In the farthest westward reach of Oklahoma is a place called No Man’s Land.
It was known as such because no man, other than robbers, ranchers, and roamers, wanted to be in that land. Making a living this side of the Rocky Mountains in prairie that gave way to mesas and desert sagebrush with rough rocky terrain proved extremely difficult.
At least five different nations lay claim to the region at one point or another: Spain, France, Mexico, Texas, and finally the United States. According to Sara Jane Richter in her book “The Oklahoma Panhandle,” the area was actually considered Comanche territory until 1876 and was called Comancheria; while no American Indian tribes had permanent settlements there, many followed buffalo herd migration through No Man’s Land.
Explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado traveled through No Man’s Land near present-day Beaver in 1541 and lamented in his journals that walking on the terrain of endless grass was like sailing on the sea with no landmarks to guide the way, Richter wrote.
Running through No Man’s Land since 1823, the Santa Fe Trail was a treacherous 865-mile highway upon which Mexican and American traders, buffalo hunters, gold seekers and other fortune hunters traversed alongside wagon trains filled with hopeful homesteaders seeking to start anew.
However, unprotected by U.S. military forts, this land was governed by no one but bandits from 1850 until 1890 when the gap between Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas was assimilated into Oklahoma Territory as Beaver County.
For those four decades no local laws pertained to the area, no existing courts had jurisdiction and therefore no law enforcement officers could provide protection, and no provisions existed for or against filing land claims and registering ownership of property meaning no one could technically own land in No Man’s Land a.k.a. Public Land Strip or Neutral Strip as the U.S. government referred to it.
Folks like famed mountain man Kit Carson attempted to provide protection to those traveling along the Cimarron Route of the Santa Fe Trail, but to no avail. The outlaws and indians were notorious in these parts, and many travelers faced not only environmental danger such as lack of water and fierce weather, but also encountered unfortunate circumstances and/or brutal ends. It’s why Richter reported that 20-mile portion of the trail cutting through the Panhandle was nicknamed Jornado del Muerte or “Journey of Death.”
Within the three sparsely populated counties—Beaver, Texas, and Cimarron—that form No Man’s Land, known as the Panhandle of Oklahoma since 1907, are museums that tell the stories of yesteryear, especially the grit and resolute of the pioneers who settled it.
Gateway to the Panhandle Museum, Gate (Beaver County)
Proudly standing as the literal gateway to No Man’s Land is Gateway to the Panhandle Museum, located directly on U.S. 64 on the east side of the small rural town of Gate, which is 3 miles west of the Harper-Beaver county line. Per the Oklahoma Historical Society, the town was platted in 1883 and established in 1886 as Gate City, receiving its name because it was located close to the gate of the drift fence built by the local cattlemen. The name was shortened in 1894.
The museum and library housed in Gate’s old railroad depot is filled with relics of an era gone by lovingly donated and maintained by the locals. Military war-era memorabilia, turn-of-the-century farm equipment and machinery, railroad mementos, and homesteader rooms stacked full of antique dishware, pots and pans, furniture, appliances, typewriters and telephones, Gate’s original bank safe, brochures, newspaper clippings, photos, and even an old covered wagon are on display. Future archeologists will be entertained by the prehistoric tusk too. Additionally, there is a library with historical books and modern-day reads.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Gateway to the Panhandle Museum and Library Association, which owns and operates it. Board members Coy and Willa Berends volunteer their time to show visitors around. Coy’s great-grandfather, who homesteaded northwest of Gate in 1891, is featured in the museum that both Coy’s great-uncle and father had a hand in creating. The association hosts fundraisers throughout the year to keep the doors open.
Gateway to the Panhandle Museum is by appointment only. Admission is free but donations are welcomed. To schedule a tour, call (580) 934-2343 or (580) 467-0613.
Jones and Plummer Trail Museum, Beaver (Beaver County)
Tucked by the Beaver County Fairgrounds on the south side of Beaver directly on U.S. 270 is Jones and Plummer Trail Museum. Robbie Hancock currently serves as its curator for the Beaver County Historical Society.
