Anyone here from the Oklahoma panhandle?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was lounging in the office the other day reading a Car and Driver article in which they drove one of those little ‘Smart Cars’ through the Oklahoma panhandle.

The article did not give me enough information about Smart Cars nor the Oklahoma Panhandle. The idea of such a rural out-of-the-way place somehow interests me. (An idle interest, but interest nonetheless.)

So I went to the internet. Wikipedia has a listing for each Oklahoma county in the panhandle. The articles are little more than the census data. Otherwise, nothing. No real estate agents, no car dealers, no Masonic Lodges on the web nothing.

The town of Beaver has a web site, but most of the links do not work.

So what is this area ‘like?’ Rural paradise or Redneck haven? Is it a good place to retire to? How cold does it get?

How can there be three counties in the US in 2005 with no web presence? I suspect some sort of scenario out of ‘The Village.’

2

I suspect I may be onto something. No Dopers in the Oklahoma panhandle. No phones, no computers. Just an idealized version of a puritan utopia.

3

Rural paradise. It can get real cold in the winter and the wind blows alot. Think more Midwestern with a Cowboy flair than Southern Hick. Expect the Fourth of July Rodeo, the County Fair, and highschool sports to be big things.

Have you looked into the Alpine TX area about retirement? It’s kind of a neat area not too awfully far from Bigbend National Park. Wonderful area and Alpine is kind of artsy/fartsy but with a Texas sense of normalcy and property prices aren’t quite bonkers yet.

4

It seems that you have a problem with normal American culture outside of urban areas filled with liberals in every since of the word. This, like most decent places in the US, might not be a good place for you.

5

I toured the Oklahoma Panhandle once, crossing it from east to west, just because I like visiting obscure places that don’t get much tourism. It’s mostly flat, although broken up by mesas and buttes, and staggeringly empty. It’s not a wilderness–almost all of the land is privately owned and actively managed–but it feels more empty than many wilderness areas because the huge farms and ranches support only a very small and scattered population.

You can visit the No Man’s Land Museum in Goodwell, which tells the interesting history of the area and explains how it got attached to Oklahoma as an afterthought. The very nice curator had plenty of time to reminisce with me about Dust Bowl days.

The westernmost of the three Panhandle counties (Cimarron) is the only county in the United States which touches four other states. A restaurant in the county seat of Boise City (pronounced “boys”, not like the city in Idaho) displays the other four state flags on its windows.

Black Mesa, at the western edge of Cimarron County, attracts a few “high pointers” because it’s the highest point in Oklahoma. It’s a privately run park, owned by the Nature Conservancy, with none of the facilities or (sometimes) over-development associated with national parks. I spent several hours hiking out to Black Mesa and back and didn’t encounter another person.

There is trouble in paradise. Huge hog farms create nasty stench and attract even more insects than usual. The window sill of my hotel room in Guymon looked like it had been sand-blasted with dead flies.

The book “Great Plains” by Ian Frazier captures the general atmosphere of the Plains very well, although it doesn’t discuss the Panhandle specifically.

6

Gosh, UB, sorry to upset you. I should have known better as humor so often fails in its written form. My very sincere apologies.

My second post was an expression at amazement that nobody from Oklahoma jumped right on the OP. My secondary purpose was to give the OP a gentle bump.

I should have figured the time zone thing before I approached panic.

Again, sorry to have upset you. That is not my way.

7

The hog farms were before time. If they are close enough to town, they can definitely ruin the “quality of the life.” They are much worse than any feedlot IMO.

8

Sorry that I flew off the handle Paul. I have fondness for the place. It’s rural and folks are more conservative than many places. But it’s not backward or Puritanical IME. Just rural and small town. I wouldn’t want to retire there if the pig farms were too thick like Freddy the Pig mentioned.

9

No problem Bull, in truth it was an almost-idle question. I do not do snow. Still it might be worth a summer visit. I like the idea of being far from the intestates for some reason.

10

I’ve driven through it a time or two, back in the dark ages (the '70s) It was a place you could watch your dog run away for three days. And since that would be the most interesting thing to happen in a while, the neighbors would come and watch with you. :smiley:

11

Did the article mention where in the US you can get a Smart Car? I want one! The SmartCar website is no help; all bells and whistles, NO useful information (price, dealers, etc.).

12

I do not live in the Oklahoma Panhandle but have traveled through it many times.

