Lawton Oklahoma History & Facts

Lawton is a city in, and the county seat of, Comanche County, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Located in southwestern Oklahoma, approximately 87 mi (140 km) southwest of Oklahoma City, it is the principal city of the Lawton, Oklahoma, metropolitan statistical area. According to the 2010 census, Lawton's population was 96,867, making it the fifth-largest city in the state, and the largest in Western Oklahoma.

Developed on former reservation lands of the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Indians, Lawton was founded by European Americans on 6 August 1901. It was named after Major General Henry Ware Lawton, who served in the Civil War, where he earned the Medal of Honor, and was killed in action in the Philippine–American War. Lawton's landscape is typical of the Great Plains, with flat topography and gently rolling hills, while the area north of the city is marked by the Wichita Mountains.

The city's proximity to the Fort Sill Military Reservation, formerly the base of the Apache territory before statehood, gave Lawton economic and population stability throughout the 20th century.

Although Lawton's economy is still largely dependent on Fort Sill, it has grown to encompass manufacturing, higher education, health care, and retail. The city has a council-manager government; the city council members are elected from single-member districts and the mayor is elected at-large. They hire a professional city manager to direct daily operations.

Interstate 44 and three major United States highways serve the city, while Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport connects Lawton by air. Recreation can be found at the city's many parks, lakes, museums, and festivals. Notable residents of the city include many musical and literary artists, as well as several professional athletes.

The territory of present-day Oklahoma was long settled by ancient cultures of prehistoric American Indians, including the Clovis, 11500 BCE; Folsom, 10600 BCE; and Plainview, 10000 BCE cultures.

The valleys of the Arkansas River and Red River were the center of Caddoan Mississippian culture, which began to develop about 800 CE. The people developed more dense settlement and a complex architecture of earthwork platform mounds. Archeological evidence has shown that these people were the direct ancestors of the historic Caddoan-language peoples who inhabited the larger region, including the Caddo and the Wichita peoples.

In the 16th century, Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado visited in 1541, beginning European contact. Around the 1700s, two tribes from the north, the Comanche and Kiowa, migrated to the Oklahoma and Texas regions.

For most of the 18th century, the French exerted nominal control over the Oklahoma region as part of their La Louisiane, or New France. The largest French settlements were along the Gulf Coast, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. The limited interaction between the Native American and European peoples was based on fur trading.

In 1803, the French sold this territory as Louisiana Purchase to the US, under President Thomas Jefferson. European Americans continued to migrate into the Southeast and across the Mississippi River into Indian territories, especially seeking territory to expand cotton cultivation, which was a lucrative commodity crop. They pressured the government to give them access to Indian lands. In 1830, under President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which removed American Indian tribes from the Southeast and relocated them to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.

Famous Peoples From Lawton Oklahoma

Jacob Louis Hamon Sr.

(June 5, 1873 – November 26, 1920) was an American attorney, oil millionaire, railway owner, and political figure. He was Chairman of the Oklahoma Republican National Committee, and after statehood, state chairman of the Republican National Committee. By 1920, he had become quite wealthy and an influential player in Republican Party politics. He allegedly swung enough Republican votes to assure Warren G. Harding would be the Republican candidate for President, and subsequently become the President-elect.

It was rumored that Harding would name Hamon to an important post in the new administration. His murder, and the subsequent trial of his mistress, was national news in 1920.

His mistress, private secretary and business agent, Clara Smith, was found innocent of murder charges.

Hamon was born native of Grenola, Kansas, graduated from the University of Kansas with a law degree in 1898. He married Georgia Perkins in 1898 in Sedan, Kansas. They had two children, Jake L. Hamon Jr. (born 1901) and Olivebelle Hamon (born 1909).

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