Shawnee is a city in and the county seat of Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 31,377 at the 2020 United States census. Shawnee is approximately 35 miles (56km) east of Oklahoma City. It is the principal city of the Shawnee Micropolitan Statistical Area, which forms part of the Oklahoma City-Shawnee Combined Statistical Area. The city was incorporated on October 18, 1894.
History After the American Civil War, the Creek and Seminole nations ceded part of their lands in Indian Territory to the federal government. The Sac and Fox, Citizen Band, Potawatomi, Absentee Shawnee and Kickapoo were subsequently removed to the region that later became Pottawatomie County.
During the 19th century, the area was crossed by the West Shawnee Cattle Trail. In 1891, lands held by the Sac and Fox, Iowa, Shawnee and Potawatomi were opened to non-Indian settlement following allotment and the sale of surplus tribal lands.
In 1871, the Society of Friends established a mission among the Absentee Shawnee south of present-day Shawnee. Missionary Joseph Newsom opened a day school there in 1872, after which the federal government assumed control of the school. Nearby, a settlement known as Shawneetown had a post office by 1870 and a trading post by 1872. On 22 September 1891, lands held by the Sac and Fox, Iowa, Shawnee and Potawatomi were opened to non-Indian settlement after tribal lands had been allotted and surplus land sold to the federal government. During the land run, Etta B. Ray, John T. Beard, James T. Farrall and Elijah A. Alley each claimed a quarter section in the area that became Shawnee.
The proposed settlement was initially known as Brockway, but early residents later agreed on the name Shawnee, after the Shawnee people. By 1892, the settlement had an estimated population of 250 and included stores, banks, newspapers, cotton gins and flour mills.
The Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad reached Shawnee on 4 July 1895, contributing to rapid growth. The population increased from about 350 in 1894 to 2,500 in 1896. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway later extended service to Shawnee in 1903–1904. Shawnee was an intended destination from Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, of the Webbers Falls, Shawnee and Western Railroad from 1911, but that line never got further west than Warner, Oklahoma.
Shawnee gained electric streetcars when the Shawnee Traction Company began operations in mid-1904. That company entered receivership by December 1905, and on February 16, 1906 was taken over by the Shawnee-Tecumseh Traction Co. ("STT"), sometimes referred to as the Interurban Electric Railway, which had been incorporated the previous day. STT added a 6-mile interurban line to Tecumseh, Oklahoma, with service beginning on September 1, 1906, giving the system approximately 12.5 miles of total trackage.
By 1910, STT operated 19.21 miles of total, and by 1917 its North Broadway streetcar line had been extended to the campus of Oklahoma Baptist University. STT abandoned its streetcar and interurban operations in January 1927. It continued to operate busses until that service was suspended in 1931.
Oklahoma Baptist University was incorporated in 1910 and opened for classes in 1911. The City of Shawnee contributed to the original 60-acre campus and Shawnee Hall, the university's first permanent building, which opened in 1915. St. Gregory's College, later St. Gregory's University, relocated to Shawnee from Sacred Heart in 1915, where its predecessor had developed from a Benedictine Catholic mission and school. On May 19, 2013, an EF4 tornado passed through the Shawnee area, causing extensive damage and resulting in two deaths and ten injuries. The Shawnee area was affected by two EF2 tornadoes during the first four months of 2023. On February 26, an EF2 tornado passed north of Shawnee, beginning near Aydelotte and continuing toward Meeker. On April 19, another EF2 tornado struck Shawnee directly, causing widespread damage, including at the Oklahoma Baptist University campus.
Historic Downtown Downtown Shawnee developed around Main Street rather than a central square, a pattern associated with many western communities established during the late 19th century. With the arrival of railroad service, Main Street became a centre of commercial, manufacturing and entertainment activity beginning in 1895.
Early economic development Competing with Oklahoma City as a regional commercial centre, Shawnee developed a broad base of economic activity in the early 20th century. By 1910, local boosters were promoting further railroad development, industry and Shawnee's candidacy for the state capital. In the statewide vote held on 11 June 1910, Shawnee finished third behind Oklahoma City and Guthrie, with Oklahoma City selected as the state capital. Main street remained the focus of much of Shawnee's commercial and manufacturing activity.
Railroads The railroad industry was central to Shawnee's early economy. During the early 20th century, the Rock Island, Santa Fe and Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroads operated in the city. The Rock Island and Santa Fe railroads established repair shops in Shawnee, and by the 1920s the city's railroad repair shops were reported to employ nearly 1,000 workers. The Santa Fe Depot, built in 1903 in the Romanesque style, remains on East Main Street and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Agriculture and industry During the early 20th century, Shawnee served as a regional agricultural centre. Cotton was a major crop, and Main Street was frequently lined with cotton bales and other agricultural produce brought into the city for sale. Shawnee also developed significant agricultural-processing industries, including cottonseed-oil and flour milling. The Shawnee Milling Company, established under that name in 1906, became a longstanding part of the city’s milling industry.
