The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

LONE WOLF.

The Kiowa County community of Lone Wolf is situated nine miles west of Hobart on State Highways 9 and 44. Lone Wolf's main street, State Highway 9, intersects with State Highway 44 on the town's eastern edge. Lone Wolf is located about six miles east of the North Fork of the Red River and the Kiowa-Greer county line. The Texas and Oklahoma Railroad runs in a northeasterly direction through town.

Lone Wolf was founded upon the opening of the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Reservation in August 1901. Established along the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway, the settlement was quickly populated and named for Kiowa Chief Lone Wolf. The community's first business was a restaurant operated by Mark Sauerberg and his partner, Hance Van Rankin. Chief Lone Wolf and his wife and son were their first customers.

Other early businesses included Sauerberg's dray business, three lumberyards, a feed store, one hardware store, a drug store, two doctors, one dentist, two banks, five cotton gins, five grain elevators, three general stores, one livery stable, and saloons. Two wells located south and west of town supplied fresh water. Schools and churches were built, and farming was the major industry.

By 1907 statehood Lone Wolf's population was 337. That figure grew from 677 in 1910 to 1,023 in 1930. As with many rural communities, Lone Wolf's generations grew up and moved on to pursue careers elsewhere. As a result, the number of residents dropped from 783 in 1940 to 500 in 2000 and to 438 in 2010. The April 2020 census reported 371 residents. The area's small farms have been absorbed into larger holdings, but cotton and wheat remain important to the local economy. Lone Wolf was the birthplace of Gen. LaVern E. Weber (1923–1999).

Ethel Crisp Taylor