Its motto: Labor Conquers All Things.

Its nicknames: Boomer State, Sooner State.

Where the Face of America Changes

Oklahoma stands where North America changes from shady woodlands to stark desert buttes. In the eastern part of the state, lush, green, wooded hills and valleys spilling over from Missouri and Arkansas, are so reminiscent of the South that Oklahomans call this area Little Dixie. At the state's center, vast grasslands stretch southward from the great American prairie. Farther west, in the panhandle, stark silhouettes of lonely buttes dominate the flat, dry High Plains terrain.

The weather also can change dramatically here. Cool, dry air from the north colliding with southern breezes gives the state nearly constant winds and violent storms. When a stranger asks, "Does the wind blow this way all the time?" a native Oklahoman is likely to reply, "No. Half the time it blows the other way."

As if taking a cue from the weather, the state itself has had a volatile past. Oklahoma was home to the Plains Indians when, in 1825, the U.S. government declared the region Indian Territory. During the next half century more than 60 tribes from the East and the northern Plains were forcibly moved to reservations there. Then, under pressure from homesteaders, the government took back reservation lands. At noon on April 22, 1889, the territory was instantly transformed as white settlers raced to claim homesteads in the first Oklahoma's land rushes. By evening whole cities of tents had sprung up on the grassy plains.

When these homesteaders arrived, the Oklahoma tallgrass prairie was a waving sea of green. But within 40 years the soil was so overtilled that it was waiting for disaster, and in the 1930's tragedy struck in the form of drought. As vegetation died, the dry soil was blown away by the winds. Oklahoma turned into America's Dust Bowl.

After World War II, however, Oklahomans harnessed their abundant system of rivers to build water-management projects aimed at preventing disaster in future droughts.

Since the 1880's the oil boom has sped Oklahoma's development, so that today the rocking arms of oil well pumps are familiar sights in fields, on farms, and even on city streets.

Oklahoma entered the Union in 1907 as the 46th state.

(”The USA Diversity of 50 States”)