The telephone service for the entire panhandle is provided by Panhandle Telephone Cooperative. This company provides services that are more advanced than most urban/suburban subscribers receive. They provide DSL, Digital TV over DSL, Wireless service, etc. Their website (www.ptci.net) provides some information about the area.

13

Paul, I have lived and worked in two commuities in the Oklahoma Panhandle and I must say I enjoyed it.

I know the area pretty well.

Now, whether it is a paradise is another question. Did you know that it called “no man’s land?” That nickname came because of four states (some were just territories at the time) touching it no one was willing to take that piece of property. Not Texas, not New Mexico, not Colorado and not Oklahoma. Finally Oklahoma agreed.

It is very flat, although there is some wonderful hunting, pheasant, antalope and few deer and elk in the very northwestern corner.

The economy is farming or farming related like the mass produced hogs mentioned earlier. So the philosophy is very farmish. Not many people, the history of Cimmaron County, Oklahoma is titled “Not a Stoplight in the County”.

And they are very proud of that statement too. Beaver, that you mentioned earlier, is a tiny town of about 1,000 people and they are not happy with the ribbing they get from big city folks about their town’s name. Nor is Hooker, which is also in the Panhandle.

Beaver does take pride in being the first place in the U.S. to hold a cow chip throwing contest. They resent other’s getting on the bandwagon.

Guymon, the largest community in the Panhandle, (about 13,000 people) was somewhat famous about 15 years ago for electing a dead man as judge. The man died while running for office and the people so disliked the guy running against him they voted in the dead guy.

The only institution of higher learning in the Panhandle is Oklahoma Panhandle State University in Goodwell. The town is about 12 miles southeast of Guymon. The town itself is about 300 while the college is closer to 3,000 full-time students (it could be fewer). For the most part their athletic teams are pretty weak. The one exception is their rodeo team. It is very highly regarded.

Their education department is very highly regarded also. Probably any public school within 100 miles of the Oklahoma Panhandle gets the bulk of their teachers from Panhandle State.

If you are a runner a fun run every year is from the Colorado/Oklahoma state line to the Texas/Oklahoma state line called (I think) the Trans-Panhandle Relay. Anybody who wants to can get a team together can do it. A few people have run it without a team, but it is great fun with a great deal of beer consumed and fun had.

Honestly, I like the area, and if you have ever seen miles of acres of wheat blowing in a breeze and liked that you’ll like the Panhandle. I will tell you the winters are brutal.

TV

14

The Smart Car in question was brought into the States for promotional reasons. They are not yet available in the US. You can buy them here. Want me to mail one to you?

As for the Panhandle, it sounds nicer than the article made it sound. Rural but nice and inexpensive. I realize now it was written in a snitty fashion.

15

My company owns a power plant not far from the panhandle. As others have said, there’s not a lot to see or do there. The people are honest and hardworking for the most part. (Of course, there are bad seeds wherever you go.)

The winters are practically unbearable. It snows all the time and the wind creates drifts that would rival anyone’s.

If you’ve ever been to west Texas, it’s very similar. As they say, it’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.

16

I was born in Oklahoma and drive back through the panhandle occasionally. As others have said, it’s mostly farming based (wheat is a big crop). People tend to be down-to-earth and conservative. Church-going.

The wind does blow. Seems like it’d be a great place for wind generation.

Winters can be cold and then there’s tornado season. Good to have a storm cellar just in case. Can be hot in the summer. And there are times when it seems like there’s a lot of bugs of various kinds. Just passing through.

What struck me most in the smaller towns were the house prices. Very low. Of course, there’s not much to do in small towns so demand is low.

And don’t forget flat. It’s pretty flat.

17

Oddly, I cannot find any real estate people from the Panhandle online. Being from the Washington DC megaplex, real estate prices are always of interest to me.

On the other hand, it is an almost-idle question.

18

I don’t see a factual question here.

I’ll move this to MPSIMS for you.

DrMatrix - GQ Moderator

19

Other than the far Western end of the OK panhandle, it’s not a lot different than the Northern TX panhandle. There is Lake Optima which is a little wildlife oasis that never really filled up. Since most of the other land is large farms or ranches that are privately owned (other than the Black Mesa park and maybe a very small amount of other public land), there’s not a whole lot going on. Small towns several miles apart.

Click of one of Counties to get an idea just how sparsely populated it is, as well as median housing values and income.

I live not far South of the Oklahoma panhandle, in Texas, and have friends in the very SW corner of KS I visit (Hugoton/Liberal area), and it is an austere part of the world.