THE WICHITA NATIONAL FOREST AND GAME 



PRESERVE 



LOCATION 



The Wichita National Forest and Game Preserve is a tract of 

 61,480 acres, embracing the major portion of the Wichita Mountains 

 in southwestern Oklahoma, the entire area lying within Comanche 

 County. It is 117 miles southwest of Oklahoma City and 60 miles 

 north of Wichita Falls, Tex., on the Quanah branch of the St. Louis- 

 San Francisco Railway. The Ozark Trail, a transcontinental auto- 

 mobile highway leading from St. Louis to Amarillo, Tex., where it 

 intersects the Santa Fe Trail, passes 4 miles south of the forest 

 boundary at Cache, Okla. The Meridian highway, a north-and-south 

 through route, comes within 6 miles to the west. The city of Lawton, 

 Okla., is 16 miles southeast, and the Fort Sill Military Reservation 

 (50,000 acres) adjoins the national forest on the east. From four 

 directions— from Lawton, Cache, Hobart, and Snyder — excellent 

 motor roads lead into the forest, where they connect with a 35-mile 

 system of national-forest roads, making the major portion of the 

 forest readily accessible. Some parts of the forest, owing to the 

 roughness of the topography, can be reached only on foot. There 

 are two well-defined trails, one leading to the top of Mount Scott, 

 near Lake Lawtonka, and the other to Elk Mountain. From the 

 summit of each of these mountains there is a commanding view of the 

 forest and the surrounding country. 



HISTORY 



Southwestern Oklahoma is rich in historical interest. Between 

 1850 and 1860 Generals Sheridan, McClellan, and Scott campaigned 

 in the Wichita Mountains and the surrounding prairies against the 

 Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Indians. Geronimo, famous Apache 

 chief, was held a prisoner at Fort Sill for some 25 years, until his 

 death in 1911. Quanah Parker, last chief of the Comanches, made 

 his home immediately south of the present boundary of the Wichita 

 National Forest for 40 years prior to his death on February 22, 1911. 



The land now embraced within the Wichita National Forest and 

 Game Preserve was a part of the Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa 

 Reservation in the old Indian Territory. In 1901, when the reserva- 

 tion was thrown open to settlement, Congress set aside a tract of about 

 60,000 acres, and it was held as a forest reserve under the jurisdiction 

 of the Department of the Interior. 



The administration of the forest reserves of the United States was 

 transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Forest Service 

 of the Department of Agriculture in 1905. By a proclamation of 

 President Roosevelt, dated June 2, 1905, based upon a special act of 

 Congress, approved January 24, 1905, the Wichita was further desig- 



