Last "Boomer" Town

William L. Couch, who led the boomers here after David Payne's death, did not stop at Stillwater. He and some followers were later arrested and charged with treason against the United States, and they went free when government witnesses failed to appear. He kept pressing Congress until the House approved the Oklahoma Bill on February 1, 1889. Couch made the run that April, staked a claim in present downtown Oklahoma City and was elected its first mayor, but J. C. Adams shot him on April 4, 1890, and he died on April 21.

What the plaque says

Last "Boomer" Town About 3/4 mi. east Here 300 armed "boomers" made their last stand for settlement of the Oklahoma country, led by Wm. L. Couch; and surrendered to U. S. Cavalry troops commanded by Col. E. Hatch, Jan. 26, 1885. On this site, the "boomers" had built log cabins and dugouts for their town of Stillwater founded by them on Dec. 12, 1884. Oklahoma Historical Society and State Highway Commission 1957

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cherokee Strip Museum and Rose Hill School — 19 mi
  Perry's museum of the Cherokee Outlet, in a town that was a land office on bare prairie the morning of September 16, 1893 and held some 25,000 people that night.
• Pawnee Nation Museum — 21 mi
  The Pawnee Nation's own museum in Pawnee, keeping the Nation's objects and the record of a military tradition it traces from the Pawnee Scouts of 1864 to the code talkers of World War II.
• Oklahoma Territorial Museum and Carnegie Library — 26 mi
  The 1902 Carnegie Library in Guthrie where Oklahoma's statehood was proclaimed in 1907, saved from demolition in 1972 by adding a museum of the seventeen territorial years beside it.

More markers nearby

• Oklahoma A. and M. College — steps away
• Stillwater — 0.9 mi
• Boundary Line 1889 and 1893 — 4.1 mi
• Outlaw Battle — 9.4 mi