PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: Cotton County holds a genuine and distinctive place in Oklahoma history as the last county ever created in the state, formed in 1912 out of the southern portion of Comanche County; the county’s name was chosen from a list of options through a popular vote, honoring cotton, the region’s prevailing agricultural crop at the time; much of the county’s eastern and southern land was originally part of the “Big Pasture,” a genuine 488,000-acre grazing reserve set aside for Kiowa-Comanche and Wichita-Caddo livestock (with many acres also leased to white ranchers) before it was opened to settlement in 1906 through a sealed-bid process personally overseen by President Theodore Roosevelt; the federal government platted five original townsites for the Big Pasture opening – Randlett, Eschiti, Ahpeatone, Quanah, and Isadore – and Randlett, named for James Randlett, an Indian agent who worked with the Comanche and Kiowa, remains the only one of those original Big Pasture townsites still incorporated today; when land lots in Randlett went up for public auction on May 13, 1907, an estimated 4,500 potential buyers showed up, and by 1910 the town had grown to 574 residents with two banks and a newspaper; the county seat itself, Walters, was originally established under the name McKnight in 1901, and after a flood in 1902 forced most residents to relocate south, the town took on its current site and, eventually, its current name – Congress officially approved the change from “Walter” to “Walters” in 1917; Walters preserves its territorial-era heritage today at the Cotton County Museum, which displays tools, housewares, cook stoves, and medical equipment, and at the 1920 Rock Island Depot, which houses original Comanche artist frescoes documenting the area’s history
Notes: Cotton County’s genuine distinction as the last county created in Oklahoma, paired with its documented Big Pasture origins involving a presidentially overseen land opening, makes for one of the more historically specific county founding stories found anywhere in this project.