This city is named for the Ponca people — not a railroad baron, not a river. The Ponca lived along the Niobrara River in Nebraska for centuries, farming and hunting bison. In 1858 and 1865, they signed treaties with the U.S. government, which promised schools, mills, and protection — and delivered almost none of it. In 1868, the government accidentally gave the Ponca's reservation to the Sioux in a treaty negotiation the Ponca weren't even part of.
In 1877, the government forcibly marched the Ponca south to Indian Territory — Oklahoma. They arrived too late to plant crops. Malaria was everywhere. Government supplies never came. Within the first two years, nearly one-third of the Ponca died. Among the dead was the eldest son of a chief named Standing Bear — a boy named Bear Shield.
Standing Bear promised his dying son he'd bury him in their Nebraska homeland. In January 1879, he walked north through winter with 30 followers, carrying his son's remains. He was arrested. Two attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus — never before done for a Native American. At trial, Standing Bear addressed the court directly: "My hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce my hand, I shall feel pain. I am a man. The same God made us both." Judge Dundy ruled Native Americans are "persons within the meaning of the law." The year was 1879. Seventeen years before Plessy v. Ferguson. Seventy-five years before Brown v. Board.
Chief Standing Bear, who changed American law in 1879
The Southern Ponca, under Chief White Eagle, settled on 101,000 acres along the Salt Fork and Arkansas Rivers — right where we are now. Today, six tribes share deep roots here: Ponca, Kaw, Osage, Otoe-Missouria, Pawnee, and Tonkawa. They're still here. Standing Bear Park honors all six with a 22-foot bronze statue and a 63-acre museum complex — one of the most powerful places in Oklahoma.
When we arrive at the Poncan Theatre, you'll hear directly from Ponca tribal leaders — Vice Chairwoman Rene Kemble, Secretary/Treasurer Molly Kemble, and Deborah Margerum — about the tribe's living history and culture. You'll also see a Fancy Dance performance and hear from Raven Thomas on Native American cultural heritage.
Chief White Eagle of the Ponca, 1877
Chief Standing Bear
Standing Bear Museum and Education Center
While the Ponca settled into their new land, a Kentucky-born Confederate veteran named Colonel George Washington Miller was paying close attention. He'd been leasing Ponca land for his cattle operation, branding his herd with the number 101. When the Cherokee Outlet — six million unassigned acres across northern Oklahoma — was announced for a land run, Miller was already positioned. He knew this land. He had relationships here. And he had a plan.
Colonel George W. Miller — founder of the 101 Ranch
What came next would change everything.
One hundred thousand people. September heat. Oklahoma prairie. Everyone camped and waiting. At high noon, a cannon fired — and the largest land run in U.S. history began. Six million acres, claimed in a single afternoon. Most people raced for 160-acre farms. One man, Burton Seymour Barnes, was not interested in farming. He'd come down from Arkansas City, Kansas, and scouted the area ahead of time. He saw three things: a fresh spring of water, a river, and a railroad. That's all he needed — water, transport, and trade. That's how you build a city. Barnes organized the Ponca Townsite Company and sold 2,300 shares at two dollars each, giving settlers a stake in the new town. Five days after the run, people drew their lot assignments from a box on Grand Avenue.
The Cherokee Outlet Opening — largest land run in U.S. history
Burton S. Barnes — founder of Ponca City
A mile north sat a rival town called Cross — and Cross had the railroad. They offered the Santa Fe station agent two free lots and a free house move if he'd switch towns. He said yes. Legend has it they rolled the actual boxcar station away in the night. On September 22, 1894, the first train arrived in New Ponca. Boosters handed every passenger a card that read: "The trains stop here just the same as at Chicago." Cross never recovered. Today it's just a neighborhood.
The Santa Fe Depot, Ponca City
Incorporated December 19, 1893. First school: November 16, 1893 — before the town was even officially incorporated. By statehood in 1907, population was 2,529. In 1913, the name was officially changed from "New Ponca" to "Ponca City."
Ponca City in the pioneer days — looking south
The city had its foundation. What lay beneath it would build an empire.
The Miller Brothers ran 110,000 acres — the largest diversified farm and ranch in America. It had its own store, hotel, newspaper, school, oil refinery, and its own currency. They kept exotic animals — tigers, bears, alligators, and a herd of around 500 buffalo. In 1905, they hosted 65,000 people for "Oklahoma's Gala Day," featuring Geronimo hunting a buffalo from an automobile with a Winchester rifle — a spectacle that drew national press. The ranch also became a cradle of early Western cinema. The Millers developed their own motion picture department, and the New York Motion Picture Company used the ranch's performers and gear to produce "Bison-101" westerns. Films like "A Round-Up in Oklahoma" (1908) and "War on the Plains" were shot right here. Many of the first stars of the Western genre — Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, Buck Jones — got their start at the 101. Over the years, the cast of the 101 Ranch Wild West Show also included Will Rogers and a Black cowboy named Bill Pickett, who invented the rodeo event of bulldogging.
