The Sooner State

A History of Oaklahoma

A Sweeping History of the Great State of Oaklahoma

Oklahoma's history is short but explosive. In barely more than a century of statehood, this crossroads state has witnessed some of America's most dramatic moments: the forced removal of the Five Civilized Tribes along the Trail of Tears, the chaotic land runs that saw fifty thousand people race for claims in a single day, the devastation of the Tulsa Race Massacre, the ecological catastrophe of the Dust Bowl, and the deadliest act of domestic terrorism before 9/11.

But Oklahoma's story is more than a catalog of tragedies. It is a tale of resilience and reinvention, of Native nations rebuilding sovereignty against all odds, of oil wildcatters striking it rich, of communities coming together after disaster, and of a state perpetually caught between competing visions of itself—Southern and Western, rural and urban, traditional and progressive.

The Sooner State traces Oklahoma from the ancient Spiro Mounds through the present day, revealing how this young state's compressed, dramatic history illuminates larger American stories about displacement and dispossession, boom-and-bust capitalism, racial violence and reckoning, and the ongoing struggle to create something just and sustainable from contested ground.

At the crossroads where different regions and cultures collide, Oklahoma remains what it has always been: a place of sudden transformation and deep continuity, where the past refuses to stay buried and the future remains genuinely uncertain. This is the story of how Oklahomans have navigated that crossroads—and what their choices reveal about America itself.