Founding
city in Oklahoma, United States and county seat of Tulsa County
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Tulsa ( TUL-sə) is the second-most-populous city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma and the 48th-most populous city in the United States. The population was about 419,000 as of 2026. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa metropolitan area, a region with 1.06 million residents. The city serves as the county seat of Tulsa County, the most densely populated county in Oklahoma, with urban development extending into Osage, Rogers, and Wagoner counties.
Tulsa was settled between 1828 and 1836 by the Lochapoka band of Creek Native Americans, and was formally incorporated in 1898. Most of Tulsa is still part of the territory of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Northwest Tulsa lies in the Osage Nation whereas North Tulsa is within the Cherokee Nation.
Historically, a robust energy sector fueled Tulsa's economy; however, today the city has diversified and leading sectors include finance, aviation, telecommunications, and technology. Two institutions of higher education within the city have sports teams at the NCAA Division I level: the University of Tulsa and Oral Roberts University. In addition, the University of Oklahoma has a secondary campus at the Tulsa Schusterman Center, and Oklahoma State University has a secondary campus located in downtown Tulsa. For most of the 20th century, the city held the nickname "Oil Capital of the World" and played a major role as one of the most important hubs for the American oil industry.
It is situated on the Arkansas River in the western foothills of the Ozark Mountains, south of the Osage Hills (which extend into Northwest Tulsa) in northeast Oklahoma, a region of the state known as "Green Country". Considered the cultural and arts center of Oklahoma, Tulsa houses two accredited art museums, full-time professional opera and ballet companies, and one of the nation's largest concentrations of art deco architecture.
The area where Tulsa now exists is considered Indian Territory, on the land of the Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Wahzhazhe Ma zha (Osage), Muscogee (Creek/Muskogee), and Caddo tribes, among others. It was initially named after a Muscogee settlement in the southeastern United States called Tvlahasse with the short form Tvlse in the Muscogee language, which became Tullahassee or Tallise in Spanish. Etvlwv ahassee means "old town" in the Muscogean language. In 1540, Hernando de Soto became the first European to visit and document the original Tulsa in the southeast. Tvlahasse was a member of the Creek Confederacy and had a strong relationship with the town of Locvpokv and members of the two towns largely settled together after Indian Removal and the Trail of Tears in modern-day Tulsa.
On March 28, 1836, Opothleyahola and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation established a small settlement called Lochapoka ("place of turtles" in Creek) under the Creek Council Oak Tree at the present-day intersection of Cheyenne Avenue and 18th Street. The area around Tulsa was also settled by members of the other so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" who had been relocated to Oklahoma from the Southern United States. Most of modern Tulsa is located in the Creek Nation, with parts located in the Cherokee and Osage Nations.
Although Oklahoma was not yet a state during the Civil War, Indian Territory saw its share of fighting. The Battle of Chusto-Talasah took place on Bird Creek, and several battles and skirmishes took place in nearby counties. After the War, the tribes signed Reconstruction treaties with the federal government that in some cases required substantial land concessions. In the years after the Civil War and around the turn of the century, the area along the Arkansas River that is now Tulsa was periodically home to or visited by a series of colorful outlaws, including the legendary Wild Bunch and the Dalton Gang.
On August 7, 1882, the town was almost centered at a location just north of the current Whittier Square, when a construction crew laying out the line of the St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad chose that spot for a sidetrack serving ranchers. However, an area merchant persuaded them to move the site further west into the Muscogee Nation, which had friendlier laws for white business owners. On January 18, 1898, Tulsa was officially incorporated and elected Edward E. Calkins as the city's first mayor.
Tulsa was still a micro town near the banks of the Arkansas River when P.L. Crossman and his crew successfully drilled oil on land near Red Fork on the late night of June 24, 1901. Much of the oil was discovered on land whose mineral rights were owned by members of the Osage Nation under a system of headrights. By 1905, the discovery of the grand Glenn Pool Oil Reserve (located approximately 15 miles or 24 kilometers south of downtown Tulsa and site of the present-day town of Glenpool) prompted a rush of entrepreneurs to the area's growing number of oil fields, such as Andrew Mellon, John D. Rockefeller, and Harry Ford Sinclair. Oil companies like Texaco and Rockefeller's Prairie Oil and Gas Company moved their headquarters to Tulsa starting in 1909. Tulsa's population swelled to over 140,000 between 1901 and 1930.
Known as the "Oil Capital of the World" for most of the 20th century, the city's success in the energy industry prompted construction booms in the popular Art Deco style of the time. Profits from the oil industry continued through the Great Depression, helping the city's economy fare better than most in the United States during the 1930s. During the Depression, oil prices in Tulsa were usually between $1.00 and $1.18 per barrel from 1934 to 1940.
In the early 20th century, Tulsa was home to "Black Wall Street", one of the most prosperous Black communities in the United States at the time. Located in the Greenwood neighborhood, it was the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre, said to be "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history", in which mobs of White Tulsans killed Black Tulsans, looted and robbed the Black community, and burned down homes and businesses. Sixteen hours of massacring on May 31 and June 1, 1921, ended only when National Guardsmen were brought in by the governor. An official report later claimed that 23 Black and 16 White citizens were killed, but other estimates suggest as many as 300 people died, most of them Black. Over 800 people were admitted to local hospitals with injuries, and an estimated 1,000 Black people were left homeless as 35 city blocks, composed of 1,256 residences, were destroyed by fire. Property damage was estimated at $1.8 million (equal to over $30 million in 2024 dollars). Efforts to obtain reparations for survivors of the violence have been unsuccessful, but the events were re-examined by the city and state in the early 21st century, acknowledging the terrible actions that had taken place.