Geronimo, who participated in the 1905 101 Ranch Gala Day
Cowboys and Girls at 101 Ranch Headquarters, Bliss, Oklahoma
Bill Pickett was a Black cowboy from Texas who invented the rodeo event of bulldogging — sliding off a running horse onto a running steer, twisting its neck to the ground, then biting the steer's lip and throwing his hands in the air. He was billed as "The Dusky Demon" and became one of the most famous performers of the era. Today he's in the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame — the first Black inductee. His story started on leased Ponca land, right here.
Ernest Whitworth Marland was a Pennsylvania lawyer who'd already made and lost one fortune before heading west. In 1908 he visited the 101 Ranch, saw something in the geology others missed, and leased 10,000 acres from the Ponca tribe. In June 1911, on the allotment of a Ponca man named Willie Cries-for-War, Marland struck oil. By 1920, he controlled an estimated 10% of the world's oil production — roughly Saudi Arabia's market share today. His personal wealth: about $85 million, or $1.4 billion in today's dollars. And he shared it. As Marland himself put it: "I spent money like water on my people and my town. They flourished and they blossomed like a rose!"
E.W. Marland — at his peak, he controlled 10% of the world's oil
The Marland family — E.W., Virginia, and their adopted children
Main Street looking east during the oil boom — Ponca City in the 1920s
If Marland was the showman, Lew Wentz was the quiet opposite. Born in Iowa in 1877 and raised in Pittsburgh, Wentz was too poor for college. He coached a high school baseball team and organized a semi-pro team as a playing manager — and is credited with originating the arm signals umpires still use to indicate balls and strikes. While campaigning door-to-door for the Republican Party, he knocked on the door of John G. McCaskey — a man who'd made a fortune in the sauerkraut business and was president of the 101 Ranch Oil Company. In 1911, McCaskey sent the 34-year-old Wentz to Ponca City to check on his investments. Wentz was standing right there on June 11, 1911 when the first well struck oil on Willie Cries-for-War's allotment. He'd planned to stay six months. He never left. Through McCaskey, Wentz got into the oil business himself. After McCaskey's death in 1924, Wentz formed the Wentz Oil Corporation and developed the Three Sands fields near Tonkawa — one of the largest oil discoveries in history. By the end of 1927, his property was making a million dollars a month. His taxable income ranked him among the top seven individuals in the nation — alongside Henry Ford, J.D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan. The press called him "the world's richest bachelor." He gradually sold his oil interests before the 1929 crash and diversified into citrus groves, timber, real estate, and newspapers. He never married. Lived in a suite at the Arcade Hotel in Ponca City, which he eventually owned. His mother's stern Methodist principles made him a generous man even in lean years — he secretly bought shoes, coats, and Christmas presents for poor children in Ponca City, sometimes borrowing money to keep the tradition alive. People called the anonymous benefactor "Daddy Long Legs." He established the Oklahoma Society for Crippled Children, built a public golf course, a wild game sanctuary, and a boys and girls camp with an Olympic-size pool — all still in operation today. He created student loan foundations at four Oklahoma universities, including OSU and OU, under the Lew Wentz Foundation, which still operates. He died on June 9, 1949, leaving an estate of $50 million. He's buried in the Ponca City IOOF Cemetery in a vault with bronze carved doors depicting the things that mattered to him: baseball, the oil industry, children's welfare, and public service.
Lew Wentz — "the world's richest bachelor"
Wentz Pool — "To the Youth of Ponca City and Oklahoma" — still in operation today
When E.W. Marland arrived in Ponca City in December 1908, he lived in a suite at the downtown Arcade Hotel. But by 1914, with oil money flowing, he began building a proper home at 1000 East Grand Avenue — a 16,500-square-foot Renaissance Revival mansion designed by Solomon Layton, the same architect who designed the Oklahoma State Capitol. Completed in 1916, the home featured technology most Oklahomans had never seen: a central vacuuming system, an automatic dishwasher, and the first indoor swimming pool ever built in Oklahoma. Marland moved in with his wife Mary Virginia Collins and their two adopted children — George, age 18, and Lydie, age 16, both children of Virginia's sister. George studied at Yale. Lydie was tutored at home and attended finishing schools back east. Both spent their summers here in Ponca City.
