Stillwater, OK news and local guide

Accounts of the name differ. One legend says local tribes, the Ponca, Kiowa, Osage and Pawnee, called the creek Still Water because its water was always still. Another says Texas cattlemen always found water "still there," and a third credits David L. Payne, who supposedly declared that the town should be called Still Water. The creek got its official name in 1884, when William L. Couch set up his "boomer" colony on its banks. The next years were turbulent, as settlers sought free land and soldiers held them off while titles involving the Creek and Seminole were worked out. On April 22, 1889, cannons signaled the first Land Run into the Unassigned Lands, which included Stillwater, and by day's end 240 acres had been claimed as Stillwater Township and a tent city of 300 had risen on the prairie. The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture says the name became official only when the post office opened on May 28, 1889. On Christmas Eve, 1890, the territorial legislature chose Stillwater as the site of the land-grant college, and in 1894 Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, now Oklahoma State University, dedicated its first brick building, Old Central. By statehood in 1907 downtown had more than 50 buildings, and the Eastern Oklahoma Railroad arrived in 1900. Sources Wikipedia: Stillwater, Oklahoma