The Cherokee Strip Museum sits on the campus of Northwestern Oklahoma State University and tells the story of the 1893 Cherokee Outlet land run that opened this stretch of the plains to settlement. Displays cover pioneer farming life, schoolhouses, the early years of the town, and the Native peoples — chiefly the Cherokee — who had held the land before.
A separate natural history wing has fossils from the Permian seabeds that once covered northwestern Oklahoma. Admission is free; allow an hour or two. It is run by the Cherokee Strip Historical Society and remains one of the most thoroughly local museums in the state.