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Enid is the ninth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the county seat of Garfield County. As of the 2010 census, the population was 49,379. Enid was founded during the opening of the Cherokee Outlet in the Land Run of 1893, and is named after Enid, a character in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King. In 1991, the Oklahoma state legislature designated Enid the "purple martin capital of Oklahoma." Enid holds the nickname of "Queen Wheat City" and "Wheat Capital" of Oklahoma and the United States for its immense grain storage capacity, and has the third-largest grain storage capacity in the world. [edit] History
In summer 1889, M.A. Low, a Rock Island official, visited the local railroad station then under construction, and inquired about its name. At that time, it was called Skeleton. Disliking the original name, he renamed the station Enid after a character in Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King. However, a more fanciful story of how the town received its name is popular. According to that tale, in the days following the land run, some enterprising settlers decided to set up a chuckwagon and cook for their fellow pioneers, hanging a sign that read "DINE". Some other, more free-spirited settlers, turned that sign backward to read, of course, "ENID". The name stuck. During the opening of the Cherokee Outlet in the Land Run of 1893, Enid was the location of a land office which is now preserved in its Humphrey Heritage Village, part of the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center. Enid, the rail station, (now North Enid, Oklahoma) was the original town site endorsed by the government.[1] It was platted by the surveyor W. D. Twichell, then of Amarillo, Texas.
The town's early history was captured in Cherokee Strip: A Tale of an Oklahoma Boyhood by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marquis James, who recounts his boyhood in Enid. He writes of the early town:
Enid experienced a "golden age" following the discovery of oil in the region in the 1910s and continuing until World War II. Enid's economy boomed as a result of the growing oil, wheat, and rail industries, and its population grew steadily throughout the early 20th century in conjunction with a period of substantial architectural development and land expansion. Enid's downtown had the construction of several buildings including the Broadway Tower, Garfield County Courthouse, and Enid Masonic Temple. In conjunction with the oil boom, oilmen such as T. T. Eason, H. H. Champlin, and Charles E. Knox built homes in the area. Residential additions during this period include Kenwood, Waverley, Weatherly, East Hill, Kinser Heights, Buena Vista, and McKinley. Union Equity, Continental, Pillsbury, General Mills, and other grain companies operated mills and grain elevators in the area, creating what is now the Enid Terminal Grain Elevators Historic District, and earning Enid the titles of "Wheat Capital of Oklahoma", "Queen Wheat City of Oklahoma," and "Wheat Capital of the United States"[2] [edit] Research Tips
[edit] Image GallerySpecial Instructions for the Public School in 1963-64 Media:DeWittWallerJrH-SpecialInstructions1963-64.pdf |