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Yukon is a city in Canadian County, Oklahoma, United States and is part of the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area. The population was 22,709 at the 2010 census. [edit] History
Yukon was founded by A.N. Spencer in 1891, and was named for the Yukon River in Alaska. Spencer, a cattleman from Texas turned railroad builder, was working on a line from El Reno to Arkansas when he decided to build the town. Spencer filed the plat on the townsite on February 14, 1891.[1] He had agreed to do so and lay the train tracks through the town in exchange for half of the lots, which were owned by Minnie Taylor and Luther S. Morrison.[2] Taylor and Morrison had acquired the land in the 1889 land run.[2] Spencer also bought two quarter sections south of Main Street from Joseph Carson and his sister, Josephine.[1] Spencer and his brother, Lewis, named the town after the Yukon Territory of Canada, where a gold rush was booming at the time. The first houses and businesses were located on the north side of Spencer Avenue (now Main Street) and present Fourth and Fifth Streets.[1] The Canadian County Courier reported on April 1, 1891, that the city had 25 homes, one bank, two real estate offices, two restaurants, a lumber yard, a hardware store, a grocery, a livery stable, two saloons, a blacksmith shop, a printing office, a barber shop, and a second barber shop "about completed."[1] The Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway Company laid its track, causing the abandonment of Frisco, which had a population of 1,000 at the time.[2] Beginning in about 1898, Yukon began to attract immigrants from Bohemia. Following World War I and the dissolution of Bohemia into Czechoslovakia and Moravia, the immigrants became known as "Czechs."[2] Yukon is known as the "Czech Capital of Oklahoma."[2] The town voted to incorporate in 1901 and voted to add water works, sewer, and electricity from the mill in 1910.[1] Businesses remained clustered on Main Street between Fourth and Fifth, until the 1920s, when they began to locate in other parts of the town.[1] The interurban was built from Oklahoma City to El Reno in 1911.[1] It closed in 1911.[1] Paved roads didn't arrive until the construction of State Highway 66 in 1926.[1] Yukon quickly thrived as the urban center for area farmers and had an organized library by 1905 and a dedicated library building in 1927.[2] A small milling operation, the Yukon Mill and Grain Company, opened in 1893 and grew tremendously, shipping flour and feeds throughout the south and exporting them overseas by 1915.[1] The milling operation was owned by the Kroutil and Dobry families, but the Dobry family built their own mill and parted ways with the Kroutils in the 1930s.[1] The mills were sold to larger corporations; Shawnee Mills purchased the Yukon Mill and Grain Company and Mid-Continent purchased the Dobry Mills.[2] Paying homage to that history, the students of Yukon High School are known as "Millers," and their mascot is "The Miller Man." From a population of 830 in 1907, Yukon grew slowly to 1,990 by 1950.[2] By 1960, the population registered at 3,076.[2] The town had grown to approximately 22,000 residents in 2005.[1] [edit] Research Tips
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