Minerals, Lumber and Timber Products.—Oklahoma, which ranks 17th in size among the States, ranked fifth in the value of mineral products for 1934. The State then produced 7.82% of the total mineral wealth of the U.S. as compared with 18.03% produced by Pennsylvania. The principal mineral products in the order of value were petroleum, natural gas, natural-gas gasolene, zinc, coal, lead and stone. Ranked by value of output, Oklahoma was first among the States in the production of zinc and asphalt; second in petroleum, chats, magnesium salts and tripoli ; and third in natural gas, natural-gas gasolene and calcium magnesium chloride. The mineral production of the State in 1934 had a value of $237,209,000. The petroleum and natural gas pro ducing regions of Oklahoma extend over about 43 counties in the north-central and south-western parts of the State. In 1936 the greater number of Oklahoma's 25o oil and gas fields were still pro ducing. Tulsa, the oil capital of the State, is situated in about the centre of the north-central producing area. The petroleum produc tion in 1933 was 182,251,00obbl. valued at $120,800,000; in it was 180,107,00obbl., valued at $183,700,000. The 1935 produc tion was estimated at 185,348,000 barrels. The 355,438,000gal. of natural-gas gasolene produced in 1934 had a value of $10,728,000; and the 254,457,000,00o cu.ft. of natural gas was valued at $23, 744,000. The industry fourth in importance, ranked by value of product, was the mining of zinc ore in Ottawa county. The 1934 production was 107,772 tons, valued at $9,268,392. The same region produced 16,747 tons of lead, valued at $1,239,278. The bituminous-coal mining industry was fifth in importance in the State in 1934 on the basis of value of products. The Oklahoma coal-fields lie in the eastern part of the State and extend over a very wide territory from which 11 counties reported production in 1935. The principal mining centres are McAlester, Henryetta, Wilburton, Hartshorne, Coalgate and Phillips.
The merchantable timber is mostly in the eastern part of the State, and consists largely of yellow pine, oak, red gum, elm, cottonwood and other hard woods. In 1933, according to the census of manufactures, there were 19 active saw-mills within the State, and the cut for the year was 105,000,00o board feet. Of this total about ioo,000,000 bd.ft. were soft woods, chiefly pine, and about 5,000,000 bd.ft. were hard woods, of which oak and red gum were most important. The lumber industry in 1933 gave em ployment to persons. The value of production was $1,961,000, of which $1,361,000 was added by the manufacturing processes.
Manufactures and Transport.—Oklahoma ranks high among the States of the Union in the production of raw materials; i.e., products of farms, forests and mines, which had in 1933 a value of approximately $500,0oo,000; the total factory output was valued at $191,414,000. The table shows the chief industries, the number of wage-earners employed and the value of their product in 1933:— The chief industrial centres of the State in 1933 were Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Muskogee.
The first railway in Oklahoma was that of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, which completed a line across the territory to Denison, Texas, in 1872. The railway mileage, however, increased slowly until the territory was opened to white settlement (1889), and then, in a period of decades, increased by more than 4,600 miles. By 1934 the steam railway mileage had increased to 6,657, and had touched every county in the State except Cimarron. The principal lines crossing the State from north to south are the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, the St. Louis and San Francisco, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, two lines of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific, and the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient. The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific also crosses the middle of the State from east to west. The 13 street and inter-urban electric
railway companies operating in the State in 1932 had 368m. of main track. Oklahoma has over 13o,000m. of public roads. Of this total 7,440m. are included in the State-maintained highway system. By Jan. I, 1935, 6,00im. of the State highways had been surfaced.
History.—With the exception of the narrow strip north of the most northern section cf Texas the territory comprising the pres ent State of Oklahoma was set apart by Congress in 1834, under the name of Indian Territory, for the possession of the five southern tribes (Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws and Chickasaws) and the Quapaw Agency. Early in 1809 some Cherokees in the south-eastern States made known to President Jefferson their desire to remove to hunting grounds west of the Mississippi, and at first they were allowed to occupy lands in what is now Arkansas, but by a new arrangement first entered into in 1828 they received instead, in 1838, a patent for a wide strip extending along the entire northern border of Indian Territory with the exception of the small section in the north-eastern corner which was reserved to the Quapaw Agency. By treaties nego tiated in 182o, 1825, 183o and 1842, the Choctaws received for themselves and the Chickasaws a patent for all that portion of the Territory which lies south of the Canadian and Arkansas rivers, and by treaties negotiated in 1824, 1833 and 1851 the Creeks received for themselves and the Seminoles a patent for the remaining or middle portion. Many of the Indians of these tribes brought slaves with them from the Southern States and during the Civil War they supported the Confederacy, but when that war was over the Federal Government demanded not only the liberation of the slaves but new treaties, partly on the ground that the tribal lands must be divided with the freedmen. By these treaties, negotiated in 1866, the Cherokees gave the United States permission to settle other Indians on what was approxi mately the western half of their domain ; the Seminoles, to whom the Creeks in 1855 had granted as their portion the strip between the Canadian river and its North Fork, ceded all of theirs, and the Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws ceded the western half of theirs back to the United States for occupancy by freedmen or other Indians. In the eastern portion of the lands thus placed at its disposal by the Cherokees and the Creeks, the Federal Gov ernment within the next 17 years made a number of small grants as followS: to the Seminoles in 1866, to the Sacs and Foxes in 1867, to the Osages, Kansas, Pottawatomies, Absentee Shawnees and Wichitas in 1871-72, to the Pawnees in 1876, to the Poncas and Nez Perces in 1878, to the Otoes and Missouris in 1881, and to the Iowas and Kickapoos in 1883 ; in the south-western quarter of the Territory, also, the Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches were located in 1867 and the Cheyennes and Arapahoes in 1869. There still remained unassigned the greater part of the Cherokee Outlet besides a tract embracing 1,887,800 ac. of choice land in the centre of the Territory, and the agitation for the opening of this to settlement by white people increased until in 1889 a complete title to the central tract was purchased from the Creeks and Seminoles. Soon after the purchase President Ben jamin Harrison issued a proclamation announcing that this land would be opened to homestead settlement at 12 o'clock noon, on April 22, 1889. At that hour, no less than 20,000 people were on the border, and when the signal was given there ensued a remark ably spectacular race for homes. In the next year that portion of Indian Territory which lay south of the Cherokee Outlet, and west of the lands occupied by the five tribes, together with the narrow strip north of Texas which had been denied to that State in 185o, was organized as the Territory of Oklahoma.