WICHITA FALLS, a city of northern Texas, U.S.A., ioo m. N.W. of Fort Worth, on the Wichita river near the Red river, at an altitude of 946 ft.; the county seat of Wichita county and one of the principal trading centres of the South-west. It is on Fed eral highways 7o and 37o, and is served by the Fort Worth and Denver City, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas, the Wichita Falls and Southern, and the Wichita Valley railways. The population was 40,079 in 1920 (9o% native white) and was 43,690 in 1930 by Federal census. Wichita Falls is surrounded by extensive gas and
oil fields and an agricultural region devoted to stock-raising, dairying and the cultivation of cotton, wheat, corn and fruit. Its manufactures (including 14 oil refineries) are numerous and varied, with an output in 1927 valued at There are many oilfield supply houses and large wholesale and jobbing firms. The city's assessed valuation of property for 1927 was $45,100,060. The city was founded in 1874 and incorporated in 1876.