Custer Co., OK - History:  Clinton, OK

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Submitted by:   Susan Cabaniss Bradford  smcb0824@icqmail.com
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From the Clinton Chamber of Commerce brochure (1970s).

History of Clinton


The opening of Clinton in 1903 came about after a protracted encounter over
the right to purchase 320 acres of Indian land at the intersection of two 
railroads.

At the time Indians were not permitted to sell more than half of their 160 
acre allotments and then only after Congress had granted special 
permission.   Consequently a bill was proprosed and sent to Washington.

In the closing session of Congress 1902, the bill was passed allowing the 
Indians to sell 80 acres of their land for the townsite.

Four quarters of land, 80 acres each, were purchased. The Indians were paid
$2,000 each for their land which made the townsite cost $8,000 in all.

Soon afterward, the Townsite Company had Washita Townsite surveyed and an 
intensive advertising campaign was conducted over much of the nation 
telling of the sale in June 1903.

The lots were priced and marked before opening the townsite on June 3. Both
the Rock Island and the "Bes" lines ran excursion trains into the town on 
the days of the sale.  The town was swamped. Receipts for the first day 
were about $35,000 and the next two days of the sale netted approximately 
the same, for a total of about $50,000.

Clinton, at first called Washita Junction, was founded nearly four years 
after a prosperous city was envisioned at the intersection of the east-west
Rock Island Railroad and the north-south "Bes" Line.  It became a city 
almost overnight after the townsite sale of June 3, 4, and 5, 1903.

Three buildings stood in Clinton on the day the town was opened. The first 
was the building of the Custer County Chronicle, which was moved from 
nearby Weatherford.  The Townsite office was erected on Frisco Avenue, and 
the First National Bank building was constructed at the corner of Fourth 
and Frisco.

When the post office refused to accept the name of Washita, the townspeople
changed the name to Clinton in honor of Judge Clinton Irwin.

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Indian land was bought about 1899  ....  "protracted encounter"  quite a 
euphemism for the mud-slinging that Arapaho and Washita Junction developers
had in newspapers.