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MEDICINE PARK: Medicine Park was
founded in 1908 by a young lawyer from Lawton named Elmer
Thomas. It was the first planned resort town in Oklahoma and was
developed to provide accommodations, food, beverage and
entertainment for the throngs of people who visiting the newly
founded Wichita Mountains National Forest. Medicine Park
soon became the “playground” of the state’s rich, famous and
notorious. Folks would come to town for the weekend and leave
their "work-a-day" troubles and reputations behind them. Outlaws
and horse thieves mixed with noted politicians and businessmen,
families and socialites in this new cobblestone community.
Medicine Park's resort economy
thrived even through the Great Depression and the advent of World War
II. The resort was the scene of a wide variety of
social and economic struggles (including its incorporation as a
Town in 1969), but in the mid 1990's a pattern of declining
investment began to slowly turn around. The Riverside Cafe,
closed for many years, was purchased, renovated & re-opened thus
helping the town once again begin showing itself as a
destination. In 1999 Medicine Park Music Hall, Oklahoma's oldest
music venue (circa 1920), was opened after almost two years of
extensive restoration. Numerous legends of Country Music,
Western Swing, Classic Rock and even the Blues began playing to
packed houses. Soon, small shops began to open as creative
entrepreneurs began re-discovering the resort community. Other
economic successes soon followed, giving the Town its current
pattern of growth.
Today, visitors will find lots of re-newed activity, restoration
and construction of new homes in addition to numerous small
shops, galleries, restaurants, a tavern, a club for mixed
drinks, and even a new winery. (more
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