The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

MILL CREEK.

Located in northern Johnston County, Mill Creek lies on State Highway 1/7, twelve miles north of Ravia. In 1855 Cyrus Harris, the first governor of the Chickasaw Nation, settled in the area. The town drew its name from the nearby creek and the mill that Harris operated on it. Harris's ranch also served as a stage stand for the lines that traveled west to Fort Arbuckle and Fort Sill. In 1879 the Post Office Department designated a Mill Creek post office, with James Davison as postmaster. In 1891 Felix Penner married one of Harris's daughters, expanded the ranching operations, and created the Penner Ranch, which continued into the twenty-first century.

From 1900 to 1901 the St. Louis, Oklahoma and Southern Railway (bought by the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad, or Frisco, in June 1901) laid tracks through the area. Because the railroad lay three miles east of town, residents relocated to be near it. Mill Creek then became one of the region's largest towns for shipping cattle. That circumstance also gave the community a reputation for bootlegging and crime.

In 1901 Mill Creek's estimated population was six hundred. Six general stores, a bank, a hotel, a livery, a blacksmith shop, a cotton gin, two groceries, two restaurants, a photographer, four doctors, and other retail outlets served the public. Two saloons also were listed in the Indian Territory Gazetteer, although Indian Territory prohibited alcohol. In December 1901 Judge Hosea Townsend of the U.S. Southern District Court at Ardmore approved Mill Creek's incorporation. At 1907 statehood the community's population stood at 644, and it stayed above six hundred through 1920. By 1911 the town had three banks. The Mill Creek Times, the Mill Creek Herald, the Mill Creek Courier, the Oklahoma Standard, and the Mill Creek News reported to the town in the early twentieth century.

In 1930 the population was 422. It increased to 459 in 1940 before declining to 299 in 1950. In the early 1940s the last bank closed, and by 1946 the town maintained a cotton gin, a blacksmith, a garage, several retail outlets, and gas stations. The extraction of gravel and dimension stone near Mill Creek contributed to the economy, with the granite known for its pink color and called "Autumn Rose." The population continued to fall, reaching 234 in 1970. The trend reversed in that decade, and there were 431 residents in 1980. That year the Frisco railroad merged into the Burlington Northern system, which joined with the Santa Fe in 1997. In 2000, 197 students attended the town's prekindergarten-through-twelfth-grade school system, and the town's population was 340. It dropped to 319 in the 2010 census. The April 2020 census reported 291 residents.

Larry O'Dell