Jefferson County, Oklahoma

Jefferson County, Oklahoma
Location in the U.S. state of Oklahoma
Oklahoma's location in the U.S.
Founded	1907
Named for	Thomas Jefferson
Seat	Waurika
Largest city	Waurika
Area
• Total	774 sq mi (2,005 km2)
• Land	759 sq mi (1,966 km2)
• Water	15 sq mi (39 km2), 2.0%
Population (est.)
• (2013)	6,432
• Density	8.5/sq mi (3/km²)
Congressional district	4th
Time zone	Central: UTC-6/-5
Website	www.jeffcoinfo.org

Jefferson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, the population was 6,472. Its county seat is Waurika. The county was created at statehood and named in honor of President Thomas Jefferson.

In the 1750s, the Taovaya Indians, a Wichita tribe, established twin villages along the Red River, in Jefferson County and across the river near present-day Spanish Fort, Texas. The village became “a lively emporium where Comanches brought Apache slaves, horses and mules to trade for French packs of powder, balls, knives, and textiles and for Taovaya-grown maize, melons, pumpkins, squash, and tobacco.”

In 1759, in response to the destruction of the San Saba Mission, the Spanish led an expedition against the Taovaya and their allies and attacked the twin villages. The Indians defeated the Spanish army. (See Battle of the Twin Villages) The Taovaya villages were abandoned before 1841 as the Taovaya had been decimated by smallpox and encroachment by other Indians and Anglo-Americans.

In the 1830s, the Choctaw tribe acquired more than two-thirds of the land now covered by Jefferson County, and the closely related Chickasaw tribe began to relocate there. In 1855, the two tribes formally divided and this area became part of the Chickasaw Nation. The western part of the present county became part of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation, created by the 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty. That area was opened to settlement by non-Indians by the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Opening in 1901.

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