Walters

History

The land that is present-day Oklahoma was first settled by prehistoric American Indians including the Clovis 11500 BCE, Folsom 10600 BCE, and Plainview 10000 BCE cultures. Western explorers came to the region in the 16th century, with Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado visiting in 1541. Most of the region during this time was settled by the Wichita and Caddo peoples. Around the 1700s, two tribes from the north, the Comanche and Kiowa, migrated to the Oklahoma and Texas region. For most of the 18th century, the Oklahoma region was under French control as part of Louisiana. In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase by Thomas Jefferson brought the area under United States control. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which removed American Indian tribes and relocated them to Indian Territory. The southern part of the territory was originally assigned to the Choctaw and Chickasaw, until the 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty allotted the southwest portion of the Choctaw and Chickasaw's lands to the Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache. The City of Walters was organized on August 6, 1901, under the original name of McKnight (named after the registrar at the Lawton land office), Indian Territory. Application for a post office was made, but a town in Harmon County was found to have already taken the name of McKnight. This required that the name be changed. Walter was chosen, in honor of either McKnight's son or for a prominent resident, William Walter(s). The post office was named Walter but Congress allowed it to be changed to Walters in 1917 . The city finally grew large enough to meet the requirements for a government patent, and one was granted in June 1904. On August 12, 1912, an election was held to form a new county (Cotton) from a portion of Comanche County. The…

Geography

The city is lies in the Taovayan Valley, the area between the Wichita Mountains and the Red River. Consisting of grassland, oak savannahs, and rolling hills, the city lies within an ecotone on the western edge of the Cross Timbers, which are located to the east. Monsoon-like rains are common in the spring, while periods of drought can occur throughout other parts of the year. The city is about south of Lawton, situated between two tributaries of the Red River, the East and West Cache Creeks. The bottom lands around the creeks are thickly surrounded by burr oak, escarpment live oak, Shumard oak, pecan, eastern redbud, American persimmon, and American elm. |date=October 2, 2010 }}

Race & ethnicity