The development of Oklahoma was different from that of any other state because it was untouched for so long by the culture of the settlers. For half a century the tide of westward movement surged around its boundaries, unable to enter. The United States had set aside this area as the last home for various tribes of Indians. Each tribe was assigned a portion of the land between Kansas and the Red River. In the 1830s and 1840s it became a giant reservation for the displaced Southeastern Indians, who were called the Five Civilized Tribes because their cultures had been somewhat influenced by European colonists.
In the mid-19th century the southern branch of the Comanche was also settled in what was then called Indian Territory. Although a treaty was signed with the northern branch of the Comanche in 1865, for a time the United States failed to honor its pledge to grant them what is now western Oklahoma from the Red River north to the Cimarron. Hostilities between government troops and the Indians continued, even after the reservations were legitimately established, because the settlers tried to move into the Native Americans' land illegally.
In 1889 the federal government began to open the area for officially sanctioned settlement, and in poured thousands of homesteaders. Then in 1897 the drilling of a commercial oil well started a new and richer boom. The population had soared to more than 1,400,000 by 1907, the year Oklahoma was admitted to the Union as the 46th state.
The name Oklahoma was first given to a small part of the Indian Territory. In the language of the Choctaw Indians it meant red people. The nickname Sooner State came from the illegal efforts of some settlers to stake out claims in the area sooner than the official opening date of April 22, 1889.
The Sooner State is in the south-central region of the United States. It is bounded on the north by Kansas and Colorado. To the west are New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle. On the south the Red River separates Oklahoma from Texas. Arkansas and Missouri are Oklahoma's eastern neighbors. From east to west, Oklahoma is 470 miles (756 kilometers) long. This figure includes the western Panhandle--165 miles (266 kilometers) long and 34 miles (55 kilometers) wide. From north to south the main body of the state measures 205 miles (330 kilometers). The total area is 69,919 square miles (181,089 square kilometers), including 1,137 square miles (2,945 square kilometers) of inland water surface.
