Ponca City ( iow, Chína Uhánⁿdhe) is a city in

Kay County Kay County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, its population was 43,700. Its county seat is Newkirk, and the largest city is Ponca City. Kay County comprises the Ponca City micropolitan statistical a ...

in the U.S. state of

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

. The city was named after the

Ponca The Ponca ( Páⁿka iyé: Páⁿka or Ppáⁿkka pronounced ) are a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan language group. There are two federally recognized Ponca tribes: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the ...

tribe. Ponca City had a population of 25,387 at the time of the 2010 census- and a population of 24,424 in the 2020 census.

History

Ponca City was created in 1893 as "New Ponca" after the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

opened the Cherokee Outlet for European-American settlement during the Cherokee Strip land run, the largest land run in United States history. The site for Ponca City was selected for its proximity to the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United ...

and the presence of a

freshwater spring A spring is a point of exit at which groundwater from an aquifer flows out on top of Earth's crust (pedosphere) and becomes surface water. It is a component of the hydrosphere. Springs have long been important for humans as a source of fres ...

near the river. The city was laid out by Burton Barnes, who drew up the first survey of the city and sold certificates for the lots he had surveyed. After the drawing for lots in the city was completed, Barnes was elected the city's first mayor.Louis Seymour Barnes
"The Founding of Ponca City"
''Chronicles of Oklahoma'' 35 (Summer 1957). Another city, Cross, vied with Ponca City to become the leading city in the area. After the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...

had opened a station in Cross, people thought it would not open another in Ponca City because of the two cities' proximity. New Ponca boosters eventually secured a station after offering the Santa Fe station agent two town lots and the free relocation of his house from Cross.Paula Carmack Denson
"Ponca City"
''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture'', retrieved March 6, 2015 Ponca City reportedly obtained its first boxcar station by some Ponca City supporters going to Cross and returning with the town's station pulled behind them. Cross eventually became defunct, and today, what was once Cross is now a residential district in Ponca City. In 1913, New Ponca changed its name to Ponca City.

Petroleum industry

Ponca City's history and economy has been shaped chiefly by the ebb and flow of the

petroleum industry The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The larg ...

E. W. Marland Ernest Whitworth Marland, known as E. W. Marland (May 8, 1874 – October 3, 1941), was an American lawyer, oil businessman in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, and politician who was a U.S. representative and Oklahoma governor. He served in the United ...

, a

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

oil man, came to Oklahoma and founded the

Marland Oil Company Marland Oil Company was a major American oil company that manufactured and marketed gasoline, motor oils and other petroleum products.

, which once controlled about 10% of the world's oil reserves. He founded the

101 Ranch Oil Company Founded in 1908 by oil exploration pioneer E. W. Marland, The 101 Ranch Oil Company was located on the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch and headquartered in Ponca City, Oklahoma. The company's 1911 oil discovery in North Eastern Oklahoma opened up oil ...

, located on the

Miller Brothers 101 Ranch The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch was a cattle ranch in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma before statehood. Located near modern-day Ponca City, Oklahoma, Ponca City, it was founded by Colonel George Washington Miller, a veteran of the Confederate Army ...

, and drilled his first successful oil well on land he leased in 1911 from the Ponca tribe of American Indians.Conoco Inc. Company History
at Conoco Phillips company website (retrieved March 2, 2010). He was elected in 1932 as a U.S. congressman and in 1934 as governor of Oklahoma. Marland's exploitation of oil reserves generated growth and wealth that were previously unimaginable on the Oklahoma prairie, and his company virtually built the city from the ground up. Marland and his associates built mansions to display their new wealth, including the Grand Home and the E.W. Marland Estate (once called the "Palace on the Prairie"). Because of this period of wealth and affluence, Ponca City has a high concentration of buildings that exemplify the popular

Spanish Colonial Revival architecture The Spanish Colonial Revival Style ( es, Arquitectura neocolonial española) is an architectural stylistic movement arising in the early 20th century based on the Spanish Colonial architecture of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In th ...

of the period, as well as

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

-influenced buildings and homes. The "Roaring '20s" came to an end for Ponca City shortly before the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. After a successful takeover bid by J.P. Morgan, Jr., son of financier

J.P. Morgan JP may refer to: Arts and media * ''JP'' (album), 2001, by American singer Jesse Powell * ''Jp'' (magazine), an American Jeep magazine * ''Jönköpings-Posten'', a Swedish newspaper * Judas Priest, an English heavy metal band * ''Jurassic Par ...

