Woodward is a city in and the county seat of Woodward County, Oklahoma, United States. It is the largest city in a nine-county area. The population was 12,133 at the time of the 2020 census.
The area was historically occupied by the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. European-American settlers established the town in 1887 after construction of the railroad to that point for shipping cattle to markets. The town was on the Great Western Cattle Trail. In the 19th century, it was one of the most important depots in the Oklahoma Territory for shipping cattle to the East. As an important cattle town, it had the rough frontier bawdiness of the time. The United States opened up much of the area to European-American settlement by the Land Run of 1893, and migrants rushed into the area.
Boiling Springs State Park, named for its artesian springs that seem to boil, has been established east of the city.
History
Native American settlement
For thousands of years, succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples inhabited the areas along the North Canadian River. The Plains tribes adopted use of the horse from the Spanish settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries, which greatly increased their range of nomadic hunting. Before the American Civil War, the historic Plains tribes of the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapaho occupied this area.
Boiling Springs, near present-day Woodward, was a favorite campsite of the Plains Indians. A battle between the Kiowa and Cheyenne tribes took place nearby in 1838. The Kiowa and Comanche tribes also battled the United States Army in 1868 in this area, when the US redeployed troops after the Civil War against Native Americans in the West.
In the late 19th century, these tribes fought numerous battles against the United States soldiers and settlers through a wide area around the springs. After the war, United States Army made various expeditions against the Plains tribes in the Cherokee Outlet. Lieutenant Colonels Alfred Sully and George Armstrong Custer, and General Philip Sheridan, stationed nearby at Fort Supply, led these expeditions. In the 1880s, the Comanche considered this area as part of their "Comancheria", the unofficial name of their territory, which stretched from Kansas to Mexico.
Settlement as a town
In April 1887, the Southern Kansas Railway, a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, built tracks from Kiowa, Kansas to Fort Reno Military Road near the south bank of the North Canadian River. European-American settlers established Woodward at this junction. The source of the name of the town a mystery. People perhaps named the town for Brinton W. Woodward, usually identified as a Santa Fe Railway director, or bison hunter, teamster, and eventually local saddle-maker Richard "Uncle Dick" Woodward.
The town quickly developed as an important shipping point, both for provisioning Fort Supply and as a place for loading cattle grazed in the Cherokee Outlet for shipment to eastern markets. Woodward ranked among the most important depots in the Oklahoma Territory for shipping cattle to the Eastern and Northern states. The Great Western Cattle Trail met the railroad where Woodward developed. In the summer of 1893, carpenters erected the first government building at the railroad depot, called Woodward. Woodward then had 200 residents.
On September 16, 1893, officials opened the Cherokee Outlet across northern Oklahoma, which more than 50,000 migrants settled in the greatest land run in American history. A surveying error then caused location of the government town, its land office, and other public buildings in the section west of the existing improvements, 15 blocks away from the depot, post office, and stockyards. Since territorial days, Woodward served as the county seat of Woodward County.
Two towns developed: East Woodward, called Denver, began near the improvements, and Woodward began near the land office. In October 1894, people moved the depot west and relocated it between 5th Street and 6th Street; East Woodward businesses followed the depot. Government in time moved the land office, jail, and other buildings east toward the depot. The towns merged into one. The joining resulted in the curve in the long Main Street of the town at 8th Street, originally Boundary Street.
On March 13, 1894, outlaws Bill Doolin and Bill Dalton robbed the railroad station at Woodward, taking an undisclosed amount of money.