Editing Woodward, Oklahoma (section)

===Native American settlement===
[[Image:Woodward4July.jpg|thumb|left|Cabinet Saloon (located behind tree in center of photograph), Main Street, c. 1911]]
For thousands of years, succeeding cultures of [[indigenous peoples]] inhabited the areas along the [[North Canadian River]]. The Plains tribes adopted use of the horse from the Spanish settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries, which greatly increased their range of nomadic hunting. Before the [[American Civil War]], the historic Plains tribes of the [[Kiowa]], [[Comanche]], [[Apache]], [[Cheyenne]], and [[Arapaho]] occupied this area.<ref name="archisurvey">{{cite report |url=http://www.okhistory.org/shpo/architsurveys/RLSofPortionofWoodwardPt2.pdf |title=Architectural/Historical Reconnaissance Level Survey of Certain Portions of the City of Woodward |publisher=Oklahoma Historical Preservation Society |page=123 |date=1996 |access-date=June 9, 2010 |archive-date=September 11, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120911213503/http://www.okhistory.org/shpo/architsurveys/RLSofPortionofWoodwardPt2.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Boiling Springs, near present-day Woodward, was a favorite campsite of the [[Plains Indians]]. A battle between the Kiowa and Cheyenne tribes took place nearby in 1838.<ref name="archisurvey"/> The Kiowa and Comanche tribes also battled the United States Army in 1868 in this area, when the US redeployed troops after the Civil War against Native Americans in the West.<ref name="archisurveytwo">Architectural survey of Woodward, p. 124</ref>

In the late 19th century, these tribes fought numerous battles against the United States soldiers and settlers through a wide area around the springs. After the war, United States Army made various expeditions against the Plains tribes in the [[Cherokee Outlet]]. Lieutenant Colonels [[Alfred Sully]] and [[George Armstrong Custer]], and General [[Philip Sheridan]], stationed nearby at [[Fort Supply (Oklahoma)|Fort Supply]], led these expeditions. In the 1880s, the Comanche considered this area as part of their ''"[[Comancheria]]"'', the unofficial name of their territory, which stretched from [[Kansas]] to [[Mexico]].<ref name="archisurveytwo"/>