Beaver began as a halfway stop on the Jones and Plummer Trail, which was founded by hunters Charles E. Jones and Joe H. Plummer in the 1870s. Before the railroads built lines, commerce and cattle happened along this stretch of 168 miles from Dodge City, Kan., to Mobeetie, Texas, for two decades. Entrepreneur Jim Lane built a house on the south side of the Beaver River in 1880 to serve as Beaver City’s first general store, saloon, hotel, restaurant, and post office.
In 1887, the Presbyterian Church was built in Beaver City and was recognized in 1974 by the National Register of Historic Places as the oldest church in Oklahoma. Hancock said today it is the oldest Protestant church still operating in the state. The church’s original Bible is on display in the museum and sits on a pulpit constructed by carpenter L.A. Whitten who utilized lumber he also used to help build that historical church.
Pioneer life is exhibited throughout the museum with mock scenes of the general store, barbershop, attorney’s office, bank teller, homesteader rooms, horse and buggy tack stalls, and wartime walls. Many of the display cases came from locally owned stores in Beaver and nearby Forgan. Visitors will see a buckboard wagon that was used on the Jones and Plummer Trail.
And the 60 saddles owned by late local doctor and rancher Dr. Ed Calhoon are on display in a dedicated room built just for them because Calhoon’s family chose Jones and Plummer Trail Museum over National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. As a side note, Calhoon’s late wife Felice Warburton Calhoon was born and raised in Cherokee on the farm her grandfather staked a claim on in the Cherokee Strip Land Run of 1893.
One particular display of interest is the Vaseline glass collection. The term “Vaseline glass” (also known as uranium glass or canary glass) is a transparent yellow-greenish glass that looks like petroleum jelly and glows a neon green under ultraviolet light a.k.a. black light thanks to its uranium dioxide. It has been in existence since the 1830s, according to ORAU, a non-profit organization that specializes in radiation and radioactivity. Prior to World War II, natural uranium was used; glassware companies switched to depleted uranium when production resumed in the early 1960s. Vaseline glass is still made today, but purely for decorative purposes not dinnerware. The radioactivity in Vaseline glass is so low, it’s not considered harmful, since ORAU analysis concluded that radiation exposure is less than 1%.
Jones and Plummer Trail Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free but donations are welcomed. For more about the museum in Beaver, call (580) 625-4439 or go online to Facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057387111026.
Ghost town of Slapout (Beaver County)
While buzzing around Beaver County, pause at Slapout. Formerly a famous pitstop on that lonely stretch of highway and the midway point for 2,905-mile bicycle competition Race Across America from Irvine, Calif., to Savannah, Ga., the ghost town of Slapout has a storied history.
With the construction of Oklahoma 3 beginning during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl days, local businessman Tom Lemmons traded for a two-room tar-paper shack and placed it on the dusty road that would become SH-3 passing through his rented land (owned by Joseph “Joe” Johnston) in September 1932. There was a need in the Oklahoma Panhandle for supplies so Tom opened a grocery store in the front room of that shack and lived in the back room until 1939. He named his business Nye Mercantile, allegedly after U.S. Senator Gerald Nye who reportedly was a friend of his in the Kansas Legislature, thus effectively naming his newly formed town Nye.
The name Slapout, according to local legend, came about because customers at the mercantile were often told by Lemmons’ sister Artie (who would fill in for him when he’d run to Woodward for resupply) that the place was “slap out” of whatever items they wanted.
In 1937, Lemmons relocated the Nye Mercantile building across the street on the north side of that soon-to-be-finished highway and then added a gas station, which he operated until 1960. Back on the south side of that new highway, Johnston built a general store (using lumber from the old Baptist church) and gas station (housing it in a chicken coop from his farm) on his land and called his side of town Slapout rather than Nye. Johnston died in 1950.
Despite his efforts to call the tiny town without a post office Nye, Lemmons (who grew up outside Cleo Springs as the second of 14 kids) eventually gave in to the name Slapout by 1945 when reporters came to town for the official dedication of the highway, according to a 1982 interview with The Daily Oklahoman. There was zero mention of the Wikipedia folklore that his handmade town sign Nye was taken out by a tornado in 1949 thus forcing him to concede. The population of this unincorporated community never went above 43 and steadily decreased after World War II to the point of becoming a ghost town. Lemmons died in 1984.
