Pottawatomie County
Oklahoma
Sacred Heart Church - 1945
Pottawatomie County was carved out of land originally given to the Creek and Seminole after their forced removal from Georgia and Florida. After the Civil War, the Creek and Seminole were forced to cede their lands back to the federal government, and the area of Pottawatomie County was used to resettle the Iowa, Sac and Fox, Absentee Shawnee, Potawatomi and Kickapoo tribes. Non-Indian settlement began on September 22, 1891 when all the tribes except the Kickapoo agreed to land allotment, where communal reservation land was divided and allotted to individual members of the tribes. The remaining land was opened to settlement. During the land run, Pottawatomie County was organized as County "B" with Tecumseh as the county seat. In 1892, the voters of the county elected to rename County "B" as Pottawatomie County after the Potawatomi Indians. In 1895, the Kickapoo gave up their land rights and their land was given away to white settlers in the last land run in Oklahoma. In 1930, Shawnee, now bigger in size than Tecumseh, was approved by the voters to become the new county seat Tecumseh, originally the County Seat, lost to the fast growing community of Shawnee. Incidentally, Shawnee was also in competition for the State Capitol. City leaders even went so far as to build a governor’s house. The oil and railroad industries were vital to the development of some Pottawatomie County towns and to the decline of others. Agriculture, however, remains a mainstay of the County’s economy. Pottawatomie County has two institutions of higher education, Oklahoma Baptist University and St. Gregory's University.
Pottawatomie County Courthouse
Shawnee Library
Tecumseh Library Sacred Heart Mission National Register of Historic Places nomination and history
Local History: Earlsboro, Pottawatomie County
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