Editing Nowata, Oklahoma (section)

==History==
The first community established at this site was named Metz, named for its first postmaster, Fred Metzner. The name was changed even before the railroad was built in 1889.<ref name= "EOHC-NowataCo.">[http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=NO018 Cheatham, Glen. "Nowata County." ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''.] Accessed July 25, 2016.</ref>
Nowata served as a train stop for Native Americans from the East being forced to resettle by the United States government. Some controversy exists about the meaning of the town name. [[Lenape]] tribesmen who passed through named it "nuwita," meaning "friendly" or "welcome."<ref name="EOHC-Nowata">Bamberg, Maxine. ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''. "Nowata" Retrieved September 30, 2011.[http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/N/NO017.html]</ref> In the [[Cherokee language]], the town is called ᎠᎹᏗᎧᏂᎬᎬ (''A-ma-di-ka-ni-gunh-gunh'', roughly), which means, "water is all gone," translating what it ''sounded'' like the word meant: No Water.<ref>Holmes, Ruth Bradley and Smith, Betty Sharp. ''Beginning Cherokee,'' 2nd Edition. University of Oklahoma Press, 1977.</ref>
[[File:Cherokeebill posing with captors.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|Cherokee Bill Goldsby posing with his captors during a stop by train to Nowata, 1895. Left to right are #5)Zeke Crittenden; #4)Dick Crittenden;Cherokee Bill; #2)Clint Scales, #1) Ike Rogers; #3) Deputy Marshall Bill Smith.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=weE1AQAAMAAJ&dq=Clint+scales+photograph+with+Cherokee+Bill&pg=PA398 Hell on the Border: He Hanged Eighty-eight Men. A History of the Great ...By S. W. Harman p.397]</ref>]]
In 1889, the [[Kansas and Arkansas Valley Railway]] (later part of the [[Missouri Pacific Railway]]) built a line through Nowata. A post office was established in the town on November 8, 1889. Nowata was incorporated April 17, 1899. By 1900, Nowata had 498 residents.<ref name = "EOHC-Nowata" />

Oil and gas were discovered nearby in 1904, stimulating the Nowata economy. The find established Nowata as "...a region (having)  a reputation for being the world's largest shallow oil field."  Some wells in this field have continued to produce into the twenty-first century.<ref name = "EOHC-Nowata" />

A Federal court was established in 1904, and met on the third floor of the new building owned by the First National Bank of Nowata. The building housing the court burned down in 1909, destroying all records and forcing the court to move temporarily to another building. When Oklahoma became a state on November 16, 1907, Nowata County was created and named for the city, which was designated as the county seat. By that time, the city population had climbed to 2,233. A permanent Nowata County Courthouse was completed in 1912, and remains in use at present. It is the only local property listed on the National Record of Historic Places.<ref name = "EOHC-Nowata" />

On September 29, 1916, two men, accused of killing a deputy sheriff, were taken from the Nowata jail by a mob and lynched in front of the courthouse.<ref>''Cincinnati Enquirer,'' September 30, 1916</ref>

Nowata's peak population was 4,435 in 1920. It became the southern terminus of the Union Electric Railway, which continued to serve the city until 1948. Newspapers included the ''Nowata Herald'' and the ''Nowata Advertiser''. The town had 850 telephones by 1930, when the census showed its first population decline, to nearly the 1910 level.