Red Fork Station

Oklahoma's encyclopedia dates the trading post to 1872, when William McDole Lee and Albert E. Reynolds set it above the high-water mark where the trail met the Cimarron, then called the Red Fork of the Arkansas. They urged cattlemen to winter herds on the surrounding range, and a semiweekly stage from Arkansas City to Fort Sill kept it open all year. In 1875 Dan Jones bought their license. The last proprietor, John Chapin, refused to leave when sooners were deported before the 1889 run and staked a town lot just after noon. That claim became Dover.

What the plaque says

Red Fork Station Site 3 Blocks South Stockade buildings of Red Fork Ranch on the Chisholm Trail, at the Cimarron or Red Fork river crossing here, included a stage station to change horses and a supply depot for travelers, late 1860's to 1890's. Troops from Ft. Sill were on duty here during Indian war alarm after the Pat Hennessey massacre, in July, 1874. Oklahoma Historical Society and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Chisholm — 9.7 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.

More markers nearby

• Baker's Ranch — 4.8 mi
• Bull Foot Station — 7.9 mi
• Kingfisher — 8.6 mi
• First Rural Mail Route — 8.6 mi