Epoch
Cambrian bedrock (Furongian); Wichita Mountains uplifted during Pennsylvanian Ouachita Orogeny (~300 Mya), then buried and re-exhumed ; one of the most geologically complex mountain histories in the U.S.
Displacement & Tenure
Cession 510: Treaty with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache (Medicine Lodge Creek, 1867); Cession 485: Agreement with the Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache (Jerome Agreement, 1892, ratified 1900); Congress carved 61,500 acres directly out of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation and proclaimed the Wichita Forest Reserve on July 4, 1901; President Roosevelt redesignated the area a game preserve in 1905; the New York Zoological Park shipped fifteen bison by rail to the refuge on October 10, 1907, at the invitation of Quanah Parker's Comanche delegation; retitled Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in 1936.
Shadow History
The refuge occupies land ceded by the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache under the Jerome Agreement (negotiated 1892, ratified June 6, 1900), which extracted approximately 2.5 million acres of KCA surplus lands over sustained Kiowa opposition; President McKinley established the Wichita Forest Reserve on those ceded lands by Proclamation 459 on July 4, 1901 -- the same day he opened the KCA land lottery; the refuge was reorganized under the FWS in 1936. Three CCC camps and multiple WPA projects operated at the refuge through the 1930s; by March 1938, CCC labor had constructed 46 concrete dams, 14 rubble masonry dams, 50 miles of improved roads, 46 miles of big-game fencing, and a hydroelectric system; the WPA built the Holy City of the Wichitas between 1935 and 1936 at a cost of $147,000; Roosevelt's April 1905 wolf hunt in the adjacent Big Pasture, which included Quanah Parker as a participant, is documented as a direct political catalyst for the congressional appropriation that created the preserve; the Quanah Artillery Range (15,850 acres) has been operational along the refuge's southern boundary since 1957, with a 3,800-acre strip between the refuge and Fort Sill closed to the public.
