The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

MOUNTAIN VIEW.

The Kiowa County community of Mountain View is situated just south of the Washita County line and twenty-two miles northeast of Hobart. Mountain View's main street is State Highway 9/115, which runs east-west through town. A quiet farming and ranching community, Mountain View had a population of 880 in 2000.

In Indian Territory in April 1899 the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway extended a line from Chickasha, in the Chickasaw Nation, to the northern Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Reservation. North of the Washita River in present Washita County, about two miles from the railroad's terminus, was Oakdale, a store and post office on the former Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation. There a "tent city" developed and was supplied by wagon from El Reno.

Nicknamed "the City in the Woods," Oakdale boomed. Its first newspaper, the Southwestern Progress, was printed in spring 1899. Texas cattle were shipped north to the Rock Island's terminus, and they were unloaded and allowed to graze on the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache land. The first 2,585 head arrived in forty-seven railroad cars on April 23, 1899, with an additional five thousand en route.

Some Oakdale residents obtained land for a new townsite. Platted in May 1899 by the El Reno Development Company, the nearby settlement, with the Wichita Mountains looming on the south and west, was called Mountain View. The Oakdale post office was renamed Mountain View on October 9, 1900. In late 1903 Mountain View was relocated to its present position to be near the Rock Island railway. By 1904 Oakdale's businesses and homes had also moved to the new site, and schools and churches were soon started. By 1910 Mountain View's population was 855. That number fluctuated throughout the century, climbed to 1,075 by 1940, dropped, and then peaked at 1,086 in 1980. The 2010 census recorded a population of 795. The April 2020 census reported 741. Community newspapers have included the Mountain View Republican, the Mountain View Tribune, and the Mountain View News.

Ethel Crisp Taylor