Comanche County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, the population was 121,125, making it the fifth-most populous county in Oklahoma. Its county seat is Lawton. The county was created in 1901 as part of Oklahoma Territory. It was named for the Comanche tribal nation.
Lawton is a city in and the county seat of Comanche County, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Located in western Oklahoma, approximately 87 mi (140 km) southwest of Oklahoma City, it is the principal city of the Lawton, Oklahoma, metropolitan statistical area. According to the 2020 census, Lawton's population was 90,381, making it the sixth-largest city in the state, and the largest in Western Oklahoma.
Gerónimo was a military leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Ndendahe Apache people. From 1850 to 1886, Geronimo joined with members of three other Central Apache bands – the Tchihende, the Tsokanende and the Nednhi – to carry out numerous raids, as well as fight against Mexican and U.S. military campaigns in the northern Mexico states of Chihuahua and Sonora and in the southwestern American territories of New Mexico and Arizona.
Kiowa or CáuigúIPA:[kɔ́j-gʷú]) people are a Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries, and eventually into the Southern Plains by the early 19th century. In 1867, the Kiowa were moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.
Quanah Parker was a war leader of the Kwahadi ("Antelope") band of the Comanche Nation. He was likely born into the Nokoni ("Wanderers") band of Tabby-nocca and grew up among the Kwahadis, the son of Kwahadi Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo-American who had been abducted as an eight-year-old child during the Fort Parker massacre in 1836 and assimilated into the Nokoni tribe. Following the apprehension of several Kiowa chiefs in 1871, Quanah Parker emerged as a dominant figure in the Red River War, clashing repeatedly with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. With European-Americans hunting American bison, the Comanches' primary sustenance, into near extinction, Quanah Parker eventually surrendered and peaceably led the Kwahadi to the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Fort Sill is a United States Army post north of Lawton, Oklahoma, about 85 miles (137 km) southwest of Oklahoma City. It covers almost 94,000 acres (38,000 ha).
The Plains Apache are a small Southern Athabaskan tribe who live on the Southern Plains of North America, in close association with the linguistically unrelated Kiowa Tribe. Today, they are headquartered in Southwestern Oklahoma and are federally recognized as the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. They mostly live in Comanche and Caddo County, Oklahoma.
Comanche history – in the 18th and 19th centuries the Comanche became the dominant tribe on the southern Great Plains. The Comanche are often characterized as "Lords of the Plains." They presided over a large area called Comancheria which they shared with allied tribes, the Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Wichita, and after 1840 the southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. Comanche power and their substantial wealth depended on horses, trading, and raiding. Adroit diplomacy was also a factor in maintaining their dominance and fending off enemies for more than a century. They subsisted on the bison herds of the Plains which they hunted for food and skins.
Fort Sill National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery located in the city of Elgin in Comanche County, Oklahoma. Administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, it encompasses 391.3 acres (158.4 ha), and as of 2021 had more than 8,000 interments.
Chief Naiche was the final hereditary chief of the Chiricahua band of Apache Indians.
The Texas–Indian wars were a series of conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians during the 19th-century. Conflict between the Plains Indians and the Spanish began before other European and Anglo-American settlers were encouraged—first by Spain and then by the newly Independent Mexican government—to colonize Texas in order to provide a protective-settlement buffer in Texas between the Plains Indians and the rest of Mexico. As a consequence, conflict between Anglo-American settlers and Plains Indians occurred during the Texas colonial period as part of Mexico. The conflicts continued after Texas secured its independence from Mexico in 1836 and did not end until 30 years after Texas became a state of the United States, when in 1875 the last free band of Plains Indians, the Comanches led by Quahadi warrior Quanah Parker, surrendered and moved to the Fort Sill reservation in Oklahoma.
The Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma is the federally recognized Native American tribe of Chiricahua Warm Springs Apache in Oklahoma.
Fort Cobb was a United States Army post established in what is now Caddo County, Oklahoma in 1859 to protect relocated Native Americans from raids by the Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne. The fort was abandoned by Maj. William H. Emory at the beginning of the Civil War, but then occupied by Confederate forces from 1861–1862. The post was eventually reoccupied by US forces starting in 1868. After establishing Fort Sill the US Army abandoned Fort Cobb. Today there is little left of the former military post.
The History of Lawton, Oklahoma refers to the history of the southwestern Oklahoma city of Lawton, Oklahoma. Lawton's history starts with opening of American Indian reservation lands in the early 1900s and has seen population and economic growth throughout the 20th Century due to its proximity with Fort Sill.
Lawrie Tatum was a Quaker who was best known as an Indian Agent to the Kiowa and Comanche tribes at Fort Sill agency in Indian Territory.
I-See-O, also known as Tahbonemah, was a Kiowa-American soldier who served as an officer in the United States Army for nearly fifty years in the Seventh Cavalry and was the last active duty U.S. Army Indian Scout upon his death in 1927.
Southern Plains Indian Museum is a Native American museum located in Anadarko, Oklahoma. It was opened in 1948 under a cooperative governing effort by the United States Department of the Interior and the Oklahoma state government. The museum features cultural and artistic works from Oklahoma tribal peoples of the Southern Plains region, including the Caddo, Chiricahua Apache, Comanche, Delaware Nation, Kiowa, Plains Apache, Southern Arapaho, Southern Cheyenne, and Wichita.
Ketch Ranch House or Ketch Ranch was private property located in the Wichita Mountains of Southwestern Oklahoma. During the early 1920s, the forest reserve residence was established as a working ranch and vacation home for Ada May Ketch and Frank Levant Ketch who served as mayor of Ringling, Oklahoma.
Apache Casino Hotel or Fort Sill Apache Casino is operated and owned by the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. The casino and hotel is located within Comanche County bearing east of Interstate 44 in Lawton, Oklahoma. In January 1999, the Native American gaming establishment was introduced to Southwestern Oklahoma within the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation lands. The Apache gaming enterprise originated as a membrane structure or tension fabric building housing Class II or Class III casino gaming and slot machines.
Blockhouse on Signal Mountain is within the Fort Sill Military Reservation, north of Lawton, Oklahoma. The rock architecture is located along Mackenzie Hill Road at the summit of Signal Mountain within the Fort Sill West Range being the Oklahoma administrative division of Comanche County.
