Old Hardesty

The town's newspapers outlasted its streets. The Hardesty Times was publishing by 1889, Richard B. Quinn renamed it the Hardesty Herald in 1891, and the Hardesty Kicker followed in 1893. When the Rock Island laid its tracks twenty miles west in 1901, creating Sanford, later Guymon, most businesses and the Herald moved there, and in 1906 Quinn wrote that 'Old Hardesty town is no more.' Archaeologists partly excavated the townsite in 1975 before Optima Lake was created, and the Old Hardesty Archaeological Site is listed in the National Register.

What the plaque says

Old Hardesty 1886 - 1906 Old Hardesty was a typical trade center and the mecca of early cow- boys in No Man's Land. The town, located about 3 miles northeast of this marker, was named for Col. Jack Hardesty, a prominent rancher in the area. Old Hardesty flourished when trail herds crossed the area but died when the Rock Island Rail- road bypassed it. The cemetery is located on Prairie Dog Point Road. Beaver River Genealogical and Historical Society Oklahoma Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• No Man's Land Museum — 24 mi
  The Panhandle's own museum at Goodwell, kept since 1934 by a society the strip's first settlers founded, on the campus of Oklahoma Panhandle State University.

More markers nearby

• Shade's Well — 24 mi