History Of Payne County Oklahoma
The Perkins Journal
January
10, 1895
In the NEW COUNTRY
Column
Brief Bits of General News from the Territories
"It
is talked strong that the Court House at Stillwater was burned to get
rid of fraudulent records"
Courtesy
of: Frederick M. Dittmar
Payne
Co. was founded in 1889 as County #6, the name Payne later
selected. Parts were added on in 1891 (Iowa/Sac & Fox lands),
1893 (Cherokee Strip) and small bits at other times. Rock and Walnut
Twps. were taken from Payne County and attached to Noble County at
Statehood. Land records technically go back to 1889 (not all were
rerecorded after the courthouse fire of 1894). Marriages go back to
1893, and probate start 1894.
Payne County was named for Captain
David L. Payne, called the "father of Oklahoma" the leader
of the Oklahoma Boomers. He was on his way to Stillwater with the
other Boomers when he died suddenly of a heart attack November 28,
1884 in Wellington, Kansas. He is buried now in Stillwater, Oklahoma
(since April 22, 1995) on the southwestern corner of Boomer
Lake/Park.
The county seat is Stillwater, named after a nearby
creek "Stillwater Creek" a tributary of the Cimarron River,
post office established in 1889.
Stillwater was the first recorded
reference to a non-Indian settlement in the "Unassigned Lands"
of what was to become Oklahoma.
It was part of a cavalry officer's
report after an encounter with the "Boomer" settlement on
Christmas Eve, 1884. That's why it is often said Stillwater is "Where
Oklahoma Began". Stillwater was the northern edge of the first
land run into Oklahoma in 1889. The northern edge of Stillwater
borders the "Cherokee Strip" area which was opened to
settlement in the land run of 1893.