Edmond Oklahoma History & Facts

Edmond is a city in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area in the central part of the state. The population was 94,428 according to the 2020 United States Census, making it the fifth largest city in Oklahoma.

The city borders the northern boundary of Oklahoma City. Public transportation is provided by Citylink Edmond bus service.

The Santa Fe rail line in Oklahoma Territory established a water and coaling station for steam engines at this location when the Santa Fe Railroad built into Indian Territory in 1887. The site for the station was chosen because it was the highest point on the line in Oklahoma County; train could more easily accelerate going downhill while leaving the station in either direction. The railroad then named the station for Edmond Burdick, the Santa Fe's traveling freight agent. When the town was formed after the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889, early settlers decided to adopt the name. Though most of the remnants of the old railroad infrastructure are gone, the Santa Fe, now BNSF, freight line still runs through the same course.

The town of Edmond sprang up overnight during the great Oklahoma land run on April 22, 1889, when homesteads were staked around the Santa Fe station. The original plat for Edmond was prepared by the Seminole Town and Development Company, a newly formed syndicate with ties to the railroad. Many of the original streets were named for men associated with either the Santa Fe Railroad or the town syndicate. The first mayor and city officers were elected in May 1889, and Edmond's population was 294 in the 1890 census.

The first public schoolhouse in Oklahoma Territory, completed in August 1889, is in Edmond. It still stands as a historic monument on 2nd Street between Boulevard and Broadway and is open to the public on the first two Saturdays of each month or by appointment.

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, the first church opened after the land run, was located on the southwest corner of East First and South Boulevard. The congregation still exists, although not in its original building or location.

In December 1890, the territorial legislature established three universities: the state university in Norman, the agricultural and mechanical college in Stillwater, and a "normal" or teaching school in Edmond. The first classes for the Territorial Normal School (University of Central Oklahoma) were held November 9, 1891, in the Methodist Church on the southwest corner of North Broadway and West Hurd. Old North, the Territorial Normal School's iconic first building, was opened for classes on January 2, 1893, and ahead of Oklahoma State University's Central Hall or Oklahoma University's Science Hall.

The Edmond Sun, established by Milton W. "Kicking Bird" Reynolds on July 18, 1889, was the state's oldest continuous newspaper dating from Oklahoma Territorial days.

Edmond was the site of a workplace shooting on August 20, 1986, in which 14 people were killed and six wounded by Patrick Sherrill, an ex-postman who then committed suicide. This event was the deadliest killing in a string of U.S. postal employee murder–suicides which inspired the slang term "going postal". A memorial to the victims of the attack stands outside the U.S. Post Office in downtown Edmond.

Famous Peoples From Edmond Oklahoma

James Norman Beaver Jr.

(born August 12, 1950) is an American actor, writer, and film historian. He is most familiar to worldwide audiences as Bobby Singer in Supernatural. He also played Whitney Ellsworth on the HBO Western drama series Deadwood, which brought him acclaim and a Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination for Ensemble Acting, and Sheriff Shelby Parlow on the FX series Justified. His memoir Life's That Way was published in April 2009.

Beaver was born in Laramie, Wyoming, the son of Dorothy Adell (née Crawford) (1928-2019) and James Norman Beaver (1924–2004), a minister. His father was of English and French heritage; the family name was originally de Beauvoir, and Beaver is a distant cousin of author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and Pennsylvania governor General James A. Beaver. Beaver's mother has Cherokee, German, and Scottish ancestry, and is a descendant of three-time U.S. Attorney General John J. Crittenden.

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