Kingfisher College

Rev. Joseph Homer Parker, a Congregational missionary who came after the 1889 run, raised eastern money for an academy that met in a church basement, and the college itself opened on September 2, 1895, in the town's former Central Hotel. Parker Hall, the first campus building, rose a mile east of town in 1898. Only about twenty of its 117 graduates went into religious work, but three won Rhodes scholarships. Parker's daughter, Harriet Parker Camden, wrote "Oklahoma, A Toast," the first official state song. After 1922 the Pentecostal Holiness Church ran King's College on the campus.

What the plaque says

Kingfisher College Founded by Congregationalists, this college -- site one mile north, 1890-1922, achieved renown in education and character-building. It lives on at the University of Oklahoma as the Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics. Oklahoma Historical Society and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Chisholm — 1.9 mi
  Kingfisher's farming and ranching museum on the Chisholm Trail's stage branch, with a heritage village and Horizon Hill, the mansion a territorial governor built for a capital that never came.
• Historic Fort Reno — 22 mi
  The Army post beside the Cheyenne and Arapaho agency at Darlington, from which troops chased the Northern Cheyenne north in 1878, later a remount station and a prisoner-of-war camp.

More markers nearby

• Historical Society Birthplace — 1.5 mi
• Kingfisher — 1.5 mi
• Kingfisher Stage Station — 1.9 mi
• Run of '92 — 2.9 mi