Towns

Ellis County

      In July 1887, a side track and a station for the Railroad were established near the conflux of Wolf and Little Wolf and named GAGE in honor of Lyman J. Gage, a prominent Chicago financier and banker who was later Secretary of Treasury under President McKinley. Also under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1901-1902. 
     The town was incorporated 15 May 1904 in Woodward County, Indian Territory of Oklahoma with a population of 800. The town consisted of three churches, two newspapers, two banks, a flour mill, a cotton gin, a broom company, a telephone system, three hotels, 2 drug stores, one grain elevator, six general stores, two hardware stores, one music store, two Doctors, two Dentists, three coal companies, a cold storage house, three livery barns, one sale stable, three implement houses, three blacksmiths, three meat markets, one lawyer, one undertaker, one machine shop and two realtors
     In 1995, the population was 473. The town consists of seven churches, a Quick Stop, a cafe, one bank, a post office, five beauty shops, an accounting firm, a cattle and feed company, two mechanic garages, a pet store, a feed mill, a transport company, a tavern and "Junky Jim's" a junkyard art shop. 
      Helen Lauretta McConaughy, daughter of Albert and Laura McConaughy, was born 1 May 1895 in a log cabin on the land homesteaded by her grandparents, John and Ida Barr. Helen is reported to have been the first child born in Gage.