Editing Woodward, Oklahoma (section)

===County seat and cattle town===
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An Act of Congress in 1911 designated Woodward a court town for the [[United States District Court]] for the Western District of Oklahoma.

The [[Wichita Falls and Northwestern Railway]] constructed a rail line through Woodward County and Woodward in 1911/1912; the [[Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad]] later acquired this line.

People introduced successfully [[Hereford cattle]] in Woodward County. With this development, cattlemen, such as [[William Thomas Waggoner]], attempted to lease school lands in Woodward County for grazing. These attempts led Woodward County ranchers to form the Oklahoma Livestock Association. At the urging of United States Senator [[Thomas Pryor Gore]] and David P. Marum, the former law partner of Temple Lea Houston, in 1912 the United States government located an agricultural research station in Woodward. With the dairy cows replacing beef cattle and progress measured in the number of plow-broken acres, the United States Department of Agriculture established the Great Plains Field Station, immediately southwest of town, in 1913. Wagons of farmers with other crops gave way to wheat as the cash crop before 1914.

[[Image:WoodwardPostOfficeandCourtroom.jpg|thumb|Old Woodward Post Office and Federal Courthouse]]
People constructed [[Woodward Federal Courthouse and Post Office]] in Woodward in 1918, and it opened in 1921. Federal court held dockets annually each November in Woodward.

The ''[[Woodward News]]'' began as the local newspaper in 1926.

Some of the men who rode for the large cattle outfits three decades earlier organized the Elks Rodeo, which began in 1929 at an arena north of town. The ranching and cattle industries still dominated economy of Woodward.

During the [[Great Depression]], local [[Works Progress Administration]] projects included the damming of an artesian well, a failed oil-well venture, to form Crystal Beach Lake and its adjacent park. This facility served as a playground for trade area of Woodward and home for the Elks Rodeo.

Town leaders certainly prevented fencing of the market drives away from the stockyards in the early years. On 23 February 1933, the Woodward Livestock Auction, the first commercial-grade cattle auction in Oklahoma, opened, keeping the cattle-marketing tradition.

On 13 September 1934, [[Charles Lindbergh]] and [[Anne Morrow Lindbergh]] made an unexpected emergency landing {{convert|23|miles}} northeast of Woodward. They spent two days at a rural farm, waiting for a relief plane to arrive at Woodward. Charles Lindbergh refused to give any interviews but said that he and his wife, eager for privacy, no longer wanted the public spotlight.