Survivors' stories include witnessing military aircraft dropping explosives onto the massacre in order to defuse the situation as a last means result, explaining the complete devastation left behind. It was noted in the community at the time that that was the first and only time the United States government had attacked its own citizens.
In 1922, Tulsa city voters approved nearly $7 million in bonds to construct the Spavinaw Dam, in response to oil drilling causing pollution in the Arkansas River. Completed in 1924, the dam was then the third most expensive municipal works project in the U.S.
In 1925, Tulsa businessman Cyrus Avery began his campaign to create a road linking Chicago to Los Angeles by establishing the U.S. Highway 66 Association in Tulsa, earning the city the nickname the "Birthplace of Route 66". Avery also influenced the construction of U.S. routes 64 and 75 through Tulsa.
Known for popularizing western swing music, Bob Wills and his group, The Texas Playboys, began their long performing stint in Tulsa in the 1930s. Radio station KVOO began broadcasting Wills and the Playboys' concerts in 1934. In 1935, Cain's Ballroom became the base for the group. The venue continued to attract famous musicians through its history, and is still in operation today.
During World War II, the economy in Tulsa expanded beyond oil to aircraft. In 1941, Tulsa voters overwhelmingly approved, by nearly 80 percentage points, a $750,000 bond to finance a 1,000-acre Douglas Aircraft Company plant near the Tulsa Municipal Airport. The plant opened in 1942. Skelly Oil president J. Paul Getty also began living in a concrete bunker in 1942 to supervise his Spartan Aircraft Company. Having done millions in business during World War II, the Douglas and Spartan Aircraft plants remained active after the war thanks to continuing U.S. government contracts, which would reach the billions by the end of the Cold War. American Airlines took over a former Douglas facility in 1946 and moved its entire fleet to Tulsa by 1950. The 1950s also saw Texaco and other oil companies move their headquarters from Tulsa to Houston, which Danney Goble described as "Tulsa's rightful heir as the oil capital".
In an article in the June 1957 issue of Reader's Digest, Daniel Longwell named Tulsa "America's Most Beautiful City" for, as Goble described in 1997, "its landscaped airport" and "gaily decorated public buildings" among other architecture.
For the rest of the mid-20th century, the city had a master plan to construct parks, churches, museums, rose gardens, improved infrastructure, and increased national advertising. In 1962, Tulsa County voters approved expansions of the county's libraries and a 1.9-mill library levy. Thanks to companies providing supplies ranging from paper clips to heavy machinery to aircraft manufacturers, Tulsa had the most manufacturing jobs in Oklahoma by the early 1970s.
A national recession greatly affected the city's economy in 1982, as areas of Texas and Oklahoma heavily dependent on oil suffered the freefall in gas prices due to a glut, and a mass exodus of oil industries. Tulsa, heavily dependent on the oil industry, was one of the hardest-hit cities by the fall of oil prices. By 1992, the state's economy had fully recovered, but leaders worked to expand into sectors unrelated to oil and energy.
In 2003, the "Vision 2025" program was approved by voters, to enhance and revitalize Tulsa's infrastructure and tourism industry. The keystone project of the initiative, the BOK Center, was designed to be a home for the city's minor league hockey and arena football teams, as well as a venue for major concerts and conventions. The multi-purpose arena, designed by famed architect Cesar Pelli, broke ground in 2005 and was opened on August 30, 2008.
In July 2020 the Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that as it pertains to criminal law much of eastern Oklahoma, including Tulsa, remains as Native American lands. Specifically, prosecution of crimes by Native Americans on these lands falls into the jurisdiction of the tribal courts and federal judiciary under the Major Crimes Act, rather than Oklahoma's courts. The Supreme Court further clarified the scope of tribal jurisdiction in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, finding that regarding crimes committed by non-Native Americans on native lands, federal and state courts would hold joint jurisdiction.
Tulsa is located in the northeastern corner of Oklahoma between the edge of the Great Plains and the foot of the Ozarks in a generally forested region of rolling hills. The city touches the eastern extent of the Cross Timbers, an ecoregion of forest and prairie transitioning from the drier plains of the west to the wetter forests of the east. With a wetter climate than points westward, Tulsa serves as a gateway to "Green Country", a popular and official designation for northeast Oklahoma that stems from the region's green vegetation and relatively large number of hills and lakes compared to central and western areas of Oklahoma, which lie largely in the drier Great Plains region of the Central United States. Located near the western edge of the U.S. Interior Highlands, northeastern Oklahoma is the most topographically diverse part of the state, containing seven of Oklahoma's 11 eco-regions and more than half of its state parks. The region encompasses 30 lakes or reservoirs and borders the neighboring states of Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas.
The city developed on both sides of the prominent Arkansas River, which flows in a wide, sandy-bottomed channel. Its flow through Tulsa is controlled by reservoirs at Keystone Lake, and a low-water dam was built at Zink Lake in downtown Tulsa to maintain a full channel at all times. This dam deteriorated and eventually failed, and was repaired and reopened in 2014.
Heavily wooded and with abundant parks and water areas, the city has several prominent hills, such as "Shadow Mountain" and "Turkey Mountain", which create varied terrain, especially in its southern portions. While its central and northern sections are generally flat to gently undulating, the Osage Hills extension into the northwestern part of the city further varies the landscape. Holmes Peak, north of the city, is the tallest point in the Tulsa Metro area at 1,360 ft (415 m) According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 186.8 square miles (484 km2), of which 182.6 square miles (473 km2) is land and 4.2 square miles (11 km2) (2.24%) is water.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Tulsa, Oklahoma”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.