Editing Mountain Park, Oklahoma (section)

==History==
The town of Mountain Park began as a trading post named Burford, near the [[Wichita Mountains]] in southern [[Oklahoma Territory]]. A post office was established at Burford in August 1901, just after the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Reservation opened for settlement by non-Indians. In February 1902, the town that had sprung up around the trading post and changed its name to Mountain Park. Fires destroyed most of the wood-frame buildings along Main Street in 1906 and 1908. The town rebuilt with all brick structures.<ref name="EOHC-MountainView">{{cite web|url= https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=MO027 |title=Mountain Park|publisher= Ethel Crisp Taylor, Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture|accessdate=December 16, 2021}}</ref>

According to ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture'', the [[Oklahoma City and Western Railroad]] offered Mountain Park resident Sol Bracken six thousand dollars for a {{convert|160|acre|ha}} tract on which to build a station. Bracken refused the offer as insufficient and demanded more money. Instead, company officials rerouted their railroad through the town of [[Snyder, Oklahoma|Snyder]], two miles south of Mountain Park. As a result, 41 of the 47 businesses in Mountain Park promptly moved to Snyder.<ref name="EOHC-MountainView"/>

By statehood in 1907, Mountain Park had 381 residents. In 1910, it was named the county seat of the short-lived [[Swanson County, Oklahoma|Swanson County]]. That county was abolished in the following year. The local economy was based on cotton and wheat production, as well as granite quarrying. The population rose to 459 by 1930. Census population peaked at 557 in 1980.<ref name="EOHC-MountainView"/>

On March 7, 2008, [[KSWO-TV]] reported that the former town clerk was fired for allegedly secretly embezzling $100,000 over a period of two years, leaving the town unable to pay its bills and forcing it to raise utility rates for residents.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/03/07/pkg.town.debt.kswo | title=Latest Videos &#124; CNN | website=[[CNN]] | date=May 28, 2024 }}</ref>