Anadarko, OK Summary

Anadarko is a town of 6,500. It is located 50 miles southwest of Oklahoma City in the scenic Wichita River Valley. Modern-day Anadarko emerged overnight in 1901 when land was reclaimed from the Comanche, Wichita, and Kiowa people. Large numbers of Kiowa still live in rural communities nearby, along with six other tribes. Consequently, Native American culture is an attraction in the area, particularly during the annual Native American Exposition in August.

The oldest building in Anadarko is the Riverside Indian School, which was built in 1871 and predates the town by 30 years. It is one of five remaining all-Native- American boarding schools in the United States and just one of 100 historic buildings in Anadarko.

Two miles south is Indian City USA, which is located on the site of a massacre of Tonkawa people by a band of Shawnee during the Civil War. Indian City features authentic reconstructions of Seven Plains villages with artifacts, a museum, and activities such as tribal dancing and lectures. Dwellings include a Pawnee earth lodge, a Navajo hogan, and a Wichita council house.

The Southern Plains Indian Museum exhibits and sells a diverse array of traditional and contemporary arts of the Arapaho, Caddo, Cheyenne, Comanche, Delaware, Fort Sill Apache, Kiowa, and Wichita tribes. There is also a Delaware Tribal Museum and a National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians, which features the stories and bronze busts of 40 distinguished Native Americans. More general in its focus is the Philomathic Pioneer Museum which preserves regional antiques such as railroad memorabilia, Native American dolls, military items, photographs, and period recreations of a country store and a physician’s office.

Will Rogers World Airport, in Oklahoma City, is the closest major airport. There is also the Lawton Fort Sill Regional Airport in Lawton, about 35 miles south of Anadarko.