included the area of the future Oklahoma panhandle. (Oklahoma panhandle) What is now the Oklahoma panhandle has been occupied for millennia. The
Paleo-Indian people of the region were part of the Beaver River complex. A Paleo-Indian encampment, the Bull Creek site, dates back to approximately 8450 BCE, and the Badger Hole site dates to circa 8400 BCE. Shortly before the arrival of European explorers, the panhandle was home to
Southern Plains villagers. From 1200 to 1500, the semi-sedentary
panhandle culture peoples, including the
Antelope Creek phase, lived in the region in large, stone-slab and plaster houses in villages or individual homesteads. As horticulturists, they farmed maize and indigenous crops from the
Eastern Agricultural Complex. Several Antelope Creek phase sites were founded near present-day Guymon, including the McGrath,
Stamper and Two Sisters sites. The Cimarron Cutoff for the
Santa Fe Trail passed through the area soon after the trade route was established in 1826 between the Mexicans in
Santa Fe and the Americans in
St. Louis. The route was increasingly used during the
California Gold Rush. The cutoff passed several miles north of what are now
Boise City, Oklahoma, and
Clayton, New Mexico, before continuing toward Santa Fe. When Texas sought to enter the Union in 1845 as a
slave state, federal law in the United States, based on the
Missouri Compromise, prohibited slavery north of 36°30' north latitude. Under the
Compromise of 1850, Texas surrendered its lands north of 36°30', rather than have a portion of the state as "free" territory. The 170-mile strip of land, a "neutral strip", was left with no state or territorial ownership from 1850 until 1890. It was officially called the "
Public Land Strip" and was commonly referred to as "No Man's Land." The Compromise of 1850 also established the eastern boundary of
New Mexico Territory at the 103rd meridian, thus setting the western boundary of the strip. The
Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 set the southern border of
Kansas Territory as the 37th parallel. This became the northern boundary of "No Man's Land." When Kansas joined the Union in 1861, the western part of Kansas Territory was assigned to the
Colorado Territory but did not change the boundary of "No Man's Land." In 1886, Interior Secretary
L. Q. C. Lamar declared the area to be
public domain and subject to "
squatter's rights". The strip was not yet
surveyed, and as that was one of the requirements of the
Homestead Act of 1862, the land could not be officially settled. Settlers by the thousands flooded in to assert their "squatter's rights" anyway. They surveyed their own land and by September 1886 had organized a self-governing and self-policing jurisdiction, which they named the
Cimarron Territory. Senator
Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana introduced a bill in
Congress to attach the so-called territory to Kansas. It passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives but was not signed by President
Grover Cleveland. The elected council met as planned, elected Owen G. Chase as president, and named a full cabinet. They also enacted further laws and divided the strip into five counties (Benton, Beaver, Palo Duro, Optima, and Sunset), three senatorial districts (with three members from each district), and seven delegate districts (with two members from each district). The members from these districts were to be the
legislative body for the proposed territory. Elections were held November 8, 1887, and the legislature met for the first time on December 5, 1887. A group disputing the Chase organization met and elected and sent its own delegate to Washington. A bill was introduced to accept Chase but was never brought to a vote. Neither delegation was able to persuade Congress to accept the new territory. The passage of the
Organic Act in 1890 assigned
Public Land Strip to the new
Oklahoma Territory, and ended the short-lived Cimarron Territory aspirations.
Dust Bowl The panhandle was severely affected by the drought of the 1930s. The drought began in 1932 and created massive dust storms. By 1935, the area was widely known as being part of the
Dust Bowl. The dust storms were largely a result of poor farming techniques and the plowing up of the native grasses that had held the fine soil in place. Despite government efforts to implement conservation measures and change the basic farming methods of the region, the Dust Bowl persisted for nearly a decade. It contributed significantly to the length of the
Great Depression in the United States. Each of the three counties experienced a major loss of population during the 1930s. The social impact of the dust bowl and the resulting emigration of tenant farmers from Oklahoma is the setting for the 1939 novel
The Grapes of Wrath by Nobel Prize-winning author
John Steinbeck. ==Demographics==