Portal:Oklahoma/Cities/16

Ponca City is a city located in north central Oklahoma, 18 miles south of the Kansas border and is the most populous city in Kay County. The population was 25,596 at the 2000 census.

Ponca City was founded in 1893 after the Cherokee Outlet was opened for settlement in the Cherokee Strip land run and is named after the Ponca Tribe, which relocated from Nebraska to northern Oklahoma from 1877 to 1880. The site for Ponca City was selected because of its proximity to the Arkansas River and a fresh water spring near the river. The city was founded by Burton Barnes who drew up the first survey of the city and sold lottery tickets for the lots he had surveyed. After the drawing for lots in the city was completed, Barnes was elected the city's first mayor.

Ponca City's history has been shaped for the most part by the ebb and flow of the petroleum industry. The Marland Oil Company, which once controlled approximately 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, was founded by eventual Oklahoma governor and U.S. congressman E. W. Marland, who founded the 101 Ranch Oil Company located on the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch and drilled his first successful oil well on land he leased from the Ponca Tribe of American Indians in 1911. (Read more...)