, Marland Oil Co. merged with Continental Oil Co. in the late 1920s. It was known as

Conoco Conoco Inc. ( ) was an American oil and gas company that operated from 1875 until 2002, when it merged with Phillips Petroleum to form ConocoPhillips. Founded by Isaac Elder Blake in 1875 as the "Continental Oil and Transportation Company". Curr ...

for more than 70 years. The company maintained its headquarters in Ponca City until 1949 and continued to grow into a global corporation. During the oil boom years of the 1980s,

was owned by the

DuPont DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...

Corp., which took control of the company in 1981. After nearly two decades of ownership and an oil bust that crippled Oklahoma's economy in the late 1980s, DuPont sold off its Conoco assets in 1998. In 2002,

merged with

Phillips Petroleum Phillips Petroleum Company was an American oil company incorporated in 1917 that expanded into petroleum refining, marketing and transportation, natural gas gathering and the chemicals sectors. It was Phillips Petroleum that first found oil in th ...

(another major petroleum player with roots in northern Oklahoma) to become

ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational corporation engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and production. It is based in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas. The company has operations in 15 countries and has production in ...

. ConocoPhillips was then the sixth-largest publicly traded oil company in the world, and the third largest in the United States. It maintains a significant presence in its historic home state. Since the company has reduced its workforce and facilities in the city, the population has declined steadily since the early 1990s. In February 2009,

announced that all of its remaining non refinery operations in Ponca City (representing 750 jobs) would be moved out of the city. The city's recent efforts to grow its economy beyond the petroleum industry have attracted a number of technology, manufacturing, and service job
Phillips 66 , Ponca City Refinery
In 2005,

announced plans to build a $5 million museum across from its Ponca City refinery. Opened to the public in May 2007, the Conoco Museum features artifacts, photographs, and other historical items related to the petroleum industry and its culture in northern Oklahoma. A sister museum, Phillips Petroleum Company Museum, was to be opened in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Funded by a private foundation, the Conoco Museum charges no admission fee. In 2012,

split into two separate companies, with the upstream portion retaining the

name and the refining and transportation portions taking the name

Phillips 66 The Phillips 66 Company is an American multinational energy company headquartered in Westchase, Houston, Texas. Its name, dating back to 1927 as a trademark of the Phillips Petroleum Company, helped ground the newly reconfigured Phillips 66. T ...

. Based in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, Phillips 66 continues to operate a 200,000-barrel-per-day refinery
Phillips 66 , Ponca City Refinery
in Ponca City.

Native Americans

Until recently, European Americans' accounts of their settlement and the growth of the oil industry in Ponca City have often overshadowed both the long ancient history of

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

in the area, and those tribes who were resettled to Oklahoma in the 19th century under

Indian Removal Indian removal was the United States government policy of forced displacement of self-governing tribes of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi Riverspecifically, to a ...

. Ponca City is named after the

tribe, part of whom were relocated from

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

to northern Oklahoma from 1877 to 1880. Like all of the forced American Indigenous removals of the 19th century, the Poncas' trek was arduous. Followed by the

government's failure to provide adequate supplies and

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. ...

at their destination, nearly one-third of the Ponca died from illness and exposure. "Out of 700 Ponca who left the Nebraska reservation, 158 died in Oklahoma within two years." The

protested their conditions. An additional irritant occurred upon the death of Standing Bear's oldest son in 1879. The chief had promised to bury him in his homeland, and about 60 Ponca accompanied him back to Nebraska. The U.S. Army was ordered to arrest them for having left the reservation, and they were confined to

Fort Omaha Fort Omaha, originally known as Sherman Barracks and then Omaha Barracks, is an Indian War-era United States Army supply installation. Located at 5730 North 30th Street, with the entrance at North 30th and Fort Streets in modern-day North Omaha, ...

. Most of the tribal members who left eventually returned to the reservation in

. With the aid of prominent attorneys working ''

pro bono ( en, 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. In the United States, the term typically refers to provision of legal services by legal professionals for pe ...

'', Standing Bear filed a writ of ''

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, ...