The Grand Home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is open to visitors today. Its restored rooms house Marland family displays, 101 Ranch artifacts, Native American collections, and an archaeology exhibit. This is a different building than the Marland Mansion — the Grand Home came first.
Marland's Grand Home — the first mansion, completed in 1916
Between 1925 and 1928, Marland built the Marland Mansion — 55 rooms, 43,561 square feet of Italian Renaissance architecture on the Oklahoma prairie. Immediately nicknamed "The Palace on the Prairie." He also commissioned twelve leading sculptors to compete for a pioneer woman monument, paid them $10,000 each, and let the American public vote. Bryant Baker won with "Confidence" — a sunbonneted woman striding forward, Bible under her arm, her son's hand in the other. Unveiled April 22, 1930. Forty thousand people attended. President Hoover gave a nationwide radio address. Will Rogers delivered the closing speech.
You'll tour the mansion yourself this afternoon with Don Bohon — and visit the Pioneer Woman Museum after lunch with Debbie Rue and Jennifer Lynch.
One more Marland legacy you won't find in any history book: red foxes are not indigenous to this area. Marland brought the sports of polo and fox hunting to Oklahoma and had foxes shipped in from Pennsylvania. Some got away. Every red fox you see in this region today is a descendant of a Marland fox that escaped. Their descendants still appear in the area today.
Fox hunting on the Marland estate — the ancestors of every red fox in the region
Marland and his wife Virginia were childless. They adopted two children from Virginia's sister in Pennsylvania — a boy named George and a girl named Lydie. These kids went from a modest rowhouse to a world of private schools, polo ponies, and private rail cars. Then Virginia died on June 6, 1926. Seventeen months later, Marland had Lydie's adoption annulled. He was 54. She was 28. The New York Times covered it. Her birth mother broke down and wept. But on July 14, 1928, they married quietly — five guests, a rose-colored gown. They lived in the 55-room mansion for about two months. Then Morgan's bankers took everything. By 1931 they couldn't afford the utilities on a 55-room house. They moved into the artist's studio out back.
Lydie Marland, photographed in Ponca City in 1934
Opened September 20, 1927 — peak boom. Designed in Spanish Colonial Revival style. $280,000 to build. A $22,500 Wurlitzer pipe organ. It was an "atmospheric theater" — designed to make you feel like you'd stepped into a villa on the Bay of Naples. On the Oklahoma prairie. On February 5, 1931, Will Rogers performed to the largest crowd in the theater's history. It closed in 1985 — and we'll come back to it.
The Poncan is our very first stop this morning — Lydia Connelly will walk you through its history, revitalization, and the hidden art you're about to see in person.
In 1923, Marland needed capital and brought in J.P. Morgan's banking interests. Morgan's people thought Marland was too generous. Too nice to his employees. Over five years, they bought up stock, called in loans, gained control. By the end of 1928, Morgan had forced Marland and his vice presidents to resign. Then the final humiliation: his personal home technically belonged to the company. He was moved out. Dan Moran, the new president, got the house. On June 26, 1929, Marland Oil merged with Continental Oil — a Denver company whose stockholders included the Rockefellers, who had controlled Continental before the U.S. Supreme Court broke Standard Oil into 34 companies in 1911. By mid-1929, every red triangle sign in Oklahoma had been painted over with Conoco. The $43 million debt load hit just as the stock market crashed.
J.P. Morgan — the man whose banking interests took it all
Marland lost everything. But he wasn't done.
Joe Miller was found dead in the ranch garage in 1927, car running. George Jr. died in a car accident in 1929. That left Zack trying to run 110,000 acres alone — in the Depression. He filed bankruptcy in 1932. The buildings were torn down. The ranch store burned in 1987. Eighty-two acres remain as a National Historic Landmark. Zack died in 1952. The greatest ranch in America was gone. But its legends — Bill Pickett, Tom Mix, Will Rogers — those belong to this place forever.
Marland lost his company. Lost his home. Lost his fortune. So he ran for Congress. In 1932, at the pit of the Great Depression, he won. Two years later he was elected Governor of Oklahoma, inaugurated January 15, 1935. A Pennsylvania lawyer comes to Oklahoma with nothing, strikes oil, controls 10% of the world's supply, gets betrayed by his bankers, loses everything — and runs for governor. Wins. His health was failing and he never recovered financially. He died in 1941 at 67. But the infrastructure he built — the refinery, the mansion, the Pioneer Woman, the bones of this city — held after he was gone.
