|
Situated almost in the
middle of the conterminous United States-right below
Kansas, which is really in the middle-Oklahoma
also falls close to the middle in state size, too, at
number 20 on the scale of one to 50. Nicknamed the
"Sooner State," a lot of folks have confused this
moniker with "schooner," thinking the state was named
after early homesteaders who sailed in on their prairie
schooners, or covered wagons. Not so. It refers instead
to over-anxious settlers who made land grabs and claimed
squatters' rights a tad before it was legal to do so,
staking their settlements a bit "sooner" than they
should have.
Then came the oil boom. Rigs and pumps sprang up
seemingly overnight, and along with them, the cities of
Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Thus began the shift from
agriculture to industry, and the urbanization of a state
many easterners could think of only as a dust bowl. We
prowled the virtual corridors of the cities' operas
(Oklahoma's own variety), world-class zoos, and perhaps
our favorite spot of all, the Cowboy Hall of Fame.
|
