The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

FAIR OAKS.

Situated in Wagoner County, Fair Oaks, is a Tulsa suburb located east of that metropolis on U.S. Highway 412 and straddling the Wagoner/Rogers County line. In 1966 two Wagoner County communities, Fair Oaks and Oak Grove (later New Tulsa), incorporated to protect their residents from future annexation by Tulsa. At the time of its incorporation Fair Oaks comprised two hundred acres and had approximately twenty residents. In 1969 the town annexed fifteen thousand acres, almost all of it contained in the L. S. Robson ranch in Wagoner and Rogers counties. The enormous expansion of the town from its original two hundred acres drew criticism. In 1970 the population stood at 23, but in 1980 it had swelled to 324 as the town became a "bedroom" community for Tulsa. With the continuing boom in the Tulsa area population and the rapid development of the suburbs, Fair Oaks's population mushroomed to 1,133 in 1990. At that same time the Robson family initiated a movement that convinced Tulsa's city government to annex 4,700 acres of the remainder of their ranch, 2,900 acres of which the city planned to use for industrial development. In 2000 the town of Fair Oaks had a population of 122, and in 2010, 103. In April 2020 the census reported 74 residents.

Larry O'Dell