'' challenging his arrest. The case of '' Standing Bear v. Crook'' (1879) was a landmark decision in the U.S. District Court, where the judge ruled that Indians had the same legal rights as other

citizens. A statue of Standing Bear was erected in his honor at the intersection of Highway 60 and Standing Bear Parkway in Ponca City. In the late 20th century, the city developed a park and museum named in his honor. In addition to the Standing Bear Museum, the 63-acre park includes more than eight fully developed acres with off street parking, a one-acre pond and a walking trail. The Ponca Nation, which has kept its headquarters south of Ponca City since 1879, played a major part in the development of the Marland Oil Company and the city. Chief White Eagle leased resource-containing portions of the tribe's allotted land to E.W. Marland in 1911 for oil exploration and development. Since the late 20th century, the Ponca tribe has worked to build its infrastructure and improve services for its people. In February 2006, the tribe received a grant of more than $800,000 from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over t ...

for debt retirement and economic development. Nearby north-central tribes are the Kaw, Osage, Otoe-Missouria, Pawnee, and Tonkawa. These are all federally recognized tribes, as is the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. In 1994, the six tribes established the Standing Bear Foundation and Pow-wow, beginning the first of annual shared

pow-wow A powwow (also pow wow or pow-wow) is a gathering with dances held by many Native American and First Nations communities. Powwows today allow Indigenous people to socialize, dance, sing, and honor their cultures. Powwows may be private or pu ...

s, to which they invite the public. They wanted to build collaboration among the tribes and with the non-Native residents of Ponca City. The pow-wow is now held in Standing Bear Park.

Geography

Ponca City is located in southeastern Kay County at (36.712422, -97.072431), northwest of the

. The city sits on roughly of land, and also has about of water, for a total area of . Cyclone at Ponca City, Okla

The city is in north-central

, around south of the

Kansas Kansas () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its Capital city, capital is Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas, Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebras ...

border, and approximately east of

Interstate 35 Interstate 35 (I-35) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most primary Interstates that end in a five, it is a major cross-country, north–south route. It stretches from Laredo, Texas, near the Mexican borde ...

. The city is near the Arkansas River, the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River,

Kaw Lake Kaw Lake is a reservoir completed in 1976 in the northern reaches of the U.S. state of Oklahoma, near Kaw City which is located on a hill overlooking the lake. The lake is approximately east of Ponca City. The dam was completed by the United St ...

, and Lake Ponca, which all provide numerous recreational opportunities.

Climate

The Ponca City region of Oklahoma is part of "

Tornado Alley Tornado Alley is a loosely defined area of the central United States where tornadoes are most frequent. The term was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project to study severe weather in areas of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, ...

Tornadoes A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, alth ...

are most common in April, May, and June. Ponca City faces very hot and humid summers known to average over , as well as severe storms. During the winters, Ponca City has mostly mild to strong winters with snowstorms and ice.

Demographics

At the 2010

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...

, 25,387 people, 10,440 households and 7,019 families resided in the city. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopu ...

was . The 11,950 housing units were at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 84.18% White, 2.99% African American, 6.27% Native American, 0.70% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 2.08% from other races, and 3.75% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 4.43% of the population. Of the 10,440 households, 25.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.3% were married couples living together, 11.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.0% were not families. About 30.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 2.95. The population was distributed as 26.2% under of 18, 8.5% from 18 to 24, 25.5% from 25 to 44, 22.1% from 45 to 64, and 17.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.8 males. The

median household income The median income is the income amount that divides a population into two equal groups, half having an income above that amount, and half having an income below that amount. It may differ from the mean (or average) income. Both of these are ways ...

was $39,023, and the median family income was $38,839. Males had a median income of $32,283 and females $20,098. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

was $22,566. About 12.7% of families and 17.7% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 23.6% of those under age 18 and 9.3% of those age 65 or over.

Economy

built the Ponca City refinery in 1918 and founded the

Marland Oil Company Marland Oil Company was a major American oil company that manufactured and marketed gasoline, motor oils and other petroleum products.

. In 1929, the Continental Oil Company merged with Marland, and the two became

Conoco Inc. Conoco Inc. ( ) was an American oil and gas company that operated from 1875 until 2002, when it merged with Phillips Petroleum to form ConocoPhillips. Founded by Isaac Elder Blake in 1875 as the "Continental Oil and Transportation Company". Curr ...

The Conoco headquarters were in Ponca City until 1949, when they moved to

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

. In 2002,

Conoco Inc Conoco Inc. ( ) was an American oil and gas company that operated from 1875 until 2002, when it merged with Phillips Petroleum to form ConocoPhillips. Founded by Isaac Elder Blake in 1875 as the "Continental Oil and Transportation Company". Curre ...

. and

Phillips Petroleum Company Phillips Petroleum Company was an American oil company incorporated in 1917 that expanded into petroleum refining, marketing and transportation, natural gas gathering and the chemicals sectors. It was Phillips Petroleum that first found oil in the ...