After the Second World War, manufacturing became increasingly important to Shawnee's economy. Sylvania Electric Products opened a plant in Shawnee in 1950 to manufacture radio and television tubes. Jonco Aircraft Corporation also operated in Shawnee, producing aircraft frames and components. Shawnee Milling Company continued operating through the post-war period, rebuilding after major fires in 1934 and 1954.
Round House Workwear has manufactured jeans and overalls in Shawnee since 1903. The company developed from the Shawnee Garment Manufacturing Company and marketed workwear to the city's large railroad workforce. Edward Antosh purchased the company in the 1960's, and the Antosh family has contiued to operate it. Round House products are also exported internationally.
Sonic, a well-known drive-in fast food chain, originated in Shawnee. The 3000th Sonic Drive-In is also in Shawnee. Troy N. Smith, Sr. and Joe McKimmey owned the Log House Restaurant and a drive-up root beer stand called the Top Hat. In 1959 Smith and McKimmey went their separate ways and Smith opened a hamburger drive-in down Harrison Street installing a "call-in" system rather than the carhops. He dubbed his drive-in the Sonic. Both places were in existence until a fire in the Top Hat in the mid-1960s forced closure. McKimmey built the Log House Restaurant into a popular steak house and Smith sold franchises to the Sonic and has since expanded into a national drive-in food chain with now over 3,500 establishments.
Beginning in the 1970s, Shawnee's economy improved with the addition of a number of industrial plants, including Eaton Corp. and TDK north of the city; they added approximately 1,000 jobs to the community base.
In 1980 Main Street was dominated by small retail establishments in which 80 percent are housed in buildings built prior to statehood in 1907. The majority of these buildings have had their façades altered to adjust to the changing tastes in the 20th century although one block (between Philadelphia and Union streets) remains substantially unaltered reminding of how life on Main Street functioned prior to statehood.
One block west at Broadway and Main the building originally constructed as The Mammoth Department Store, has been altered very little. The building once housed Montgomery Ward and is now Neal's Home Furnishings. Before World War II, Main Street also had numerous drugstores and soda fountains serving as gathering places for young people. Today, Owl Drug, in a building operated as a drugstore since 1895, retains many old fixtures and appears much as it did during the 20th century.
Shawnee's first sky scraper, the Hilton Phillips Hotel, later known as the Aldridge, was built in 1928 at the peak of the wealth and growth generated by the oil boom of the 1920s. This stimulated development of the four-story Masonic Temple Office Building, constructed in 1929 across the 9th street from the Aldridge.
Main Street had a number of entertainment facilities. A convention hall attracted well-known celebrities of the 1910s and 1920s, such as Sarah Bernhardt but was razed by 1930 for a bus company barn. An opera house on Market and Main was the site of many memorable events. The early movies theaters are now gone except the Ritz Theater, which was the oldest continuously operating theater in Oklahoma until the theater's closure in 1989. It continues to be used for "live shows." The Bison Theater building remains but after being used as an antique shop it's now empty. Downtown Shawnee has lost many buildings of historical value, but still retains a significant number of resources. These provide a living reminder of the retail and human scale of Main Street in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Santa Fe Depot
Located at 614 E. Main in Shawnee is a unique railroad depot made of limestone blocks two to three-feet deep. With a 60 ft. turret, it takes on the slight appearance of a castle, contrasting with the surrounding architecture. It was built in 1902 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. After operations of the Santa Fe Railroad ceased in 1971 the City of Shawnee took over the depot property. It was assigned to the Pottawatomie County Historical Society which began restoration of this depot in 1979, after it had stood vacant for two decades. The building was remodeled into a railroad and historical museum, which opened on May 30, 1982. It contains numerous local artifacts from the settlement of Shawnee, as well as railroad memorabilia and a gift shop. The Board of Directors is currently erecting a new building directly north of the old depot. The 100+ year old depot will then house railroad artifacts while other items will be displayed in the new area.
Benson Park Located midway between Shawnee and Tecumseh, Benson Park served the recreational needs of Shawnee residents for about 20 years. It had a stop on the interurban streetcar that ran between the two towns to the park. Built by the railroad to encourage citizens to travel by rail it opened in 1907. The park had a lake for boating, an opera house, skating rink, roller coaster, large picnic areas and later a swimming pool known as The Plunge. The arrival of automobiles which most families could then afford plus the financial distress in the late '20s forced closure soon after 1930 although the pool and the picnic areas were still briefly in use. , the space that was once the park is on private property and occupied by a large pecan orchard.
Pottawatomie County Seat dispute
In 1907 Oklahoma was admitted as a state and 8,024 people voted that the county seat be moved to Shawnee while 5,027 wanted it to remain in Tecumseh. The case was appealed and the higher courts decided bribery might have figured into the election since Shawnee had offered use of property in Woodland Park as a site for the county court house. In 1911, the people of Pottawatomie County again voted to keep the county seat at Tecumseh, by a vote of 7,749 to 5,927.