Lexington is a city in Cleveland 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 ...

, United States. The city population was 2,010 at the 2020 census, a 6.6% decrease from 2010.

Geography

Lexington is located in southern Cleveland County. It is bordered on the west by the

Purcell Henry Purcell (, rare: ; September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer of Baroque music, most remembered for his more than 100 songs; a tragic opera, ''Dido and Aeneas''; and his incidental music to a version of Shakespeare's ...

is directly across the river from Lexington, connected by

U.S. Route 77 U.S. Route 77 (US 77) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway which extends for in the central United States. As of 2005, Its southern terminus is in Brownsville, Texas, at Veteran's International Bridge on the U.S.-Mexico borde ...

. US 77 leads north from Lexington to Norman and to the center of

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...

. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, Lexington has a total area of , all land.

Demographics

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2010 there were 2,152 people, 761 households, and 541 families residing in the city. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), 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 geog ...

was 979.3 people per square mile (378.1/km²). There were 842 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 85.62%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.58%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 6.47% Native American, 0.10% Asian, 3.74% from other races, and 3.50% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 7.29% of the population. There were 761 households, out of which 36.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.5% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 13.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.8% were non-families. 25.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.60 and the average family size was 3.06. In the city, the population was spread out, with 26.8% under the age of 18, 9.4% from 18 to 24, 27.5% from 25 to 44, 19.6% from 45 to 64, and 16.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 96.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.4 males. The median income for a household in the city was $27,538, and the median income for a family was $32,155. Males had a median income of $27,292 versus $20,000 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the city was $13,322. About 13.1% of families and 15.5% 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 18.6% of those under age 18 and 15.8% of those age 65 or over.

History

In 1835, north of the present town, Major Richard B. Mason established Camp Holmes. Here, the

Five Civilized Tribes The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by the United States government in the early federal period of the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Cr ...

, many of the

Plains Indians Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nations peoples who have historically lived on the Interior Plains (the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies) of North ...

and the

Osage Nation The Osage Nation ( ) () is a Midwestern Native American nation of the Great Plains. The tribe began in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 1620 A.D along with other groups of its language family, then migrated west in the 17th cen ...

met and signed the treaty of Camp Holmes, pledging peace and friendship among themselves and the United States. Later, Auguste P. Chouteau established a trading post here and renamed the place Camp Mason. Jesse Chisholm operated a store here. The area of Lexington was in the

Unassigned Lands The Unassigned Lands in Oklahoma were in the center of the lands ceded to the United States by the Creek (Muskogee) and Seminole Indians following the Civil War and on which no other tribes had been settled. By 1883, it was bounded by the Cher ...

, and the town was planned before the

Land Rush of 1889 The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the first land run into the Unassigned Lands of the former western portion of the federal Indian Territory, which had decades earlier since the 1830s been assigned to the Creek and Seminole native peoples. T ...

. The town was named after

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city coterminous with and the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the city's population was 322,570, making it the List of ...

. The post office was established in 1890. The first incorporation of Lexington in 1890 was dissolved after political infighting and a dispute over high taxes on liquor sales. After a compromise was reached, the town reincorporated in 1892. Before Oklahoma statehood in 1907, Lexington was known as a "whiskey town". Much of the business came from across 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 .Purcell Henry Purcell (, rare: ; September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer of Baroque music, most remembered for his more than 100 songs; a tragic opera, ''Dido and Aeneas''; and his incidental music to a version of Shakespeare's ...

which was located in dry

Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

. The Weitzenhoffer and Turk Distillery, the largest

distillery Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...

Oklahoma Territory The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as ...

, opened near Lexington in 1900 and operated until statewide

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

in 1907. During World War II, the

Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

operated a gunnery school east of Lexington. After the war, the State of Oklahoma acquired the property and built an annex to Central State Mental Hospital (later Griffin Memorial Hospital). In 1971, the Department of Corrections acquired the property and opened a minimum security prison called the Regional Treatment Center. In 1976, the state began construction on the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center (LARC) which processes all new prisoners entering the state correctional system. The Regional Treatment Center was re-designated as the Joseph Harp Correctional Center, a medium-security prison.

US 77 James C. Nance Bridge between Lexington and Purcell

The US 77 James C. Nance Memorial Bridge connecting Purcell and Lexington was originally built as a circa 1938 deck truss two-lane bridge, and in 2019, rebuilt as a concrete pier four-lane bridge name=https://oklahoma.gov/odot/citizen/newsroom/2019/july/history-repeats-as-new-purcell-lexington-bridge-opens-for-thene.html crossing the

and Lexington, Oklahoma. The bridge carries U.S. Route 77 (US-77) and Oklahoma State Highway 39 (SH-39) from McClain County to Cleveland County. The bridge is named for James C. Nance, longtime community newspaper chain publisher and

Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives The Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives is the speaker (politics), presiding officer of the lower house of the Oklahoma Legislature, the Oklahoma House of Representatives. The speaker exercises administrative and procedural function ...

, President pro tempore of the Oklahoma Senate and member of U.S

Uniform Law Commission The Uniform Law Commission (ULC), also called the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, is a non-profit, American unincorporated association. Established in 1892, the ULC aims to provide U.S. states (plus the District of Co ...

.name=https://travel.line.me/poi/5ed7dc55fa3c974c9409a0d7 The Nance bridge allows travel time from Purcell (west side of the Canadian river) to Lexingon (East side of the river) to be only 3 minutes by car, according to google maps. When the bridge was closed (Emergency Closure, below), the same trip was 43 minutes when re-routed North to the nearest bridge, or 1 hour and 4 minutes when re-routed Southeast to the nearest bridge. The 1938 construction of this bridge enabled communities from West and Southwest (Byars, Cole, Dibble, Paoli, Pauls Valley, Purcell, Rosedale, and Wayne) side of the river to reach the communities on the East side of the river (Lexington, Slaughterville, and Wanette). Traffic using the bridge allows trade and commerce to freely flow in this retail trade area of southern McClain County, southern Cleveland County, Southern Pottawatomie County, and northern area of Garvin County, and eastern portion of Grady county. The 2019 rebuilt bridge features the same design elements with concrete post and original circa 1938 design wrought iron railings which provide a separate pedestrian walkway offering sweeping views of the South Canadian River valley. According to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, "History was made Friday July 26, 2019 in Purcell and Lexington, just as it was more than 80 years ago when the two cities celebrated the grand opening of a new bridge connecting their communities. The new US 77 James C. Nance Memorial Bridge that links the twin cities, located less than one mile apart, fully opened to traffic with much fanfare on Friday, July 26, 2019, the culmination of a major two-year, expedited reconstruction project."

Notable people

* Woody Crumbo (1912—1989), a 1978

Potawatomi The Potawatomi (), also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains, upper Mississippi River, and western Great Lakes region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, ...

Native American inductee into the

Oklahoma Hall of Fame The Oklahoma Hall of Fame was founded in 1927 by Anna B. Korn to officially celebrate Statehood Day, recognize Oklahomans dedicated to their communities, and provide educational programming for all ages. The first Oklahoma Hall of Fame Induction Cer ...

for his paintings. * Harold Hamm (December 11, 1945 - ), oil baron was born and raised in Lexington, Oklahoma * Cal Hobson (March 30, 1945 - ), former President Pro Tempore of the Oklahoma State Senate * John Lucian Smith (December 26, 1914 – June 9, 1972), an American Medal of Honor recipient and Marine Corps flying ace, was born in Lexington.

References

External links

City of Lexington official website
{{authority control Oklahoma City metropolitan area Cities in Oklahoma Cities in Cleveland County, Oklahoma