The south side grocery store hasn’t served locals in decades. The Slapout Convenience Store and Café on the north side of the highway officially closed at the end of 2024, leaving patrons far and wide without a place to eat or take a bathroom break on that long road between May and Elmwood. However, the store owner continues to provide fuel 24/7 with pay at the pump only.
Side note: Did you know SH-3 is the longest state highway in Oklahoma at 615 miles? It stretches diagonally from the Colorado state line north of Boise City in the Panhandle to the far southeastern corner of Oklahoma east of Idabel to the Arkansas state line. In the early 1980s, the late Gov. George Nigh designated nearly $100M to upgrade the Northwest Oklahoma portion of SH-3, which led to ODOT nicknaming it “George Nigh’s Northwest Passage” in February 1981.
No Man’s Land Historical Museum, Goodwell (Texas County)
Just off the campus of Oklahoma Panhandle State University in Goodwell not far from U.S. 54 is No Man’s Land Historical Museum. Goodwell officially became a town when Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway set up a station there in 1903. Railroad workers gave the name Goodwell to the new town because good water came from a well that had been dug on the townsite for use by the railroad.
The most famous artifact in this Panhandle museum since it opened in 1932 is its two-headed calf taxidermized by OPSU students; this Hereford was born north of town earlier that same year on Ed Olsen’s farm before dying a few weeks later.
Formerly owned and operated by the college, No Man’s Land Historical Society assumed responsibility of the museum in 1950 when the current building housing the museum was built off-campus.
According to museum volunteers (at the time of this interview No Man’s Land Historical Museum was without a curator), the purpose of the museum is to provide the pre-history of Oklahoma’s panhandle and the pioneer life therein. Originally the museum only centered on preserving documents and artwork pertaining to Goodwell then expanded to include all of the region.
Much like the museums in Gate and Beaver, the museum in Goodwell showcases pioneer life through newspaper racks, display cases, and a wide-open warehouse of mock scenes filled with appliances, furniture, and other relics. Morticians will find the 1900s era horse-drawn hearse from Moore Mortuary of Guymon fascinating.
No Man’s Land Historical Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free but donations are welcomed. For more about the museum in Goodwell, go online to nmlhs.org/museum.html.
Cimarron Heritage Center, Boise City (Cimarron County)
Cimmy the Cimarronasaurus greets visitors who arrive at Cimarron Heritage Center on the north side of Boise City along U.S. 287. He’s actually an apatosaurus modeled from the dinosaur bones excavated near Kenton in the 1930s and replicated in iron 80% to stand 35 feet high and 65 feet long.
That apatosaurus Cimmy represents plus thousands of other dinosaur bones have been excavated from eight different quarries in the county; in fact, complete skeletons are on display at Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman.
One of the main exhibits at Cimarron Heritage Center focuses on the history of dinosaurs that walked through Oklahoma’s Panhandle, which was an ancient beach during North America’s Jurassic and Triassic periods.
Visitors can tour rooms on the Santa Fe Trail and the settlement of No Man’s Land ghost towns of Keyes, Kenton, and Felt. One exhibit pays tribute to the Dust Bowl (much like the museum in Goodwell) while another centers on Boise City’s role during World War II and beyond.
Cimarron Heritage Center is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free but donations are welcomed. For more about the heritage center in Boise City, go online to chcmuseumok.com.
Side note: After visiting Cimarron Heritage Center, be sure to stop on the east side of the Boise City roundabout around the Cimarron County Courthouse. Next to the red caboose that serves as the town’s chamber of commerce office is a bomb embedded in the concrete.
This historical marker memorializes that Boise City was the only U.S. city bombed during World War II. American pilots flying B-17 bombers from Texas’ Dalhart Army Air Base mistook the lights of Boise City to be their practice field and dropped a payload of 100-pound bombs filled with sand and gunpowder on the courthouse lawn in the pre-dawn hours of July 5, 1943. No one was injured or killed, only startled from their slumber. The local newspaper headline you can see for yourself at the heritage center said “Wartime blunder gives Boise City thunder.”