Ioland was a town in
Ellis County,
Oklahoma
Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...
. It is near the
Canadian River
The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River in the United States. It is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma. The drainage area is about .[Grand
Grand may refer to:
People with the name
* Grand (surname)
* Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor
Places
* Grand, Oklahoma, USA
* Grand, Vosges, village and commune in France with Gallo-Roman amphitheatre
* Grand County (disambiguation), ...]
, located in the same county, respectively.
History
The town was a part of the now non-existent
Day County during its period of being referred to as E County.
[ Squire, C. A. "Old Grand, Ghost Town." ''Chronicles of Oklahoma'', Vol. 28, p. 400.](_blank)
Accessed Jul 28, 2025. It was the
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
of said place for a short period of time until it was switched to Grand in November of 1893.
The location was switched due to multiple reasons, the first reason being that the town had what was considered to be “bad tasting water”, with there being no other readily available good sources for water near the town either.
Secondly, the location of Ioland was known for being inconvenient for most residents, due to most of the population of Day County living at the other side of the Canadian River.
Thirdly, and finally, Day County’s
county courthouse
A courthouse or court house is a structure which houses judicial functions for a governmental entity such as a state, region, province, county, prefecture, regency, or similar governmental unit. A courthouse is home to one or more courtrooms, ...
, located in Ioland, was burnt down sometime in mid-November, 1893. This prompted the switch of the county seat to Grand the day after.
The first man
lynched
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of in ...
in Oklahoma since its organization as a territory, J.L. Chandler, was a resident of Ioland. He was lynched by a group of cattlemen due to allegedly poisoning their cattle’s water supply.
Ioland had its own school, aptly named Ioland School, located inside a log cabin built in 1894.
The school was supposedly a half mile above the aforementioned Ioland Cemetery.
[
]
See also
* Day County, Oklahoma Territory
* Grand, Oklahoma
Grand is a ghost town in Ellis County, Oklahoma, United States. It served as the county seat of Day County and then of Ellis County until the seat moved to Arnett in 1908.
History
Today's community of Grand was the one-time county seat of E ...
* List of ghost towns in Oklahoma
The U.S. state of Oklahoma has an estimated two thousand ghost towns. These towns began for a number of reasons, often as liquor towns, boomtowns, or mining towns, with some pre-dating statehood. The population and activity later declined in ...
References
Notes
Ghost towns in Oklahoma
Geography of Ellis County, Oklahoma
Former county seats in Oklahoma
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