Mineral, originally called Mineral City, was a settlement founded in what was then No Man’s Land, but which is now western

Cimarron County Cimarron County is the westernmost County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Its county seat is Boise City, Oklahoma, Boise City. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2020 census, its population was 2,296, making it the le ...

in the

Panhandle A salient, panhandle, or bootheel is an elongated protrusion of a geopolitical entity, such as a subnational entity or a sovereign state. While similar to a peninsula in shape, a salient is most often not surrounded by water on three sides. Ins ...

of the

State of Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked state in the South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northeast, Arkansas to the east, New Mexico to the west, and Colo ...

History

Around 1886, coal was discovered in the area, and two mining companies laid out Mineral City to house workers. It briefly became a boomtown, with 2 or 3 general stores, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, and a population of about 100. The town had the only post office in the Cimarron County vicinity prior to 1890. In 1890, when the Panhandle became Beaver County of

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 ...

, the town was one of only two communities in the area worth enumerating, having a population of 98. (Carrizo, just west over the line in New Mexico Territory, was the other, with 83 people; that settlement was later relocated a bit to the east into Oklahoma and renamed Kenton.) Unfortunately, the coal gave out quickly, and within a few years the settlement was practically a ghost town. In 1895 what was left of the settlement relocated a few miles south to be more accessible to general traffic and nearby ranches, and definitively changed names to become simply Mineral. The new location was along

South Carrizo Creek South Carrizo Creek forms either just west of the Oklahoma line in New Mexico, or east inside Oklahoma to the northwest of Wheeless, Oklahoma. It is intermittent. It travels generally northeast through Black Mesa State Park where it is impounde ...

, south of the point where that watercourse is joined by Willow Creek, and just north of the old

Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the ...

which made it a convenient resupply point for travelers along that route. This placed it just to the east of, and about equidistant from, Kenton to the north and Wheeless to the south. But when Cimarron County was created upon Oklahoma statehood in 1907, Mineral was not one of the six settlements which vied to become 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 ...

(with Boise City emerging the winner). By 1910, rail lines extended well into New Mexico and Colorado, and traffic along the Santa Fe Trail dropped considerably. Also by that time, the other towns in Cimarron County (namely Boise City, Kenton, Wheeless, Doby, and Mexhoma) all had their own post offices. The Mineral post office, located in Mineral’s remaining general store, closed along with the store in 1911, effectively ending the settlement.

References

Geography of Cimarron County, Oklahoma Ghost towns in Oklahoma {{US-ghost-town-stub

History

See also

References