Cleveland Oklahoma's Pioneer Oil City - Cleveland, OK - Oklahoma Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Highway 64 has "Oklahoma Historical Marker ahead" signs for travelers both east bound and west bound, but it's still easy to miss this marker that blends in with the building it is in front of. The building and marker are at a circle drive just west of a cabin, and across the street from a church.

This marker is worth the stop, as it tells about the town being Oklahoma's first oil boom town!

Text on marker:

Oklahoma
Cleveland Oklahoma's Pioneer Oil City
July 2, 1904, the Lowery No. 1 came in just S. of Cleveland opening the Cleveland sand and creating Oklahoma's first oil boom town. Here also was Jordan's Fort built in 1886 by Col. J.W. Jordan, Cherokee Agent and Deputy U.S. Marshal, to keep Boomers out of Cherokee Outlet.

Oklahoma Historical Society
161-1995

A little about Cleveland, from wikipedia:

After the Cherokee Outlet opening, a homesteader by the name of Willis H. Herbert established a town named Herbert by opening a post office on the current townsite of Cleveland on October 28, 1893. The Post Office department subsequently withdrew the approval of the Herbert post office. The post office was then moved 100 feet, and reestablished under the name Cleveland, named in honor of then President Grover Cleveland on April 19, 1894. By 1900, the town's population was 211. Before the discovery of oil in the area, the town served as a trade center between the local farmers and the Osage Tribe who lived on the reservation on the other side of the Arkansas river.

In 1904, a railroad line owned by the Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad (later known as Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway or Katy) from Oklahoma City reached Cleveland and crossed the Arkansas River into Osage County. On May 27, 1904, the first oil well was spudded near the community, and it caused an influx of oil workers and other people. At the time of statehood in 1907, Cleveland had 1,441 residents

County: Pawnee Record Address:: Highway 64 and OK 99 About a mile west of the Broadway/Caddo intersection Cleveland, Oklahoma USA 74020 Web site if available: [Web Link] Rate the Site: Date Erected: 1995 Sponsor (Who put it there): Oklahoma Historical Society

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