Editing Kaw City, Oklahoma (section)

==History==
In 1902, the original '''Kaw City''' was founded, prior to Oklahoma statehood, as a farming community in the fertile oxbow bend of the [[Arkansas River]].<ref name="EOHC-KawCity">Pittman, Annette. ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''. "Kaw City."[http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/K/KA008.html]</ref> Kaw City was across the river from the [[Kaw people|Kaw]] Indian reservation and the Kaw Agency. By statehood in 1907, it had 486 inhabitants. Although the original town site is now inundated by the waters of [[Kaw Lake]], the old town was quite a busy place.

It became a booming oil town in 1919, when 'black gold' was discovered in nearby [[Kay County]] and the present [[Osage Nation]] reservation. The population jumped from 627 in 1920 to 1,001 in 1930.<ref name="EOHC-KawCity"/> It even had a very popular four-story hotel filled with one of the world's rarest art collections. Laura A. Clubb, owner of the collection and wife of a local rancher, later donated her collection to [[Philbrook Art Museum]].

The majority of the town was overcome by a (weather-related) flood in 1923, and then devastated again by the [[Great Depression]].<ref name="EOHC-KawCity"/>

In the late 1960s, the [[United States Army Corps of Engineers|Army Corps of Engineers]] constructed [[Kaw Lake|Kaw Dam]] on the [[Arkansas River]] just south of the original Kaw City site. It then went underwater permanently in 1976, when the gates of the Kaw Dam closed and turned that particular area of the Arkansas River into [[Kaw Lake]]. Dave Morgan, a banker and oilman in nearby Blackwell, Oklahoma loaned the town the money it needed to move two miles to the west, up on a hill by the town's cemetery. The first house was built in the summer of 1969 and first mail delivery was on June 26, 1972.<ref name="oklahoman.com">[https://www.oklahoman.com/article/2034898/when-kaw-cityans-moved-town-70-years-of-proud-history-moved-too The Oklahoman. "When Kaw Cityans Moved Town, 70 Years of Proud History Moved, Too" by Burnis Argo.  August 7, 1983]</ref> Many buildings in Kaw City, including the old Santa Fe Railroad Depot which is now the Kaw City Museum, were moved to the town's present location, on high ground near the lake. The Santa Fe Railroad Depot is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The depot is one of only two listed structures that have been moved from their original locations elsewhere in Oklahoma, the other being Will Rogers Homestead near Claremore, which was also moved to make way for a lake.<ref name="oklahoman.com"/> When the water in the lake is exceptionally low, some of the foundations of the old structures can still be seen just above the water.

The Kaw City Cemetery (all headstones and the majority of the caskets) were also moved and given a separate section within Ponca City's IOOF cemetery, west of Conoco just south of Highway 60. The Kaw Indian cemetery located across the Arkansas river in [[Washunga, Oklahoma|Washunga]] was moved to [[Newkirk, Oklahoma]].