, whose headquarters were in nearby Bartlesville, Oklahoma, merged into

.ConocoPhillips Announces Museum Plans For Ponca City and Bartlesville
."

. May 13, 2005. Retrieved on January 22, 2010. In 2012,

split into two separate companies, with the upstream portion retaining the ConocoPhillips name and the refining and transportation portions taking the name Phillips 66. The Ponca City Refinery, operated by Phillips 66, is the largest refinery in Oklahoma. The Ponca City Refinery processes a mixture of light, medium, and heavy crude oils. Most of the crude oil processed is received by pipeline from

, and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. Infrastructure improvements have enabled the delivery of increased volumes of locally produced advantaged crude oil by pipeline and truck. The refinery is a high-conversion facility that produces a full range of products, including gasoline, diesel, aviation fuels,

liquefied petroleum gas Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or LP gas) is a fuel gas which contains a flammable mixture of hydrocarbon gases, specifically propane, propylene, butylene, isobutane and n-butane. LPG is used as a fuel gas in heating appliances, cookin ...

, and anode-grade petroleum coke. Its facilities include two fluid catalytic cracking units,

alkylation Alkylation is the transfer of an alkyl group from one molecule to another. The alkyl group may be transferred as an alkyl carbocation, a free radical, a carbanion, or a carbene (or their equivalents). Alkylating agents are reagents for effectin ...

, delayed coking,

naphtha Naphtha ( or ) is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture. Mixtures labelled ''naphtha'' have been produced from natural gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and the distillation of coal tar and peat. In different industries and regions ' ...

reforming, and

hydrodesulfurization Hydrodesulfurization (HDS) is a catalytic chemical process widely used to remove sulfur (S) from natural gas and from refined petroleum products, such as gasoline or petrol, jet fuel, kerosene, diesel fuel, and fuel oils. The purpose of rem ...

units. Finished petroleum products are shipped by truck, railcar, and pipelines to markets throughout the Midcontinent region.

Tourism

Sports

Ponca City hosted minor league baseball from the 1920s through the 1950s. The Ponca City Poncans played from 1923–26, the Ponca City Angels played from 1934–1938 (winning three

Western Association The Western Association was the name of five different leagues formed in American minor league baseball during the 19th and 20th centuries. The oldest league, originally established as the Northwestern League in 1883, was refounded as the Wester ...

championships) and the Ponca City Dodgers (an affiliate of the

Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1884 as a member of the American Association before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles, Californi ...

) operated from 1947–1952, Finally, the Ponca City Jets played in the

Sooner State League The Sooner State League was a Class D level minor league baseball league that operated from 1947 through 1957. The league owners kept it alive in 1958, anticipating a return to play in 1959. However, when only Ardmore and Paris, Texas, were able ...

in 1954, only to be replaced by a new club called the Ponca City Cubs in 1955, the last season of professional baseball in Ponca City.

Points of interest

* 101 Ranch Memorial * Cann Memorial Botanical Gardens * Conoco Museum *

* Lake Ponca * Lew Wentz Public Pool and Golf Course * Marland Grand Home *

E. W. Marland Mansion The E.W. Marland Mansion is a Mediterranean Revival-style mansion located in Ponca City, Oklahoma, United States. Built by oil baron and philanthropist Ernest Whitworth (E.W.) Marland, as a display of wealth at the peak of the 1920s oil boom, ...

* Pickens Museum * Ponca Tribe headquarters * Standing Bear Memorial

Landmarks

Ponca City is home to several landmarks on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

, including the Poncan Theatre, the Marland Mansion, and Marland's Grand Home. Ponca City also holds several regional events each year.

Pioneer Woman statue and museum

Ponca City is the site of the

Pioneer Woman The ''Pioneer Woman'' monument is a bronze sculpture in Ponca City, Oklahoma, designed by Bryant Baker and dedicated on April 22, 1930. The statue is of a wikt:sunbonnet, sunbonneted woman leading a child by the hand. It was donated to the State ...

Museum and the ''Pioneer Woman'' statue. The statue was erected to commemorate women pioneers. In the early 1920s, E. W. Marland decided to create a statue commemorating the

pioneer woman The ''Pioneer Woman'' monument is a bronze sculpture in Ponca City, Oklahoma, designed by Bryant Baker and dedicated on April 22, 1930. The statue is of a wikt:sunbonnet, sunbonneted woman leading a child by the hand. It was donated to the State ...

