Editing Rocky, Oklahoma (section)

==History==
Two men, W. F. Shultz and John C. Riffee, arrived at this location in 1897 to open a trading establishment with the local natives.{{efn|This area was part of what was then known as [[Oklahoma Territory]].}} They erected a building constructed of rock they gathered at the Kiowa Reservation, about {{convert|8|miles|km}} southwest of their site. They opened for business in 1898 as the Rocky Mercantile Store. {{efn|The Kiowas referred to the store as the "Rocky Man Store.<ref name="EOHC-Rocky"/>}}  The community was named for the store. A post office was established inside the store on July 12, 1898, with John Riffee named as the first postmaster. According to the local newspaper, Rocky handled more than one-third of all mail delivered in Washita County in 1906.<ref name="EOHC-Rocky">[http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=RO013 Self-Hoyt, Heidi. "Rocky." ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''.] Accessed October 9, 2017.</ref>

The Orange Blossom School System was organized about {{convert|0.5|miles|km}} south of Rocky in 1902. The town built a new school in 1907. The Works Progress Administration built another school building in the late 1930s. However, the 1930 census marked the highest point of Rocky's growth, so no more schools were ever built. Instead, Rocky voters closed the district and merged it into the Sentinel district in 1967. The WPA-built school became a community center.<ref name="EOHC-Rocky"/>

The Blackwell, Enid and Southwestern Railroad (BES) built a line through Rocky in 1902. The area around the community already had established as a producer of wheat, hay, and cotton. These were mostly shipped to market by rail.  BES later was merged into the [[St. Louis and San Francisco Railway]], (commonly known as the Frisco). By 1906, Rocky's economic base had added three grain elevators, three cotton gins, and considerable hay and livestock.<ref name="EOHC-Rocky"/>