Oklahoma Territory
| Territory of Oklahoma | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Organized incorporated territory of the United States | |||||||||||
| 1890–1907 | |||||||||||
The Oklahoma Territory (including the Oklahoma Panhandle), shown here together with Indian Territory, Arizona Territory and New Mexico Territory as the last 4 territories to gain statehood in the contiguous U.S. | |||||||||||
| Capital | Guthrie | ||||||||||
| • Type | Organized incorporated territory | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| May 2 1890 | |||||||||||
| November 16 1907 | |||||||||||
| |||||||||||
The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as the state of Oklahoma.
The 1890 Oklahoma Organic Act organized the western half of Indian Territory and a strip of country known as No Man's Land into Oklahoma Territory. Reservations in the new territory were then opened to settlement in a series of land runs in 1890, 1891, and 1893.
Seven counties were defined upon the creation of the territory. They were originally designated by number and eventually became Logan, Cleveland, Oklahoma, Canadian, Kingfisher, Payne, and Beaver counties. The Land Run of 1893 led to the addition of Kay, Grant, Woods, Garfield, Noble, and Pawnee counties. The territory acquired an additional county through the resolution of a boundary dispute with Texas, which today is split into Greer, Jackson, Harmon, and part of Beckham counties.