.John Joseph Mathews, ''Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E.W. Marland'', University of Oklahoma Press, 1974 Marland was reportedly asked, "E. W., why don't you have ... a statue to the vanishing American, a Ponca, Otoe, or an Osage - a monument of great size?" Marland answered, "the Indian is not the vanishing American - it's the pioneer woman." He sponsored a competition for the winning statue. In 1927, miniature sculptures were submitted as part of a competition by 12 U.S. and international sculptors: John Gregory, Maurice Sterne, Hermon Atkins MacNeil, James Earle Fraser, Alexander Stirling Calder,

Wheeler Williams Wheeler Williams (November 30, 1897 – August 12, 1972) was an American sculptor, born in Chicago, Illinois. Life and career Williams studied sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He attended Yale, where he graduated ...

, Mario Korbel, F. Lynn Jenkins,

Mahonri Young Mahonri Mackintosh Young (August 9, 1877 – November 2, 1957) was an American social-realist sculptor and artist. During his lengthy career, he created more than 320 sculptures, 590 oil paintings, 5,500 watercolors, 2,600 prints, and thousan ...

, Arthur Lee, Jo Davidson, and Bryant Baker. They were displayed in 12 cities around the state, where they were viewed by 750,000 people, who voted for their favorite. The original submissions have been on display at the museum at

Woolaroc Woolaroc is a museum and wildlife preserve located in the Osage Hills of Northeastern Oklahoma on Oklahoma State Highway 123 about southwest of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and north of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Woolaroc was established in 1925 as the ranch ...

near Bartlesville, Oklahoma since the 1930s. Marland sold them to Frank Phillips after losing control of the Marland Oil Company. British-born American sculptor Bryant Baker was chosen as the winner. His full-scale work was unveiled in a public ceremony on April 22, 1930. About 40,000 guests came to hear

Will Rogers William Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator. He was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian Territory (now part of Oklahom ...

pay tribute to Oklahoma's pioneers. The statue is high and weighs 12,000 lb. Widely known as the Pioneer Woman Statue, the bronze sculpture's true name is "Confident". A related museum commemorating Oklahoma women was opened on September 16, 1958, on the 65th anniversary of the

Cherokee Strip The Cherokee Outlet, or Cherokee Strip, was located in what is now the state of Oklahoma in the United States. It was a 60-mile-wide (97 km) parcel of land south of the Oklahoma-Kansas border between 96 and 100°W. The Cherokee Outlet wa ...

land run. It recognizes the work of Native American, as well as European-American women, and their leadership and stamina in creating homes, raising children, and taking care of the work of sustaining life and communities.

Education

Public education

Ponca City Public Schools serves the general population's education requirements. Ponca City Public Schools serve over 5100 students. ;High schools :* Ponca City High School (Po-Hi) - serves all 9th- through 12th-grade students in the school district. :* Ombudsman Alternative Education Center had provided select students the option to take a mostly technology-based route through high school. It was closed after the end of the academic year of 2012-2013. :* WildCat Academy Program, starting in the 2013–2014 year, became the new alternative school for high-school students in the area. Sponsoring the Ponca City WildCat logo, it had changes from the Ombudsman and past alternative schools. ;Middle schools :* East Middle School serves Ponca City's estimated 380 eighth-grade students in the Ponca City Public School system. :* West Middle School serves most of the district's sixth- and seventh-grade students. ;Elementary schools Ponca City has currently eight elementary schools to serve the district's pre-K through fifth-grade students: :* Garfield Elementary :* Liberty Elementary :* Lincoln Elementary :* Roosevelt Elementary :* Trout Elementary :* Union Elementary :* McCord Elementary (has a sixth grade ) :* Washington Elementary became the Alternative School, but was closed at the end of the 2009-2010 school year. The school later reopened in 2015 as an elementary school. :* Woodlands Elementary

Private education

Ponca City has three private schools that serve students from pre-K through eighth grade: * Ponca City Christian Academy * First Lutheran School * St. Mary's Catholic School

Higher education

Pioneer Technology Center The Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education (ODCTE, commonly known and branded as CareerTech) is an agency of the state of Oklahoma located in Stillwater, Oklahoma. CareerTech oversees a statewide system of career and technology ed ...

serves high school and adult students from throughout the surrounding area. PTC also has co-operative degree programs with Northern Oklahoma College and Cowley County Community College * University Center (UC) at Ponca City offers interactive television classes from several area universities, including Northern Oklahoma College and Northwestern Oklahoma State University. In 2018, the UC began an ambitious project seeking to create STEM opportunities for younger students to encourage a higher-education pursuit. In December 2018, Phillips66 awarded the UC an $85,000 grant for the purchase of additional robotics kits and equipment to further develop the UC's STEM initiatives. ;Research facilities * Ponca City is the headquarters for Oklahoma State University's University Multispectral Laboratory.

