Tacola/Cloud Chief School

Tacola was platted in April 1892 as the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation was opened to outside settlement, and within weeks it was said to hold more than 3,000 people, many of them Texans. Many left almost at once to fetch their families, and the town recovered to a peak of about 700. After the county-seat vote of 1900 the Cloud Chief Beacon printed its August 17 issue and moved to Cordell. The Works Progress Administration built the high school in 1938. The post office closed on December 31, 1964, and the town lost its charter that year.

What the plaque says

Cloud Chief School 1918-1937 Tacola/Cloud Chief School Created in 1892, Tacola School met in a dugout until 1894 when a 30' x 50' bldg. was built 1/2 mi. SW of this marker. In 1918, the school was moved to a new bldg. north of this marker. During the 1921 consolidation of school districts, the name changed to Cloud Chief. The high school moved to Cordell in 1958 and the school closed in 1960. Cloud Chief School 1938-1960

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kiowa Tribal Museum — 17 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 — 19 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.
• Stafford Air & Space Museum — 22 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.

More markers nearby

• Site of First Washita County Court House — steps away
• Cordell Academy — 8.6 mi
• Millie Durgan, White Captive — 13 mi
• Red Bluff Community Church and School — 14 mi