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===Founding=== [[Image:"Boomers Camp. Arkansas City, Kan. Waiting For the Strip To Open Mar. 1st, 1893." - NARA - 516453.jpg|thumb|left|Boomer camp at Arkansas City, Kansas waiting for Land Run of 1893]]Blackwell came into existence during the [[Cherokee Outlet]] Opening on September 16, 1893, in the run known as the [[Cherokee Strip Land Run]]. The town is named for [[A. J. Blackwell]], who was the dominant force in its founding. Andrew Blackwell had settled in the area in 1882,<ref name="Herringshaw" /> having married the former Rosa Vaught who was of Cherokee descent, he was eligible to found the city. Blackwell served as Justice of the Peace and Mayor of Blackwell.<ref name="Herringshaw">"Blackwell, Andrew Jackson," ''Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography of the Nineteenth Century''. Chicago, IL, USA: American Publishers Association, p 117, 1902.</ref> Blackwell's first school opened in September 1893 in a small, frame building with fifty-two students in attendance. A gradual enrollment increase created a need for ten teachers by 1899.<ref name="founding">[http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/B/BL007.html Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091216220814/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/B/BL007.html|date=December 16, 2009}}</ref> A post office was established on December 1, 1893. Due to a struggle for regional prominence between Blackwell and nearby Parker, the post office was named Parker from April 2, 1894, to February 4, 1895. After that, the name reverted to Blackwell.<ref name="founding" /> Prior to the [[Civil Rights Movement]] Blackwell had a reputation as a [[sundown town]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/sundowntowns.php |title=Sundown Towns by James W. Loewen |access-date=2014-07-24 |archive-date=2016-03-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304125502/http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/sundowntowns.php |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>Loewen, James W. ''Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.'</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Race War Threatened|work=Marietta Daily Leader|location=Marietta, Ohio|date=February 12, 1898|page=1|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87075213/1898-02-12/ed-1/seq-1/|via=Chronicling America|quote=Blackwell, a town 30 miles north of here not located on railroad, is on the verge of a race war. The people of Blackwell have never allowed a Negro to live in the town. Some days ago Col. Blackwell, founder of the town, procured a colony of Negroes to settle in Blackwell and gave each family a residence lot. The Negro families have commenced arriving at Blackwell and the whites declare they shall not live there, and the Negroes say they will stay in the town in spite of the whites. Trouble is expected.}}</ref> having kept out African Americans through violent expulsion and the display of a sign warning them to leave town by sunset. Blackwell's expulsion of its African-American residents around 1893<ref name="segregation">[http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/S/SE006.html Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110805114730/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/S/SE006.html |date=2011-08-05 }}</ref> is described in the 1967 book ''From Slavery to Freedom'' by [[John Hope Franklin]].
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