Why Is Oklahoma Shaped Like A Cooking Pot With A Panhandle?

The story of how Oklahoma ’s borders end up calculate like a preparation muckle with a handle is one steeped in the province ’s unique story and the legacy of bondage .

Take a tone at a map of the US and you ’ll see the shape of Oklahoma isrelatively rectangular - shapedexcept for a 106 - km ( 66 - mi ) strip of acres awkwardly poking out of its top remaining turning point towards New Mexico . It quite literally sticks out like a sore quarter round .

Beneath this band of landed estate , get laid as the Oklahomo Panhandle , is the res publica of Texas which looks as if it could encompass this funnies quite comfortably . However , drawing up borders israrely that simple .

It all start when Texas officially declared independency from Mexico in 1836 . The Republic of Texas survive as an main country until 1845 when it was take on to the Union as a striver state .

However , under theMissouri Compromiseof 1820 , slavery was forbidden north of the 36 ° 30′ parallel . In gild to not winnow the flames of this growingly contentious outcome , Texas prune off a few dozen kilometers from its northmost border , which was mostly uninhabited except for a few herding community .

And so , this unusual strip of farming was exit hover like a landlocked island .

By the 1880s , the landing strip wasdeclared public domainand subject to " squatter ’s rights , " causing a flood of in-migration . The area was know as a Public Land Strip but became nicknamed No Man ’s Land since it was fundamentally a outlaw zone , race by self - rule collective of squatters and rancher who often ruled by ring justice and vigilante justice .

The liquidation grew into " squatter towns , " but little farming took place , owing to the lack of money in the area and its aloofness from important trade hub .

By 1890 , it became evident to the key government that the berth ask to be resolved . The Oklahoma Organic Act of 1890 assign Public Land Strip to the new Oklahoma Territory and , in 1907 , it became fully unified into the state of Oklahoma .

The hard times for the Oklahoma Panhandle were not over yet , however . The notorious droughts of the thirties gravely touch this flight strip of solid ground , effectively call on the Panhandle into the epicenter of theDust Bowl . decease , poverty , and despair quickly accompany . If you want a bright illustration of how dismal this clock time was in Oklahoma , look no further than John Steinbeck ’s 1939 novelThe Grapes of Wrath .

Even today , the Oklahoma Panhandle ’s olympian account can still be see . The Panhandle has a population of just 29,000 , less than 1 percent of the state ’s total universe , and the rate of peopleliving in povertyis higher than the national norm .