Pink is a town in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, United States, and is part of the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area. The only town in the United States bearing this name, Pink lies within the boundaries of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. The population was 2,091 at the time of the 2020 Census, which is 1.6% above the 2010 census figure of 2,058, which itself was a 76.7% increase from the figure of 1,165 in 2000.
The town name of Pink may have been chosen because it is complementary to Brown (now part of Pink), which was located a few miles east in the same township and range. This would be an example of the "twin name fad" in Pottawatomie County, like the towns of Romulus and Remus. Oral history suggests that the town name was in honor of a local resident named Pink.
The town was hit by a significant tornado on the night of April 19, 2023.
History
Prehistory From the information gathered during archaeological excavations along the Little River west and south of Pink, it appears that people lived in this area for many thousands of years including during the four-thousand year drought of the Altithermal which started around 8,500 years ago and turned most of Oklahoma into a vast desert. The Thunderbird Dam Site on Little River west of Pink appears to have been used from around 500 BC to 1000 AD. Hunters found the ridge above the river a good camping spot near water and plentiful game animals including deer and turkey.
1800-1891 The Oklahoma region became part of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The Indian Removal Act, signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1830, authorized the President to negotiate land exchange treaties with tribes located in lands of the United States. Relocation to Indian Territory began with the Five Civilized Tribes and soon expanded to other groups residing east of the Mississippi River.
Citizen Potawatomi
Originally driven west by the Iroqouis to the Lake Michigan area prior to 1640, the Potawatomi were driven out of their homes again during the Indian Removal. The Indiana Potawatomi were removed to Kansas and settled at St. Mary's Mission, becoming known as the Mission Potawatomi. Taking up United States citizenship, they became the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. In 1867, the Citizen Potawatomi sold their Kansas lands in order to purchase land in Indian Territory in what would become Pottawatomie County, including Pink.
The Potawatomi arrived in Indian Territory to find Shawnee occupying their land. The Shawnee had been living along the Canadian River in the Choctaw and Creek nations since about 1845, and being absent from their Kansas reservation, they became known as the Absentee Shawnee. In 1872, the United States Congress gave the Absentee Shawnee title to the lands they occupied in the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Two decades later, the Dawes Act of 1887 forced the Citizen Potawatomi, Absentee Shawnee, Sac & Fox, and Iowa to accept individual allotments. After the allotments were completed, unoccupied land was opened to settlers in the Land Run of 1891, including land that would become the town of Pink.
Absentee Shawnee
One band of Absentee Shawnee led by Big Jim (Wapameepto), grandson of Tecumseh, opposed absorption into white society for fear of losing their cultural traditions. They had been living illegally north of the North Canadian River until November 1886 when soldiers from Fort Reno forced them to move south of the river to a place near Shawneetown. The soldiers burned their old houses and destroyed improvements they had made to the land so they could not return to their old homes. They wintered without shelter. Within three years they managed to build log houses and plant small fields and orchards amidst the White Turkeys, another band of Absentee Shawnees. By 1889, it was evident that the land they were now occupying would be broken up and sold.
Refusing to accept the notion of allotments, Big Jim's Band removed themselves to what they considered the most distant and worthless part of the Citizen Pottawatomie Nation. Big Jim thought that white men would not be interested in the sandy hills near the confluence of Hog Creek and Little River, and would consequently leave them alone. It was a futile attempt to escape allotments, and in 1890 Big Jim and his followers were forced by the Cherokee Commission to accept 80-acre allotments of mostly sandy hills and overflowed bottomland. The community, known as Big Jim Settlement (population 184 in 1901), later became Little Axe in eastern Cleveland County. The original center of the settlement was flooded upon completion of Lake Thunderbird in 1965, ironically turning Big Jim's "worthless" land into a desirable and popular state park.Lake Thunderbird State Park
The easternmost Big Jim Band allotments were in what is now the town of Pink. A number of these allotments are still intact, including 2,000 contiguous acres straddling the Pottawatomie/Cleveland county line on the north and south sides of Highway 9.
Several houses were built at the intersection of old Highway 37 and the Pottawatomie/Cleveland county line prior to 1930. Only stone foundations and old maps remain as evidence of these Absentee Shawnee homes.
1891 Land Run On September 22, 1891, at 12 o'clock noon, by proclamation of President Benjamin Harrison, the second Oklahoma land run began, opening 6,097 homesteads of 160 acres each in what would become Lincoln and Pottawatomie counties. The Citizen Potawatomi and Absentee Shawnee were paid by the US Government sixty-nine cents for each acre that would become the town of Pink. The claimant for each homestead was required to pay $1.50 per acre upon filing a claim in Guthrie or Oklahoma City, and required to reside on the land for at least five years."Points About the New Land", The Norman Transcript Vol 02 No 49 , September 26, 1891Information regarding the original claims can be found in 72 volumes of the Federal Land Tract Books at the Oklahoma Historical Society Research Center in Oklahoma City.
