneers before us live on in those of us who are continuing to move forward to make Woodward  a better place for posterity.  Our forefathers have instilled in us a rich heritage  and a vision of a bright future indeed.