Infrastructure

Electricity

The Ponca City region receives electricity generated Hydroelectricity, hydroelectrically at Kaw Lake, a United States Army Corps of Engineers project. The facility, located 7 mi (11 km) east of Ponca City, dams the Arkansas River. The electric utility is managed by the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority of Edmond, Oklahoma.

Transportation

The city is accessible by Interstate 35 in Oklahoma, I-35, U.S. Route 60 in Oklahoma, US-60, U.S. Route 77 in Oklahoma, US-77, U.S. Route 177#Oklahoma, US-177 and Oklahoma State Highway 11, OK-11. On Grand Avenue (Business US-60), a series of new lamp posts is intended to look more classic. This project also replaced every traffic light along Grand Avenue except the traffic signals at 14th St. and at Waverly to match the new lamp posts.

Airports

Ponca City Regional Airport (International Air Transport Association airport code, airport code PNC) (1007 feet above mean sea level) is located at the northwest corner of the city at 36°43.84'N and 97°5.99'W. The facility has a 7,201-ft 17-35 runway, which is wide, and the facility has a full-length taxiway but no tower. The local airport booster club hosts a fly-in breakfast every first Saturday of the month, year around, "rain or shine". Commercial air transportation is available out of Stillwater Regional Airport about 40 miles to the south, Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport about 89 miles to the north, or Tulsa International Airport about 101 miles to the southeast.

Notable people

* Douglas Blubaugh, 1960 Summer Olympics, 1960 Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling * Mike Boettcher, news correspondent, CNN and NBC * Lou Clinton, Major League Baseball (MLB) player * Don Coleman (offensive tackle), Don Coleman, offensive lineman in College Football Hall of Fame * Stanley Ann Dunham, mother of U.S. President Barack Obama * Richard E. Killblane, military historian and author * Jon Kolb, former offensive lineman with Pittsburgh Steelers * Candy Loving,'' Playboy'' model, January, 1979, magazine's 25th-Anniversary Playmate *

, businessman and politician * Gale McArthur, All-American basketball player at Oklahoma State University * W. H. McFadden, oilman and philanthropist * Jake McNiece (1919–2013), a United States Army, US Army paratrooper in World War II, was the leader of the Filthy Thirteen, an elite demolition unit whose exploits inspired the novel and movie ''The Dirty Dozen''. * Don Nickles, former United States Senator * Gayla Peevey, child singer ("I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas") * Bill Pickett, cowboy * Don Puddy, NASA flight director * Mark Ryal, Mark and Rusty Ryal, father and son MLB players * Kareem Salama, country and western singer * Clint Sodowsky, MLB player * Standing Bear, Poncan Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native American leader * Anthony Taylor (bishop), Anthony Taylor, Catholic bishop of the diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas * Joyce Carol Thomas, children's author * Lewis Haines Wentz, Lew Wentz, oilman and philanthropist * Shelby Wilson, 1960 Summer Olympics, 1960 Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling * Waddy Young Walter Roland Young 1916 - 1945 An All-American football player with the Brooklyn Dodgers (NFL) who volunteered to fly the B-29 in World War II

Gallery

File:The Marland Mansion.jpg, The Marland Mansion File:Poncan Theatre.JPG, The Poncan Theatre was built in 1927

In popular culture

Ponca City was one of the filming locations for 1996 movie ''Twister (1996 film), Twister''. The 2020 children’s film “Adventures of Rufus: The Fantastic Pet” was largely filmed at the Marland Mansion. A E. W. Marland#Movie about EW Marland, film about E. W. Marland was expected to be in production to shoot in Ponca City, titled ''The Ends of the Earth''. The film was to star the Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence, and was originally expected to start in 2014. However, as of July 2020, IMDb, Internet Movie Database continues to list the movie only as "in development." Several scenes from American Gods (TV series) were shot in Ponca City.

Sister cities

* Baiyin, Gansu, China

References

External links

*
Ponca City News

Ponca City Development Authority

Ponca City and its Century-Old Oil Refining History

Barack Obama's Mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, Grew Up in Ponca City

Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
{{authority control Populated places established in 1893 1893 establishments in Oklahoma Territory Cities in Oklahoma Cities in Kay County, Oklahoma Micropolitan areas of Oklahoma Ponca Oklahoma populated places on the Arkansas River