Colony

The granite calls the 1892 land run start here a local tradition, and the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History gives the reason. Cobb Creek was dangerous to cross in a crowd, so the government let more than two thousand would-be settlers begin inside the boundaries, with John Seger in charge of them. Zack King and others laid out a townsite west of the Indian school and won a post office named Seger, and the post office and most residents moved four miles west. In 1896 a post office called Colony opened at the original site.

What the plaque says

Colony One of the oldest towns in western Oklahoma founded in 1886 by John Seger and the Cheyenne-Arapaho on the banks of Cobb Creek. Seger Indian Industrial School operated here from 1892 until 1932. Local tradition holds this was a starting point for the land run of 1892. Dutch Reformed Mission opened here in 1895. Post office establish- ed Jan. 8, 1896. Buildings on this block built in 1920's by Fred Kauger and restored by Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice Yvonne Kauger. Long before the 20th century, Native Americans occupied the surrounding land c. 906-1400 A.D. George Bent lived in the area and is buried nearby. Pow wows held here since late 1930's by Cheyenne-Arapaho tribes. Oklahoma Historical Society 229-1997

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stafford Air & Space Museum — 14 mi
  Weatherford's museum for its astronaut son, Thomas P. Stafford, grown from an airport display case into 75,000 square feet of flight beside I-40 and old Route 66.
• Kiowa Tribal Museum — 18 mi
  The Kiowa Tribe's own museum at its Carnegie complex, where ten murals by Kiowa artists carry the people's story from before memory to the present day.
• Oklahoma Route 66 Museum — 21 mi
  The Oklahoma Historical Society's museum of the road in Clinton, decade by decade from the 1926 designation through the Dust Bowl and the war to the 1950s diner.
• Southern Plains Indian Museum — 31 mi
  A free federal museum in Anadarko, open since the late 1940s, showing the clothing, shields, cradleboards and art of the Kiowa, Comanche, Wichita, Caddo, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Delaware and Apache nations.

More markers nearby

• Site of First Washita County Court House — 11 mi
• Tacola/Cloud Chief School — 11 mi
• Millie Durgan, White Captive — 18 mi
• Cordell Academy — 18 mi