During the 1889 and 1891 Land Runs, Texans and other Southern Democrats took up land suitable for cotton production north of the Red River. These Southerners carried Democratic "yellow-dog" propensities into the territory as far north as the Oklahoma City-Pink-Tecumseh area.
Challenges to settlement In 1936, John Fortson wrote about the difficulties faced by early settlers of Pottawatomie County:
Settlers in Pottawatomie County were confronted with problems from which the settlers of Oklahoma territory, opened in 1889, were free. Oklahoma territory was devoid of inhabitants at the opening, and particularly of an Indian population possessing livestock. Tribes in Pottawatomie County were already settled on farms, and to the east the Creeks and Seminoles possessed cattle and horses and some revenue from farming and leasing land to the whites.
Oklahoma territory settlers found trains and telegraph lines crossing the country, while the Pottawatomie area was un-traversed by either. Pottawatomie County was nearly always torn with internal dissension and always at cross purpose with territorial authorities. Top these statements with the fact that this county bordered Indian territory on two sides, and you have the reason why the county became a rendezvous immediately after the opening for many outlaws operating at the time, and produced such law violators as Black Jack Christian and his brother Bob of the High Five Gang, George Waightman (alias Red Buck) of the Doolin-Dalton Gang, and George “Hookie” Miller, who after years of crime became a US Deputy Marshal."George "Red Buck” Weightman - Vicious Desperado", Legends of America (accessed 2015-06-30).
This scarlet chapter is due principally to the “line” saloon towns that sprang up along the territorial boundary, to the outlaws operating in both territories that found these places convenient hangouts, and to the cattle and horse stealing done by these outlaws. Early day criminal dockets are long lists of trials for horse stealing. Until the Anti-Horse Thief association began functioning effectively at the turn of the century, farmers found it difficult to keep enough livestock to farm.
Two definite trails were used by the outlaws to move their stolen horses out of the county, relates John Hatfield, veteran peace officer. Both entered the county almost due west of Tecumseh [most likely through present-day Pink]. One branched off to the north, passing through the vicinity of old Shawneetown and leaving the county near Keokuk Falls. The other branched south, leaving the county at a point between Maud and old Violet Springs.
'On these trails,' Hatfield says, 'stations were established every 25 miles or so. A man would pick up a horse, say, at Violet Springs. He would ride that night to the station located west of Tecumseh, then return to Violet Springs with another horse before his neighbors could become suspicious. The stolen horse would be taken on west by other riders, who in turn would ride back with horses stolen in the west. Thus through this convenient "shipping" method, the thieves were able to market their wares at spots far distant from the scene of the theft.'
In April 1900, the Tecumseh Republican encouraged the formation of an Anti Horse Thief Association to combat the perpetual problem that plagued area farmers. A scheme was proposed whereby each member would pay a levy if another member's horse was stolen, thereby reducing the financial impact to the unfortunate member.
Early inhabitants Absentee Shawnee allottees of 1891 in what became the town of Pink included Rufus Coons (S ½ SE ¼ Section 7), Nellie McCoy (SW ¼ Section 7), Se-So-Tay-Se (N ½ Section 7), Owen Gobbler (E ½ SW ¼ Section 9), Tha-Ke-Tep-Pie (Gobbler) (E ½ Section 9), Jacob Tomahawk (S ½ Section 14), Ja-Squa-Way-Se (W ½ Sw ¼ Section 18), Nad-Pe-Tok-Ca (E ½ SW ¼ Section 18), Ne-Ah-Qua (Pecan) (N ½ NW ¼ Section 18), Pa-Na-Ya-Sker-Ca (S ½ NW ¼ Section 18), John Coons (E ½ Section 18).
These original Indian allotments were not always settled upon. One exception was part of the 1891 allotment for Nellie McCoy (Now-Ah-Lo-Pea-SE), identified as Township 9N Range 2E Section 7 Lot 4 and SE¼ SW¼. A stone foundation has been located on the southern edge of this tract corresponding to a dwelling noted by the 1930 USGS Survey, likely occupied by Nellie or her relatives. Upon Nellie’s death the allotment passed to her husband John Pecan and her two sisters and brother in 1928. The USGS Survey depicts several other dwellings on adjacent land in Cleveland County that may also have been inhabited by Absentee Shawnee prior to 1930 and abandoned prior to 1956 when all of these houses were no longer shown on the survey maps due to their abandonment, decay and difficulty of access.
This part of Nellie McCoy's allotment was transferred to William A and Norma Jean Mays in 1964, and later sold to William Reeves Laney and Joyce Ann Fredrickson Laney. The Laneys combined Nellie's land with adjacent property and built Wicklow in 1980, a modern interpretation of an 1850 antebellum plantation home. Ownership of Wicklow transferred to Stanley and Betty Faulk in December 2005. The Faulks subsequently designated 100 acres of the property as the "Nellie McCoy Nature Reserve" for the protection of Cross Timbers flora and fauna as well as Native American and American pioneer history.