No Man's Land Historical Museum

A small museum covering the Panhandle's strange history

A few miles south of Guymon, on the campus of Oklahoma Panhandle State University in Goodwell, the No Man's Land Historical Museum covers the region's history from the Cretaceous era through the Dust Bowl and beyond. The collection is small but eccentric, a real Panhandle museum: dinosaur fossils from the Cimarron beds, a reconstructed sod house, antique farm implements, a roomful of objects from the Dust Bowl years, and a deep collection of materials on the outlaws who used the strip as a hideout.

For anyone interested in the geography of the American interior, the museum's framing of the panhandle as "No Man's Land" — a place outside the reach of any state, an accidental sliver of US territory — is the right lens. Admission is free. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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A story
Between 1850 and 1890 the Oklahoma Panhandle was, legally, no man's land — a 168-mile strip outside the bounds of any state or organised territory, claimed by the United States but never assigned. It became a refuge for outlaws and cattle rustlers fleeing the surrounding jurisdictions. Statutory order arrived only when Congress annexed the strip to the newly created Oklahoma Territory in 1890.