Its Register listings are the Okeene Flour Mill, the Sooner Co-op Association Elevator (West) and the Okeene Service Station. Below: maps from 1901 on and the census since 1910.
Founding year: the first Okeene post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).
History grade
What drives Okeene’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Okeene is more historic than 58% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
B
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Okeene’s overall grade.
Oklahoma towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Oklahoma town has 5.9 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Okeene’s 24.8 sits above most of its state (81% of Oklahoma towns have fewer) while its 3 listings outnumber those of 65% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C+ to B+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±4.4 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Okeene’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Peaked at 1,601 in 1980; 1,090 people lived here in 2020.
12 censuses, 1910–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Okeene’s Wikipedia page.
Every building
Okeene, building by building, 1901–1916
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
The story so far
Okeene, in brief
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Okeene yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Okeene is a town in Blaine County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 1,090 as of the 2020 United States census. The name was created by combining the last letters of Cherokee and Cheyenne.
Its first post office opened in 1893. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 1,204 to 1,090 (-9%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Timeline
Okeene, 1893 to 1980
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
The Okeene post office opened in 1893, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Okeene rank for history?
Okeene is more historic than 58% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
What is on the National Register in Okeene?
Three places: the Okeene Flour Mill (listed 1976), the Sooner Co-op Association Elevator (West) (2000) and the Okeene Service Station (2024).
How old are the homes in Okeene?
12% of Okeene’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.4 points), against a typical 7.0% for an Oklahoma town; the median home was built in 1972.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From the National Register of Historic Places (3), Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