E.W. Marland's gubernatorial campaign — "Bring the New Deal to Oklahoma"
Marland died in 1941. He sold the $5.5 million mansion to the Carmelite Fathers for $66,000. Lydie stayed in the chauffeur's cottage. Alone. For twelve years. Then, in February 1953, she disappeared. She loaded a green 1948 Studebaker with six paintings, some personal items, and $10,000 cash. Before she left, she had someone take a hammer to the life-size statue Marland had commissioned of her. She said: smash the face first. Then she drove away. For 22 years, nobody knew where she was. The Saturday Evening Post ran the headline: "What Happened to Lydie Marland?" She was nearly declared legally dead. In 1975, a Ponca City attorney tracked her down. She came home and lived as a recluse until 1987. The smashed statue was found and restored. You can see it at the Marland Mansion today.
Before Pearl Harbor, Ponca City was already training pilots. The Darr School of Aeronautics, located at the Ponca City airport, opened in August 1941. Young British cadets arrived by train — having grown up in wartime England, they found themselves in a place with unlimited food, open skies, and Oklahoma hospitality. Over 1,100 pilots trained here, including members of the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces. Seven RAF cadets died and are buried in the IOOF Cemetery. Every Flag Day, the British Union Jack flies in Ponca City for them. Meanwhile, the Continental Oil Company refinery became the first refinery in Oklahoma to manufacture 100-octane aviation fuel for the U.S. military — the high-octane gasoline essential for Allied aircraft. The refinery's strategic importance put Ponca City on a list of potential Nazi bombing targets. In 2024, Ponca City was designated a World War II Heritage City by the National Park Service — the only city in Oklahoma to receive the designation.
The Darr School of Aeronautics — where over 1,100 pilots trained for the war effort
The war was won. The boys came home. And for a little while, everything was golden.
In 1993, Conoco restructured its Ponca City operations — approximately 1,400 positions were eliminated, representing $40 million in annual payroll. Conoco had once accounted for 50% of jobs in Ponca City. This city had built itself around one company for 70 years. It was the kind of challenge that defines a community — and Ponca City chose to adapt.
The Poncan Theatre had closed in 1985. In 1990, volunteers formed the Poncan Theatre Company to save it. Fifteen tons of plaster. DuPont reproduced the original carpet. Conoco donated $150,000 — a testament to their continued commitment to the community. On September 18, 1994, the Poncan reopened. And during renovation, workers discovered something remarkable: one of the world's largest collections of hand-painted lobby art from the 1930s, hidden behind walls for decades. It survived by being forgotten. Sometimes the best things about a place are the things that survived by being forgotten.
You'll step inside the Poncan and see this hidden art for yourself at our first stop — Lydia Connelly will give you the full story.
1998: DuPont divested Conoco — the largest IPO in history at the time. 2002: Conoco merged with Phillips Petroleum to form ConocoPhillips. The corporate structure evolved, but the commitment to Ponca City remained. The refinery stays today, operated by Phillips 66, processing 200,000 barrels a day — the largest in Oklahoma. Phillips 66 is one of Ponca City's most important community partners, investing in local programs, education, and infrastructure. The relationship between this city and the company Marland founded continues and thrives.
While Ponca City was reeling from the Conoco restructuring, a local lawyer named Fred Boettcher started doing something quietly radical. Beginning in the early 1990s, Boettcher began buying vacant and deteriorating buildings in downtown Ponca City — one after another, with his own money. Over the years, he bought a dozen buildings and invested more than three million dollars fixing them up. "I just couldn't stand to see the town where I had grown up go down the tubes," he said. Boettcher believed that "giving back is the rent you pay for living on this Earth." Boettcher wasn't a developer looking for a return. He was a citizen who believed that if someone didn't act, there would be nothing left to save. His investment held the line for downtown during its most vulnerable years — preserving the bones of a district that others would later begin to revitalize.
Fred Boettcher — the man who bought downtown
In 2015, Jodi Cline — the first woman appointed to the PCDA Board of Trustees — purchased the 14,000-square-foot historic Marland Oil Office Building, once a proud downtown anchor of Ponca City that had fallen into severe disrepair. Jodi poured over $1 million into its restoration. Her Edward Jones office had already called the northeast corner home since 2004, making her commitment to the building both personal and purposeful. Today, Cline's mission is to return the Marland Building to its original splendor — and she continues that dedication as a member of the Mayor's Downtown Task Force, pouring her heart into the downtown and the city she loves.
The restored Marland Oil Office Building
In 2003, the Ponca City Development Authority was formed with a clear mandate: diversify the economy. For decades, the city's fortunes had risen and fallen with a single company. PCDA set out to change that — recruiting new employers, supporting local entrepreneurs, and building the infrastructure for a broader economic base. Their work marked a turning point: Ponca City was no longer waiting for one company to define its future. It was building its own.
The Evermore era was defined by perseverance. What followed was quieter — and no less important.
